Generating seed phrase from dice - an easy, understandable method
stackernews-dice-worksheet
Latest reviewed change
source content difference between and
The thread gained a reply from quickscan explaining that the final BIP-39 word contains additional entropy bits plus checksum, with a suggested worksheet revision and a link to the canonical BIP-39 table.
"user": {
"name": "DarthCoin"
}
+ },
+ {
+ "createdAt": "2026-08-08T12:49:56.682Z",
+ "text": "There is a real logic gap in Step 4. The final word is **not only a checksum calculated from the earlier words**.\n\nFor a 12-word BIP-39 phrase, words 1–11 provide 121 entropy bits. Word 12 contains **7 more entropy bits + 4 checksum bits**, so the first 11 words admit 128 different valid final words. For 24 words, word 24 contains **3 entropy bits + 8 checksum bits**, leaving 8 valid final words after words 1–23.\n\nThat matters to the guide’s central claim that the entropy comes from dice alone. If the hardware wallet/tool chooses a valid last word randomly, part of the entropy comes from that tool’s RNG. If it always chooses one deterministically, the phrase has 121/253 dice-derived bits rather than the intended 128/256.\n\nI would change the worksheet so the user also generates the remaining 7 bits (12 words) or 3 bits (24 words) with an unbiased dice-to-bit step, then uses the offline tool only to append/verify the checksum. A tiny diagram — **121 dice bits | 7 dice bits | 4 checksum bits** — would make this click immediately.\n\nThe rejection layout for selecting the first 11/23 words looks clear and unbiased; this final-word step is the one substantive hole I see. I’d also add a final wipe/restore + matching receive-address check before meaningful funds.\n\nCanonical bit-length table: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki",
+ "user": {
First lines only. The complete diff is in the timeline below.
- Organisation
- Stacker News
- Evidence role
- Community discussion
- Published
- 2026-08-07
- Source changes
- 2
- Detected differences
- 2
- Unreviewed
- 0
- Copies held
- 3
BitcoinHandsOn2 publishing a printable dice-to-seed-phrase worksheet, explicitly motivated by lost trust in hardware-wallet entropy after the incident, and asking for feedback on its logic. A small community-built artefact of the dice response, alongside reddit-dice-entropy-pi-tool and the registered dice-guidance threads. The worksheet's correctness is the author's claim, not verified here. Captured through the site's public GraphQL API: the rendered pages crash the capture tab, and the API answers POST from this host. The query fixes the captured surface to the item's title, text and two levels of comments, each with author and absolute timestamp.
Every check is recorded, including checks that found no text change. A detected edit is therefore bounded between two checks. The publisher's exact save time is not observable from this record. Last checked .
This post is held twice: here, with this project's own note on why it matters, and again as part of the conversation captured at , which is polled for changes. Both copies are the same post; neither is a separate event.
Snapshot and diff bodies for this chain monitor are held in the local evidence archive but withheld from the public site because they can contain the addresses of people who published nothing themselves. Capture times and reviewed change summaries remain available below.
Held captures
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The thread gained a reply from quickscan explaining that the final BIP-39 word contains additional entropy bits plus checksum, with a suggested worksheet revision and a link to the canonical BIP-39 table.
Recovered from the Internet Archive rather than captured by this project. The row records that third-party provenance separately from captures made by this project.
What changed from the previous capture 7 lines
"user": { "name": "DarthCoin" } + }, + { + "createdAt": "2026-08-08T12:49:56.682Z", + "text": "There is a real logic gap in Step 4. The final word is **not only a checksum calculated from the earlier words**.\n\nFor a 12-word BIP-39 phrase, words 1–11 provide 121 entropy bits. Word 12 contains **7 more entropy bits + 4 checksum bits**, so the first 11 words admit 128 different valid final words. For 24 words, word 24 contains **3 entropy bits + 8 checksum bits**, leaving 8 valid final words after words 1–23.\n\nThat matters to the guide’s central claim that the entropy comes from dice alone. If the hardware wallet/tool chooses a valid last word randomly, part of the entropy comes from that tool’s RNG. If it always chooses one deterministically, the phrase has 121/253 dice-derived bits rather than the intended 128/256.\n\nI would change the worksheet so the user also generates the remaining 7 bits (12 words) or 3 bits (24 words) with an unbiased dice-to-bit step, then uses the offline tool only to append/verify the checksum. A tiny diagram — **121 dice bits | 7 dice bits | 4 checksum bits** — would make this click immediately.\n\nThe rejection layout for selecting the first 11/23 words looks clear and unbiased; this final-word step is the one substantive hole I see. I’d also add a final wipe/restore + matching receive-address check before meaningful funds.\n\nCanonical bit-length table: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki", + "user": { + "name": "quickscan" + } } ] },Extracted text as captured
{ "data": { "item": { "comments": { "comments": [ { "createdAt": "2026-08-07T09:27:36.960Z", "text": "Do you imagine Satoshi telling you to dice to generate a wallet?\nDon't be stupid.\nColdcard failed because it was an inside job, and probably a psyop. Not because of something the user didn't do well.", "user": { "name": "javier" } }, { "createdAt": "2026-08-07T11:03:40.179Z", "text": "Just went through some dice methods for my own article. I decided to use binary but thought BitBox's lookup-table approach was a neat alternative. \n\nYours entropy looks sound.\n\nWell put together. You can just do things.", "user": { "name": "Hypno" } }, { "createdAt": "2026-08-07T03:54:57.919Z", "text": "I would still be personally worried about bias from dice (but I may be biased hahaha).\nTo avoid that, I would not buy used dice or someone else's dice. There are people who put it into ovens to cheat on Dungeons and Dragons (https://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/3246r7/where_to_buy_loaded_dice_for_teaching/).\nI would still be paranoid about dice so I would buy those advertised for casinos. And even then I would still be worried so I would use the idea of Ava Chow I saw on Nitter to use the von Neumann skew-correction algorithm or a variant. And I would do my own research about the different algorithms used, although the one you shared seems perfectly fine.\n\nEverything written above could be overthinking. Also factually people who used dice with the coldcard were safe. So factually those who used dices were proven right to do so. However I would still keep diluting risk by using multisig because this is where I feel confident and have put thought and effort into.\n\nAt the end of the day, the diversity of ideas to secure bitcoins is interesting to see and I learned something new from the way Bitkey does it. Although I didn't like the aggressive marketing they did and I would not use it myself. For those who prefer dice, I think they should go for it.", "user": { "name": "john_doe" } }, { "createdAt": "2026-08-07T00:41:10.484Z", "text": "I should have said this in the first post, but the idea for doing the dice rolls like this came from a post on the SeedSigner telegram group (which, btw, is outstanding). \n\nSomebody uploaded a pdf called diceseed.pdf (originally from https://en.bitcoin.se/diceseed, but looks like the site has changed). I thought it was very promising, but majorly flawed. So I and came up with this idea, which I believe makes the whole process of entropy generation VERY understandable.\n\nYou all were talking about dice rolls - thoughts?\n\n@john_doe\r\n@kepford \r\n@Undisciplined\r\n@SimpleStacker\r\n@siggy47\r\n@optimism \r\n@CruncherDefi\n@billytheked\n@0xbitcoiner\n@ACYK", "user": { "name": "BitcoinHandsOn2" } }, { "createdAt": "2026-08-07T08:45:56.839Z", "text": "[](https://postimg.cc/N9Zr0Z3y)", "user": { "name": "DarthCoin" } },Excerpt only. The complete copy is held offline and backs quotations on this site. The original publication remains the canonical public source.
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Two new comments: javier calling the Coldcard failure an inside job rather than something the user did wrong, and Hypno praising the worksheet's entropy method while noting BitBox's lookup-table alternative. Existing comments were reordered by the API response.
Recovered from the Internet Archive rather than captured by this project. The row records that third-party provenance separately from captures made by this project.
What changed from the previous capture 21 lines
"comments": { "comments": [ { + "createdAt": "2026-08-07T09:27:36.960Z", + "text": "Do you imagine Satoshi telling you to dice to generate a wallet?\nDon't be stupid.\nColdcard failed because it was an inside job, and probably a psyop. Not because of something the user didn't do well.", + "user": { + "name": "javier" + } + }, + { + "createdAt": "2026-08-07T11:03:40.179Z", + "text": "Just went through some dice methods for my own article. I decided to use binary but thought BitBox's lookup-table approach was a neat alternative. \n\nYours entropy looks sound.\n\nWell put together. You can just do things.", + "user": { + "name": "Hypno" + } + }, + { "createdAt": "2026-08-07T03:54:57.919Z", "text": "I would still be personally worried about bias from dice (but I may be biased hahaha).\nTo avoid that, I would not buy used dice or someone else's dice. There are people who put it into ovens to cheat on Dungeons and Dragons (https://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/3246r7/where_to_buy_loaded_dice_for_teaching/).\nI would still be paranoid about dice so I would buy those advertised for casinos. And even then I would still be worried so I would use the idea of Ava Chow I saw on Nitter to use the von Neumann skew-correction algorithm or a variant. And I would do my own research about the different algorithms used, although the one you shared seems perfectly fine.\n\nEverything written above could be overthinking. Also factually people who used dice with the coldcard were safe. So factually those who used dices were proven right to do so. However I would still keep diluting risk by using multisig because this is where I feel confident and have put thought and effort into.\n\nAt the end of the day, the diversity of ideas to secure bitcoins is interesting to see and I learned something new from the way Bitkey does it. Although I didn't like the aggressive marketing they did and I would not use it myself. For those who prefer dice, I think they should go for it.", "user": { "name": "john_doe" - } - }, - { - "createdAt": "2026-08-07T09:27:36.960Z", - "text": "Do you imagine Satoshi telling you to dice to generate a wallet?\nDon't be stupid.\nColdcard failed because it was an inside job, and probably a psyop. Not because of something the user didn't do well.", - "user": { - "name": "javier" } }, {Extracted text as captured
{ "data": { "item": { "comments": { "comments": [ { "createdAt": "2026-08-07T09:27:36.960Z", "text": "Do you imagine Satoshi telling you to dice to generate a wallet?\nDon't be stupid.\nColdcard failed because it was an inside job, and probably a psyop. Not because of something the user didn't do well.", "user": { "name": "javier" } }, { "createdAt": "2026-08-07T11:03:40.179Z", "text": "Just went through some dice methods for my own article. I decided to use binary but thought BitBox's lookup-table approach was a neat alternative. \n\nYours entropy looks sound.\n\nWell put together. You can just do things.", "user": { "name": "Hypno" } }, { "createdAt": "2026-08-07T03:54:57.919Z", "text": "I would still be personally worried about bias from dice (but I may be biased hahaha).\nTo avoid that, I would not buy used dice or someone else's dice. There are people who put it into ovens to cheat on Dungeons and Dragons (https://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/3246r7/where_to_buy_loaded_dice_for_teaching/).\nI would still be paranoid about dice so I would buy those advertised for casinos. And even then I would still be worried so I would use the idea of Ava Chow I saw on Nitter to use the von Neumann skew-correction algorithm or a variant. And I would do my own research about the different algorithms used, although the one you shared seems perfectly fine.\n\nEverything written above could be overthinking. Also factually people who used dice with the coldcard were safe. So factually those who used dices were proven right to do so. However I would still keep diluting risk by using multisig because this is where I feel confident and have put thought and effort into.\n\nAt the end of the day, the diversity of ideas to secure bitcoins is interesting to see and I learned something new from the way Bitkey does it. Although I didn't like the aggressive marketing they did and I would not use it myself. For those who prefer dice, I think they should go for it.", "user": { "name": "john_doe" } }, { "createdAt": "2026-08-07T00:41:10.484Z", "text": "I should have said this in the first post, but the idea for doing the dice rolls like this came from a post on the SeedSigner telegram group (which, btw, is outstanding). \n\nSomebody uploaded a pdf called diceseed.pdf (originally from https://en.bitcoin.se/diceseed, but looks like the site has changed). I thought it was very promising, but majorly flawed. So I and came up with this idea, which I believe makes the whole process of entropy generation VERY understandable.\n\nYou all were talking about dice rolls - thoughts?\n\n@john_doe\r\n@kepford \r\n@Undisciplined\r\n@SimpleStacker\r\n@siggy47\r\n@optimism \r\n@CruncherDefi\n@billytheked\n@0xbitcoiner\n@ACYK", "user": { "name": "BitcoinHandsOn2" } }, { "createdAt": "2026-08-07T08:45:56.839Z", "text": "[](https://postimg.cc/N9Zr0Z3y)", "user": { "name": "DarthCoin" } }Excerpt only. The complete copy is held offline and backs quotations on this site. The original publication remains the canonical public source.
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Recovered from the Internet Archive rather than captured by this project. The row records that third-party provenance separately from captures made by this project.
What changed from the previous capture 0 lines
Extracted text as captured
{ "data": { "item": { "comments": { "comments": [ { "createdAt": "2026-08-07T03:54:57.919Z", "text": "I would still be personally worried about bias from dice (but I may be biased hahaha).\nTo avoid that, I would not buy used dice or someone else's dice. There are people who put it into ovens to cheat on Dungeons and Dragons (https://www.reddit.com/r/statistics/comments/3246r7/where_to_buy_loaded_dice_for_teaching/).\nI would still be paranoid about dice so I would buy those advertised for casinos. And even then I would still be worried so I would use the idea of Ava Chow I saw on Nitter to use the von Neumann skew-correction algorithm or a variant. And I would do my own research about the different algorithms used, although the one you shared seems perfectly fine.\n\nEverything written above could be overthinking. Also factually people who used dice with the coldcard were safe. So factually those who used dices were proven right to do so. However I would still keep diluting risk by using multisig because this is where I feel confident and have put thought and effort into.\n\nAt the end of the day, the diversity of ideas to secure bitcoins is interesting to see and I learned something new from the way Bitkey does it. Although I didn't like the aggressive marketing they did and I would not use it myself. For those who prefer dice, I think they should go for it.", "user": { "name": "john_doe" } }, { "createdAt": "2026-08-07T09:27:36.960Z", "text": "Do you imagine Satoshi telling you to dice to generate a wallet?\nDon't be stupid.\nColdcard failed because it was an inside job, and probably a psyop. Not because of something the user didn't do well.", "user": { "name": "javier" } }, { "createdAt": "2026-08-07T00:41:10.484Z", "text": "I should have said this in the first post, but the idea for doing the dice rolls like this came from a post on the SeedSigner telegram group (which, btw, is outstanding). \n\nSomebody uploaded a pdf called diceseed.pdf (originally from https://en.bitcoin.se/diceseed, but looks like the site has changed). I thought it was very promising, but majorly flawed. So I and came up with this idea, which I believe makes the whole process of entropy generation VERY understandable.\n\nYou all were talking about dice rolls - thoughts?\n\n@john_doe\r\n@kepford \r\n@Undisciplined\r\n@SimpleStacker\r\n@siggy47\r\n@optimism \r\n@CruncherDefi\n@billytheked\n@0xbitcoiner\n@ACYK", "user": { "name": "BitcoinHandsOn2" } }, { "createdAt": "2026-08-07T08:45:56.839Z", "text": "[](https://postimg.cc/N9Zr0Z3y)", "user": { "name": "DarthCoin" } } ] }, "createdAt": "2026-08-07T00:23:16.731Z", "text": "I created a straightforward dice-to-seed-phrase worksheet. I had a (non bitcoin savvy) friend check it out, and fixed a few UI issues that came up from that.\n\nI, along with a lot of others, will be upping my security in the near future with dice. No more trust in entropy from hardware wallets!\n\n[bitcoinhandson.com/dice](https://bitcoinhandson.com/bip39-dice-worksheet.pdf)\n\nI'd love to get some feedback on it, in terms of:\n\n* is it easy to follow?\n* any holes in the logic?\n\nHere's the first page. The instructions and worksheet are at the end.\n\n", "title": "Generating seed phrase from dice - an easy, understandable method", "user": { "name": "BitcoinHandsOn2"Excerpt only. The complete copy is held offline and backs quotations on this site. The original publication remains the canonical public source.
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