Can you generate a 33 single share backup or multi share backup?

General topics About Trezor Suite
1

With my Trezor Model T, I only have 4 options for generating a new wallet

  • Single Share Backup (20 words)

  • Multi Share Backup (20 words)

  • 12 Word Wallet Backup

  • 12 Word Wallet Backup

Is there not a way to have a Single share backup and Multi share backup with 33 words instead of 20?

When I go to the wallet recovery option. It does support 33 word phrase recoveries.

And why is there no option for a 33 word SLIP39 wallet generation? Wouldn’t 33 words be more secure than 20 words just like how 12 words is more secure than 24 words for BIP39?

2

@bolevskaja, thanks for the question. While generating a 33-word single-share or multi-share backup is not possible in Trezor Suite, it is possible through the Trezor command line tool (Trezorctl). You would need to install it separately on your computer. See our installation guides for details:

Once trezorctl is installed you can use a new or wiped Trezor to create a 33-word backup with the command trezorctl reset-device

This option lets you choose between a traditional single BIP-39 Recovery seed or Shamir Backup.

Example:

trezorctl reset-device -b shamir -t 128

This initiates the devices using Shamir backup with 20-word shares. Changing the -t option to 256 will create a wallet using 33-word shares.

More details about this and other Trezorctl commands are available in our article Using trezorctl commands.

1 Like
3

Is there Trezorctl available on Linux?

And why is this only available on the Trezorctl and not in Trezor Suite?

4

It can be installed using pip similar to how it is done on Mac.

Trezorctl is a tool for sending all possible commands to a Trezor device. Trezor Suite (and other Trezor-compatible third-party wallet apps) use these commands when interacting with your device. Given there’s already a good number of backup options you can create via Trezor Suite, the 33-word one, which is a more advanced option to use, is excluded at this time.

1 Like
5

Why is the 33 word option considered to be more advanced? Is it because 33 words is a lot of words?

To my understanding the 33 word backup more secure than the 20 word or 12 word backup since the 12 and 20 word backup are 128 bits while the 24 and 33 word backup are 256 bit.

6

Yes, it’s because of the number of words. At present, the security of Bitcoin and the majority of cryptocurrencies is targeted to the equivalent of 128 bits. There’s no additional security to be gained from using a longer backup.

1 Like
7

Why will there be no additional security to be gained when using a 24 bip39 or 33 slip39 over a 12 bip39 or 20 slip39?

Just like regular passwords, the longer the better?

8

You can use a longer backup if it makes you more comfortable. However, as has already been stated, there is no difference in the underlying security, which is 128 bits on the majority of crypto networks.