Can words repeat in a mnemonic phrase? Yes they
can. So about about about about about about about about about about about about about about
about about about 23 times plus one more word that matches the checksum is a valid mnemonic
phrase. In fact, that's one of the test phrases that is used to make sure that your algorithm is
correct. I don't remember what the last word is. The last word in a 24 word mnemonic phrase or
part of the last word contains the checksum. So you could essentially freely pick the
first 23 but the phrase would only be valid if you picked the 24th one correctly so that
it matched the checksum, and that's to prevent transcription errors.
There's another really
interesting feature of mnemonic phrases, which is the dictionary of 2048 words has been chosen
in such a way that you only need the first four letters. In the English dictionary of
mnemonic phrases you only need the first four letters of the word to uniquely identify it;
meaning that if you have the first four letters only one word in the dictionary starts with those
four letters and you can't confuse it with another word.
Also in the dictionary, the words are also
quite distinct and fairly commonly used words, so that there's no opportunity for confusion about
what the word is when you're reading it, so it makes it a lot easier to transcribe. Because you
only need the first four letters, you can actually record a mnemonic phrase of 24 words with only
96 characters which is very useful when you're recording it for example on a steel backup device.
By simply recording those 96 characters you have the full 24 word mnemonic phrase, four characters
each etc etc. Thanks for watching. If you'd like to support me, please consider subscribing to
my channel and supporting me on patreon.com..
