Mnemonics

A BIP-39 mnemonic phrase is a list of words that is a representation of a seed, which can be used to derive the keys of a BIP-32 Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) Wallet.

We can combine a mnemonic phrase (or seed) with an Ethereum-specific derivation path (e.g. m/44'/60'/0/0/0) to derive a private key and its associated Ethereum address.

Examples

Generating a Random Mnemonic

We can generate a random mnemonic phrase using Mnemonic.random.

import { Mnemonic } from 'ox'
 
const mnemonic = Mnemonic.random(Mnemonic.english)

Ox supports the following languages:

Language	Export
English	`Mnemonic.english`
Czech	`Mnemonic.czech`
French	`Mnemonic.french`
Italian	`Mnemonic.italian`
Japanese	`Mnemonic.japanese`
Korean	`Mnemonic.korean`
Portuguese	`Mnemonic.portuguese`
Simplified Chinese	`Mnemonic.simplifiedChinese`
Spanish	`Mnemonic.spanish`
Traditional Chinese	`Mnemonic.traditionalChinese`

Deriving a Private Key

Here is an example of deriving a private key from a mnemonic phrase using Mnemonic.toPrivateKey. This will use the default path of m/44'/60'/0/0/0.

import { Mnemonic } from 'ox'
 
const mnemonic = Mnemonic.random(Mnemonic.english)
const privateKey = Mnemonic.toPrivateKey(mnemonic)

We can also specify a custom path using the Mnemonic.path function.

import { Mnemonic } from 'ox'
 
const mnemonic = Mnemonic.random(Mnemonic.english)
 
const path = Mnemonic.path({ account: 1, index: 2 }) // `m/44'/60'/1/0/2`
const privateKey = Mnemonic.toPrivateKey(mnemonic, { path })
 
// or, we can pass the path as a string
const privateKey_2 = Mnemonic.toPrivateKey(mnemonic, { path: 'm/44/60/1/0/2' })

Deriving Public Keys & Addresses

Mnemonic private keys are derived from the secp256k1 curve. This means we can derive a public key using Secp256k1.getPublicKey, and an Ethereum address from a public key using Address.fromPublicKey.

import { Address, Mnemonic, Secp256k1 } from 'ox'
 
const mnemonic = Mnemonic.random(Mnemonic.english)
const privateKey = Mnemonic.toPrivateKey(mnemonic)
 
const publicKey = Secp256k1.getPublicKey({ privateKey })
const address = Address.fromPublicKey(publicKey)