Private Key Vs Seed Phrase: What’s The Difference?
Your wallet seed phrase and your private key are not the same, but both are vital for controlling your wallet. So what’s the difference?
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🕒 3:12 PM
📅 Jun 23, 2025
✍️ By ethangeorge
A private key gives you access to just one address (account), while a seed phrase gives you access to the whole wallet, which can hold multiple addresses and private keys.
If you lose your private key, you can recover it by downloading your wallet software and using your seed phrase (recovery phrase) to regain access to your wallet.
If you lose your seed phrase on the other hand, there’s no way to recover your private keys and therefore your wallet - meaning your crypto is lost forever.
What Is A Seed Phrase
Seed phrase, recovery phrase, wallet secret, secret phrase.
These are all names given to a mnemonic phrase - a random string of 12 to 24 memorable words which can be used to recover your crypto wallet and therefore your private keys.
What Is A Private Key
A private key gives you control over all of the funds linked to the corresponding wallet.
You might have heard people speak of approving or signing transactions - a private key is used to create the signatures that are required to spend the crypto associated with its corresponding wallet address. Ownership of a private key is used to prove to the blockchain that you have the right to control assets associated with it.
Fundamentally, private keys are just an alphanumeric string.