Re:Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (2008) [pdf]
by DennisP on Saturday December 09, 2017 @08:44AM
(#15885750)
That's a talk about brainwallets, which is something else. Brainwallets are generally chosen by humans; you can't rigorously prove how much entropy they have, and in practice it's usually much less than people realize.
With a proper 12-word phrase, each is randomly chosen from a list of 2048 words for 11 bits of entropy per word. That's 132 bits of entropy, which is not crackable. (With a 24-word phrase you subtract 8 bits for a checksum; I'm not sure about the 12-word format, but 124 bits of entropy isn't crackable either.)
With a proper 12-word phrase, each is randomly chosen from a list of 2048 words for 11 bits of entropy per word. That's 132 bits of entropy, which is not crackable. (With a 24-word phrase you subtract 8 bits for a checksum; I'm not sure about the 12-word format, but 124 bits of entropy isn't crackable either.)