đź“Ś Introduction
At first glance, this sounds unlikely. If recovery phrases are randomly generated, how could two wallets ever end up with the same one?
The short answer is that it is technically possible but so unlikely that, for all practical purposes, it will never happen in the real world. Understanding why helps build confidence in how wallet security actually works.
🧠How Recovery Phrases Are Generated
When a wallet is created, it generates random data using a secure source of entropy. That randomness is then encoded into words using a fixed word list.
Because the randomness space is extremely large, the number of possible recovery phrases is astronomically high. Even with billions of wallets being created, the chance of two users independently getting the same phrase is effectively zero.
This is similar to how cryptographic hashes work. Collisions are theoretically possible, but not something you plan around in real systems.
⚖️ The Practical Reality
In practice, if two wallets ever share the same recovery phrase, one of three things happened
The phrase was copied
The phrase was imported
The phrase was exposed
It was not random chance.
If two wallets truly have the same phrase, they are actually the same wallet from the blockchain’s perspective and will always generate the same addresses.
âś… Final Takeaway
Recovery phrases are random enough that collisions are not a realistic concern. If two wallets share the same phrase, it is because the phrase was reused or compromised, not because the system failed.