Restoring a Seed on Another Manufacturer's Wallet: What BIP39 Guarantees and What It Does Not

Anyone who holds crypto assets in self-custody usually buys a device from a company to do it. That company can make mistakes, lose customer data, discontinue a model or one day cease to exist. From that follows an uncomfortably concrete question: does your access to the funds depend on that company? The answer is not in the vendors' marketing. It is in three technical specifications that have been publicly available for more than ten years. They are called BIP39, BIP32 and BIP44. Anyone who understands what they set down can answer the vendor question without taking an advertising claim on trust. And anyone who knows the limits of those standards also understands why recovery on another manufacturer's hardware still goes wrong on a regular basis. This article explains both: what the standard guarantees you, and where it leaves you on your own. At the end there is a test you can run on a quiet evening, one that gives you a solid answer instead of an assumption. Hardware wallet vendor lock-in: what actually depends on the manufacturer A hardware wallet is a small computer with exactly one job. It generates a random value, keeps it shielded and signs transactions with it without ever ...