@Isle
Thanks. Good advice.
You might be able to set up a new wallet address, but the seed phrase will stay the same, and the scammer hopes you don’t notice that when you create a new one.
Rayne said:
You might be able to set up a new wallet address, but the seed phrase will stay the same, and the scammer hopes you don’t notice that when you create a new one.
Should have gone all the way and given them a fake 24 word seed phrase to mess with the hacker lol
I don’t see how you can use one seed phrase, a new one, for another wallet.
Nova said:
I don’t see how you can use one seed phrase, a new one, for another wallet.
Think about how a hardware wallet or other multi-chain wallet, with only one seed phrase, can create addresses for nearly every blockchain, and each can make multiple addresses. This master seed generates almost unlimited private keys. It’s an old feature from BIP32 that started with Bitcoin. It would be totally impractical if this wasn’t possible.
The scam assumes that instead of creating an entirely new address with a new master seed, you’ll just create a new address from within your current wallet. That means the new address will come from the same master seed as your other addresses. Avoiding it is easy; just use a fresh master seed and the scammers can’t get to your other addresses from a separate seed. But it plays on what many people will likely do as the easy choice.
So, once more: The scam fails if you actually create a new seed, as separate seeds are not linked and can’t generate one from another. The goal is to have you make a new address only, counting on you not seeing the difference.
@BookwormBard
Great explanation. I guess the scammer is relying on the laziness of the victim.
Nova said:
@BookwormBard
Great explanation. I guess the scammer is relying on the laziness of the victim.
It’s not just laziness but rather a lack of knowledge and asking the scammer for tips, then the scammer guides them to make a new wallet but not a new seed.
Nova said:
I don’t see how you can use one seed phrase, a new one, for another wallet.
One seed phrase can create many individual accounts. Look up BIP-32 hierarchical deterministic wallets for all the technical details.
@Fraser
So I understand that one seed phrase can give multiple addresses in the same wallet, but you can’t make multiple entirely separate wallets with just one seed.
Confusing for me.
Nova said:
I don’t see how you can use one seed phrase, a new one, for another wallet.
That could be true, but it seems unlikely.
Nova said:
I don’t see how you can use one seed phrase, a new one, for another wallet.
Let me have your seed phrase and I’ll explain 
Nova said:
I don’t see how you can use one seed phrase, a new one, for another wallet.
It’s not.
The original post is about creating many accounts in the same wallet, not in different wallets.
Seed Phrase (also known as recovery phrase) > Master Password > many private keys, one for each account within BIP-32 or BIP-39.
If someone hits you up on a forum about crypto, it’s a scam, plain and simple. No reason to talk to anyone on there about crypto.
The trick is to convince you to give them a seed phrase, believing it’s only for one ‘account 1’ – then you might create an ‘account 2’ for some DeFi activities later.
If you haven’t swapped the seed phrase that MetaMask (or whatever wallet) runs with for calculations, the scammer gains access to your ‘account 2’ funds.
If someone knows your seed phrase, they can build the keys for any accounts that seed was used for. Using a different seed phrase would remove that issue.
A seed phrase is essentially just a secret number plugged into a formula to create a wallet’s address and keys for it.
The formula looks like this
[Seed] x ETH + 1 = Ethereum 1 account
[Seed] x ETH + 2 = Ethereum 2 account
[Seed] x ARB + 3 = Arbitrum 3 account
and so on.
@Kase
I wonder if the scam would continue if I simply made a separate empty wallet and handed it over to the scammer?
Would he still try to carry on with the scam?
@Kase
Seems like a poor design for the app. The app should make it clear that wallets share the same seed.
I’ve got another scam for you, I’m an African prince and I need your help to get out of jail. I promise you’ll get half of Africa.
SpectralSprite said:
I’ve got another scam for you, I’m an African prince and I need your help to get out of jail. I promise you’ll get half of Africa.
Dear Prince, I’m your nephew. I will help you escape for a small fee of R120,000.
SpectralSprite said:
I’ve got another scam for you, I’m an African prince and I need your help to get out of jail. I promise you’ll get half of Africa.
SpectralSprite said:
I’ve got another scam for you, I’m an African prince and I need your help to get out of jail. I promise you’ll get half of Africa.
He’ll send back half a Bitcoin for your trouble.