---
id: mnemonic
version: "0.21"
license: MIT
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: dormant
---

# mnemonic — Implementation of Bitcoin BIP-0039

License: permissive · Maintenance: dormant · Downloads: 834.8K/mo

## What it is and what it does

mnemonic is a reference implementation of the Bitcoin standard for encoding entropy into human-readable word sequences. It generates mnemonic phrases (word lists) from random entropy and converts them into cryptographic seeds suitable for deterministic wallet key generation. The package supports multiple languages including English, Chinese Simplified and Traditional, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Turkish, Czech, and Portuguese, and allows custom word lists.

The library has no runtime dependencies and is designed as a focused, single-purpose tool: take entropy or a word list, validate it, and produce a seed. It's commonly used in cryptocurrency wallet implementations, hardware wallet firmware, and key management tools. The implementation is stable but dormant, with the last release on 2024-01-05.

Use it for:

- Generate a new mnemonic seed phrase for a cryptocurrency wallet during account creation.
- Convert an existing mnemonic word list into a binary seed for wallet key derivation.
- Recover wallet keys from a known mnemonic phrase by regenerating its seed with an optional passphrase.
- Validate a user-provided mnemonic against the word list and recover its original entropy.
- Support multilingual wallet interfaces by generating or validating mnemonics in supported languages.

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Generates mnemonic word sequences and converts them to cryptographic seeds following the Bitcoin standard for deterministic wallet creation.

Yes, if you need mnemonic generation or validation in a Python project. The package is stable, dependency-free, and implements a well-defined standard. However, dormant maintenance (no updates in 952 days) means no active support for bugs or security issues—acceptable for a narrow, mature specification but worth noting if you require ongoing maintenance.

## Install

pip install mnemonic
uv add mnemonic
poetry add mnemonic

## Installing mnemonic

Before you install: Low install friction with no runtime dependencies. Maintenance is dormant—last release was 952 days ago—so expect no active bug fixes or feature updates, though the package remains stable for its narrow, well-defined purpose.

License in practice: MIT license permits free use, modification, and distribution with minimal restrictions, making it suitable for both open-source and commercial projects.

Quickstart:

pip install mnemonic

from mnemonic import Mnemonic

mnemo = Mnemonic("english")
words = mnemo.generate(strength=256)
seed = mnemo.to_seed(words, passphrase="")

Requires Python 3.8.1 or later; support for Python below 3.8 was dropped in version 0.21.

Verify before relying:

- Whether the package is actively maintained or if dormancy signals end-of-life for this implementation
- Security audit status or known limitations in the implementation relative to other libraries
- Whether custom word lists are validated against any standard or left to caller responsibility

## Package facts

- License: MIT (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: dormant
- Downloads: 834.8K/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

mnemonic seed phrase generation, generate mnemonic words, bitcoin wallet deterministic keys, mnemonic to seed conversion, cryptocurrency key derivation, mnemonic word list, cryptocurrency, wallet-generation

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/mnemonic) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/mnemonic/)