cryptoadvance / cryptoadvance/specter-desktop

Request: Add support for more wordlist languages

Open
#1,711 2 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
enhancement good first issue waiting_for_upstream
Dominant language
Python
Stars
847
Forks
259
Avg merge
6d 18h
Merged PRs (30d)
2

Description

It looks like English, Spanish and Italian are [currently supported](https://github.com/cryptoadvance/specter-desktop/blob/a26abe507766d39c48a9f1ede341f07ae76fea03/src/cryptoadvance/specter/util/mnemonic.py#L14). Would be great to add the other wordlists in [BIP39](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/bip-0039-wordlists.md).

Lack of language support can be problematic for non-English speakers. I often hear that backing up a wallet is so easy, you just need to write down 12 words. But it's a lot harder when you're Japanese and writing an english word is more like "drawing weird, unfamiliar shapes". A big accessibility issue that we can solve to make bitcoin security easier for many people around the world.

Since multi-language wordlists are not broadly supported, a first step could be to only support their import. If enough wallets do this, then adding support for the creation of mnemonics in other languages could be added. Phoenix and BlueWallet are currently adding the import support. More details on this [here](https://github.com/BitcoinDesign/Meta/issues/291).

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start with src/cryptoadvance/specter/util/mnemonic.py and compare its supported languages with the wordlists listed in BIP-0039. First clarify whether the scope is import-only or also mnemonic creation, then make support for the remaining specified wordlists complete and verify mnemonic handling for each language.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
localization, security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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