This guide walks through deriving Bitcoin wallets from a memorized label (for example hotwallet), a master passphrase and a YubiKey using the command-line interface — the same wallet every time, so there is no mnemonic to store, sync or lose. Wallets are standard BIP39 mnemonics, so recovery is Superbacked-independent: any wallet software can restore them.
Heads-up: deriving a Bitcoin wallet exposes its private keys to the computer running the command (unlike a signing device, which never releases its seed) and a forgotten label, forgotten passphrase or lost YubiKey secret is unrecoverable. For amounts you are not willing to lose, use a signing device such as a Trezor.
Heads-up: a YubiKey provisioned with a challenge-response secret is required — see how to provision YubiKey using command-line interface, which also covers backing up the secret.
Heads-up: for high-stakes secrets, use Superbacked OS — a hardened operating system that runs offline and persists nothing to disk.
The superbacked command is available in terminal on Ubuntu Desktop and Superbacked OS, and after the optional terminal step of the macOS and Tails guides.
Heads-up: the master passphrase is never verified, so a mistyped passphrase silently derives a different wallet. Use
--confirm-passphrasewhen deriving a wallet for the first time — the master passphrase is then prompted twice — and derive the wallet again to confirm the same extended public key before sending bitcoin to it.
Heads-up: on macOS, opening the YubiKey may require granting the terminal Input Monitoring permission (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Input Monitoring).
By default, the command prints the wallet’s extended public key (zpub…) — enough to set up a watch-only wallet — without revealing the mnemonic (the command refuses weak master passphrases, like everywhere else in Superbacked).
Every derivation states the scheme version, the derivation path and the word count (and Paranoid mode, when enabled) — derivation is stateless, so a different word count (--words 12) or mode derives a different wallet and these are part of what must be remembered to re-derive the same one (the derivation path is fixed, stated for cross-verification in wallet software).
Use the root --paranoid flag to harden key derivation (10× standard cost, requiring at least 1 GiB of memory) — a wallet derived with it can only be re-derived with it.
Use --addresses to also print the first receive addresses — importing the same wallet elsewhere must show the same ones.
Heads-up: on Linux, copying to the clipboard under Wayland requires wl-clipboard (
sudo apt install wl-clipboard) — preinstalled on Superbacked OS. On GNOME, a dock icon may blink when the mnemonic is copied or cleared — cosmetic and expected.
Use --reveal mnemonic to copy the BIP39 mnemonic to the clipboard (clearing after 10 seconds, keeping it out of terminal scrollback) — importable into any BIP39 wallet (for example Electrum). Confirm the wallet software reports the same extended public key and addresses the command printed.
Use --reveal zprv to copy the extended private key instead — pasting it into Electrum imports the entire account without exposing the mnemonic.
Use --print with --reveal to print the secret to stdout instead of copying it to the clipboard.
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