Quote from: Artichaud on April 12, 2019, 01:34:10 AM

ok but my question is: does every ledger have the same 'set' or words? but just in a different order?

Lets say my words are:

1) Carrots
2) Apple
3) Banana
etc...

If I buy a new Ledger and I try to restore, will I have the same set of words to choose from to 'rebuild' my 24 recovery phrase?

Quote from: Artichaud on April 12, 2019, 01:41:53 AM

yeah i did that already, but if i lose my Ledger, and buy a new one. How can I enter the same words on the new device? will they propose me the same list of words to choose from? that's the part i dont undertsand.

Yes... Ledger utilises the BIP39 wordlist... specifically, the English one.

It is a published list of 2048 English words... when the device is first initialised, it generates a very large random number known as the "seed", from which all your private keys are generated... This very large number is VERY important, and needs to be able to be backed up and restored, to prevent you from losing your funds should your device get lost/damaged/stolen etc.

Rather than have users attempt to write down this very large number as a backup (which would be incredibly easy to get wrong, one missed/incorrect numeral would invalidate it!), a system was devised to represent the very large number by a sequence of words, which are generally a lot easier for humans to write down, store and re-enter without mistakes than a very very VERY long sequence of numbers. So, the seed is broken down into smaller "chunks" (24 chunks in the case of the Ledger)... and each chunk is then represented by a word from the list.

As each "chunk" is actually 11 bits long, and 11 bits can be used to represent 2048 numbers in the range from 0-2047... hence the reason why the list has 2048 words.

When you restore your device... and enter your 24 words... each word is converted back into the 11 bit number "chunk"... all the chunks are then concatenated back together... and the device once again has your very large number (aka seed)!

That is a very over simplified explanation of BIP39 seed mnemonics... you can read more here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039.mediawiki