Quote from: btc-freedom-money on June 23, 2025, 08:38:07 PM

I think what makes it more difficult to understand and learn about this like what an account and wallet is because every project has their own definition of what it is. In some cases the wallet is the app. And in other cases wallet is something inside the app, not the app itself. The problem is all projects try to explain how it works in abstract ways that simplify too much. Ideally there should be explanations for all experience levels, like beginner, intermediate, expert. When they explain in beginner terminology it makes it harder for intermediate users to understand because the intermediate doesn't know what a wallet is but knows what a master private key is and child key and how a HD wallet works so if those kind of universal terminology was used it would be easier to switch between wallet software. But now I know what an account is in Sparrow.

You are putting the cart before the horse ... Before leaving for technical terms, you should try to know more common to beginners such as: Wallets, Exchanges, Transactions, Addresses, etc. Therefore, go to this guide to improve your knowledge: https://learnmeabitcoin.com/beginners/ , below is a brief explanation:

Many people confuse accounts with wallets, but technically, each term represents a function within a HD wallet structure:

Account = an account derived from the extended private key (also known as a wallet to facilitate the understanding of beginners).

HD (Hierarchical Deterministic) = When an "infinite" addresses derive, that is, even if you use 994 receiving addresses, your backup can restore funds from address 994 and all the others you use after this, so you don't have to make backup the same seed more than once, because they are all covered by the master seed).

Wallet Application = application responsible for storing the key pair derived from your master seed, which derives the master key, typically, in a reputable wallet app, you can protect it with a password or PIN (numeric password).

STRUCTURE:
M / PURPOSE ' / COIN TYPE' / ACCOUNT ' / RECEIVING OR CHANGE / INDEX (IDX)

In practice, the account derivation structure is like this (without the spaces from the example above):

Code:

m/84'/0'/0'/0/i

m/84'/0'/0'/0/i - "i" represents the index that always starts with 0 that represents its initial receiving address (in computer science, we always start from 0, not 1).

You are here: "Account".
Normally, a wallet always derives the private keys from a standard address in the derivation paths (if you don't know this or other technical terms, go to this link and look) on account 0, i.e., m/84 '/0'/0 '/0/i, if you ask the wallet (app) to add a new account, technically you are accessing a new "account" (account 1) derived from your extended private key Derivation Path: M/84'/0'/1'/0/i, if you request a new account, then the next account is accessed in m/84'/0 '/2'/0/i and so on.

*Derivation Path in the applied example represents a native segwit account that is the most common (considered the standard): m/84 '/0'/0 '/0/i or BIP84.

Explore the iancoleman tool. To understand all the operation of an HD wallet structure in practice (do not enter your real online Seed or you will risk being stolen).