Research corpus PrivacyBLC-STUDY-0195

Hierarchical Deterministic Wallets

A master secret derives a tree of child keys. A parent public key can derive child public keys on non-hardened paths, so a server can issue addresses without the private key.

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Design paper
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Record

Authors: Pieter Wuille
Date: 2012
Publisher: Pieter Wuille
Version: Source cited by the 2012 study. The study is the reading. This page does not add a second essay.
Document ID: BLC-STUDY-0195
DOI: None recorded
Last reviewed: 1 October 2026
Licence: BSD-2-Clause

No hash is published. This build does not store those PDF bytes, so a checksum would be invented. Where a legacy path exists, it points at the Internet Archive copy of the old library.

Direct answer

A master secret derives a tree of child keys. A parent public key can derive child public keys on non-hardened paths, so a server can issue addresses without the private key.

Where to read

Official source — BIP 32
Blockchain Lab study, the canonical readingOriginal commentary. Not a transcription of the paper.

The upstream file is mirrored at /primary/bip32.md under BSD-2-Clause. The canonical file remains the source URL. The desk study is separate.

Full text

Mirrored from the upstream file under BSD-2-Clause. Desk wording is not part of that licence and is not a training grant.

What changed

A reading of the public document. Not a copy of it, and not a claim about a later network that reused the name.

Relationships

Canonical readingBIP 32 study
Related paperBIP 39
Related paperTaproot

Cite this record

These citations point at the source document. They are not a licence to copy it.

Author–date

Wuille, P. (2012). Hierarchical Deterministic Wallets. Pieter Wuille. https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawiki

BibTeX

@techreport{bip322012,
  title = {Hierarchical Deterministic Wallets},
  author = {Pieter Wuille},
  year = {2012},
  institution = {Pieter Wuille},
  url = {https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawiki},
  note = {Rights status: Licensed for redistribution. Blockchain Lab record: https://blockchainlab.com/research/corpus/papers/bip32}
}

RIS

TY  - RPRT
TI  - Hierarchical Deterministic Wallets
AU  - Pieter Wuille
PY  - 2012
PB  - Pieter Wuille
UR  - https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawiki
N1  - Rights status: Licensed for redistribution
ER  -

CSL-JSON

[
  {
    "type": "report",
    "id": "BLC-STUDY-0195",
    "title": "Hierarchical Deterministic Wallets",
    "author": [
      {
        "literal": "Pieter Wuille"
      }
    ],
    "issued": {
      "date-parts": [
        [
          2012
        ]
      ]
    },
    "publisher": "Pieter Wuille",
    "URL": "https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawiki",
    "note": "Rights status: Licensed for redistribution. Not a licence to republish the paper."
  }
]

JSON BibTeX file RIS file CSL-JSON

Rights record

Source status: Official source
Use status: The upstream file is mirrored at /primary/bip32.md under BSD-2-Clause. The canonical file remains the source URL. The desk study is separate.
Rights: Licensed for redistribution
Training and retrieval: Not permitted from this site. There is no rights-cleared full text to retrieve or to train on.

Rights and licensing Corrections