Getting a Prime delivered next week for a family member who has a Core device with a 12 word seed setup but does not have a passphrase associated with it. She wants to create a new seed altogether then set up a passphrase for it and send funds to it. She wants Prime because of the additional features like 2FA etc. over Core. She’s unsure if she should create a 12 word seed and passphrase on Core then restore it on Prime, or just have Prime create it in the first place.
So the question then is, when both devices are used to create a seed phrase, is there any differences between the two devices? Since Prime is a new model/device comparted to Core, does it use a different updated method over Core? If Prime does, how is it different and is it more secure/ any benefits? Thanks
Both Passport Core and Passport Prime generate standard 12-word BIP39 seeds using multiple independent hardware sources of randomness, including our avalanche-noise source. Their internal architectures are very similar in this regard, and both provide 128 bits of seed entropy.
If her existing Core seed is already securely backed up, for example stamped into steel, she can restore that seed onto Passport Prime and then add a passphrase. She would not need to create and stamp a new set of seed words, but she must back up the passphrase separately.
If she specifically wants an entirely new seed, I would generate it directly on Passport Prime, but that does mean creating and verifying a new seed backup.
Every passphrase creates a different valid wallet, so test the setup and recovery with a small amount before moving the full balance.
