Most modern wallets are hierarchical deterministic (HD) wallets, defined by BIP-32/39/44. From a single seed, the wallet derives an effectively infinite tree of keypairs using one-way functions — so you back up once and recover everything.

The path m/44'/0'/0'/0/0 decodes as: purpose (44 = BIP-44), coin type (0 = Bitcoin, 60 = Ethereum), account, change (0 = receive, 1 = change), and address index. Different chains use different coin types, so the same seed yields different addresses per network.

Non-hardened child keys (no apostrophe) can be derived from an extended public key (xpub) — useful for watch-only wallets but a privacy risk if leaked.
Hardened keys (apostrophe) break the xpub chain, protecting against a leaked parent key compromising siblings.
An xpub reveals every past and future receiving address — never share it publicly.

Path segment	Meaning	Example
m/44'	Purpose	BIP-44 standard
/60'	Coin type	Ethereum
/0'	Account	First account
/0/5	Change / index	6th receive address