Bitcoin Forum

I have some problems with moving my coins from Multibit HD to Electrum..
I have only 1 more transaction left that is unconfirmed in Multibit HD but i wanted to use Electrum. I try to import it with my private keys ( 12 words ) of Multibit HD but nothing happens ? I opened Electrum, go to File, New/Restore, Standard Wallet, I already have a seed. Options: Select BIP39 seed. Paste my Multibit HD seed. Select account 0 and finish. It just shows me i have 0 balance and if i open Multibit HD i can still see my balance. ???

As far as I know, you cannot import a Multibit HD seed as they are not compatible with Electrum's seed format. You would need to send the funds from Multibit HD to your Electrum wallet and then you could begin using Electrum.

You can import it if you specify bip39 like the OP has.



Do you see familiar addresses in the electrum version of your wallet? Bring the addresses tab into view with ctrl+a and tell us if you see familiar addresses that were present in your multibit wallet.

Note that when you restore a bip39 wallet in electrum it does no tests whatsoever to ensure that the seed (12 words) you've entered is an actual valid bip39 seed. So make sure you entered the words correctly. Perhaps do another restore.

You can import it but it won't work properly. MBHD uses the derivation path of m/0'/0 to generate addresses (m/0'/1 for change addresses). Electrum uses the BIP44 standard derivation paths of m/44'/0'/0'/0 and m/44'/0'/0'/1

The upshot being that while it will accept the seed you put in, it will generate different addresses due to the different derivation paths.

NOTE: At this point in time, the only wallets that I have found that use the same derivation path as MBHD are "Breadwallet" (iOS and Android) (https://breadwallet.com/) and "Simple Bitcoin Wallet" (Android only) (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.btcontract.wallet&hl=en).

My bad. You are absolutely right. I was going by what I read in this file linked here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1000544.0 so I thought multibit HD used bip44.

Electrum's derivation path for it's native seeds is given here (https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/a/36956/5273) but for bip39 seeds it is indeed bip44.

So OP you are going to have to send the bitcoins from multibit to an address in your electrum wallet using multibit HD.

Or you have to manually or otherwise extract the private keys from your MultiBit HD wallet/seed...

Automated (but technical) method requiring use of python scripts: https://github.com/HardCorePawn/multibit_recovery

Manual method:
- Create offline version of https://iancoleman.github.io/bip39/
- Put in your MultiBit HD seed
- Set Derivation Path -> BIP32
- Set Client = "MultiBit HD"
- Copy all the address/private keys (click show more until you are sure you have more than all the addresses you ever used)
- Set Client = "Custom" -> Set Derivation Path = m/0'/1
- Copy all the change addresses/private keys (click show more until you are sure you have more than all the addresses you ever used)



Once you have all your private keys:
- In Electrum -> New/Restore -> Standard Wallet -> Create a new seed
- Once wallet is created, "Wallet -> Private Keys -> Sweep"
- Paste in all the private keys you got from automated or manual method

You should now have all your coins in an Electrum HD Wallet.

I made these screenshots of the iancoleman web page using the settings detailed by HCP. It's quite technical to use, so they might help.