Print Page - [GUIDE] Importing Electrum Segwit Private Key Into Bitcoin Core (And Vice Versa)

Usually, when you import a segwit private key from Bitcoin Core to Electrum, Electrum generates a legacy address (starting with '1') instead of a Segwit address (starting with '3' or 'bc1') because Bitcoin Core uses the WIF for all address types (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/11403#issuecomment-353301840) while Electrum has a custom WIF (https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/3694#issuecomment-356785965) for different types of addresses so each WIF corresponds to 1 bitcoin address.
Also, because of this, you're also unable to import a segwit WIF from Electrum into Bitcoin Core because Core doesn't understand the custom WIF.

However, Electrum internally maintains backwards compatibility (https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/pull/3925) so you can convert an Electrum custom WIF to one Core understands.

How To Convert An Electrum segwit WIF to standard WIF

For P2SH-P2WPKH addresses:
Open the console in Electrum and type the following code . (Press enter after each line)

Code:

key = 'L4wAtJ8RYaxtRYZxUwZRH8qGYVv1LUP3RAh9ER9KK2HeTXW6v4Ru'
txin_type, secret, compressed = bitcoin.deserialize_privkey(key)
wif2 = bitcoin.serialize_privkey(secret, compressed, 'p2wpkh-p2sh')
print(wif2)

Replace "L4..." with the private key you got from Electrum and leave the quotation marks as is.
It should print a WIF that you can import into Bitcoin Core.

For P2WPKH addresses (Bech32)
Type the following code, replacing the private key there with yours.

Code:

key = 'LAst2SKVNx36PUY2q49cyLCcpze1YMvdJ66z3uKuiyaLKTVVsH3J'
txin_type, secret, compressed = bitcoin.deserialize_privkey(key)
wif2 = bitcoin.serialize_privkey(secret, compressed, 'p2pkh')
print(wif2)

It should print a private key you can import into Bitcoin Core to get your Bech32 address.

How To Import Segwit WIF from Bitcoin Core to Electrum
This one is simple to do.
NB: For this to work you need to be on Electrum version 3.1.1 and above

For P2SH-P2WPKH addresses (Addresses starting with "3")
Just add p2wpkh-p2sh: directly in front of your private key.
For example

Code:

p2wpkh-p2sh:5BitcoinPrivateKey

This should generate the corresponding p2wpkh-p2sh bitcoin address.

For P2WPKH addresses (Bech32, starting with 'bc1')
This time we'll add p2wpkh: in front of the private key.
For example

Code:

p2wpkh:5PrivateKey

This should generate the corresponding Bech32 address

Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Electrum => Topic started by: Xynerise on April 24, 2018, 08:00:01 AM