Bitcoin Forum

Hello, a few years ago (2021) a friend sent me a small amount of Bitcoin. I used Electrum to create my wallet and I have 11 words + 1 extra word (phrase), but now when I try to log into Electrum, I can't figure out how to enter the 11 words + the extra one. Can you help me?

I think I somehow sustitute the last word while generating and replaced it with another word I made up (not in any dictionary). In any case, I have access to a public address and I can see that the BTC is still there. Also the xpub.

I insist. I created the wallet with 11 + 1 words. It was in 2021. Could Electrum have changed since then?

Electrum has been generating 12 words seed phrase since many years ago.

Or did you used the BIP39 import instead and use it to input your own words (which is not secure) unlike the normal seed phrase.

Unless you have created your seed phrase using electrum console, you can't have a 11 word seed phrase.
To import your seed phrase into electrum, you must select "Standard wallet" and then "I already have a seed", but the problem is that your seed phrase is probably invalid.

You need to remember what exactly you did.
It's unlikely that you change one of the words to your made up word and still have a valid electrum seed phrase.


No.

Are you sure that you just made up the last one? Or its the default from the generated seed on electrum? Coz just like the mentioned above, electrum seed is 12 words by default, and plus one seed extension if you add one (check the checkbox), so it should be 13 total.

Thank you for trying to help. When I try to create the seed by checking BIP39, some addresses are created, but they are not mine. I can see the addresses I created in 2021, and my BTC is still there. How strange.

Yes, my word isn't in any dictionary. I went into Keepass, which is where I wrote them down, and saw my reference of 11 words + extra word.

That's the weird part—how do you manage to generate a wallet with 11 phrases and one passphrase?
That's not the standard seed phrase. Electrum won't be able to generate a wallet with only 11 phrases.

You might be using a different wallet or a phishing Electrum wallet.
Or possibly it was generated from an old blockchain.info wallet?

Have you ever tried to put all of them into Electrum? These 11+1 should be a 12-phrase with no passphrase.
If not valid, then it's possible it wasn't generated from Electrum.

I'm sure I used Electrum. In case it helps you find something... I have the extra word written down as “extend”. Does Electrum use that word?


extend: myownrandomword

When "BIP39" is checked, you can generate wallet with any combination of words or characters. So, you didn't achieve anything.
Did you choose the correct script type? Of course, I highly doubt the problem is with the script type.

As I said in my previous post, you need to remember what exactly you did.

address created are P2WPKH, so I checked segwit

Check the seed directly from your opened wallet : wallet>seed .
Tell us how many words showed up. Just the number.

Start over by going to file > new/restore and enter a suitable filename for your new wallet file. In the seed entry step don't use the bip39 option. Instead enter the eleven words in the seed entry field and tell us if electrum lets you proceed to the next step i.e. the next button is enabled. If it is don't go to the next step just yet. Instead click on options and check extend seed with custom words. Then go to the next step and you will be given the option to enter the seed extension which is your custom word. Continue through to create your wallet. Does it now show addresses familiar to you?

This won't help.
OP made that post in response to me asking "Did you choose the correct script type?"
He said he was able to generate a wallet (with different addresses) when checking BIP39 and I asked him whether he chose the correct script type or not.

Now the "seed" button should be unclickable. Electrum doesn't display the seed phrase, if you checked "BIP39" when creating the wallet.

Yep, "extend" is one of the words in the BIP39 wordlist and electrum can generate it. I think it's the 12th word and "myownrandomword" is the 13th word.

Ohh.. yeah that’s true.
He said he could see his balance as well.. is that even possible?

OP wouldn't create this topic if he could see the balance in his wallet. The issue is that he can't recover his wallet and he said he generated a different wallet when checking BIP39.
Most probably, OP checked the balance through block explorers.

You’re right again..
my brain went a bit foggy after reading this:

I have a long key that start with "zpub6", Can I do anything with that?

https://imgur.com/YeTOQ2j

It's a watchonly^[1] wallet and is useful for keeping track of transactions, but you can't spend from it.

If you are certain that the 11 words are correct, their order are correct, the phrase is correct, and you used electrum to generate them, then you can brute-force the missing word, where the possibilities will be 2048 attempts.

[1] https://bitcoinelectrum.com/creating-a-watch-only-wallet/

This is assuming OP knows which word is missing.
Chances are OP missed one word when writing down the seed phrase. If that's the case, he probably doesn't know which word is missing and the number of possibilities is 24,576.

The number of valid seed phrases is much lower if we take the version number into account.

I have been gathering more information about the date the wallet was created.

I have some notes on how to sign transactions offline and retransmit them online with Electrum 4.0.9 on that date (it coincides with the date I created the entry with these 11 words in my KeePass, and in the comments “extend: MyOwnWord”), so I confirm that I created the wallet offline on a PC using a Linux Live CD

There I obtained the zpub where I can see the coins and addresses

I have 11 words and 1 passphrase, so I am trying to “brute force” a 12th word with BTCRecover (assuming that one is missing and I did not replace the 12th with the passphrase using BIP39)


Btcrecover ask what type of wallet I used (electrum 2+): https://imgur.com/a/dZH1dFU
Then ask me for the zpub (ok, I have it)
and then my best guess of my seed (ok, I have 11), but I don't have the option to enter my passphrase.

I think that by getting that I could figure out the missing word, but I don't see an option to enter my passphrase.

Can you think of anything? :)

Take a look at this, https://github.com/3rdIteration/btcrecover/issues/582
I think the passphrase request prompt will appear if you insert the code before "--no-eta" in the seedrecover.py file

You haven't said if electrum lets you proceed to the next step when you enter the 11 words and do NOT check bip39?

It works!!!!

Oh, the missing word was HORROR, in the middle of seed... "What an horror to lost btc for that stupid thing" hehe
That program found the word quickly

In any case... I've learned a life lesson from this. How scared and stupid I am. Thank you all. :D

As far as I know, bruteforce solving speed depends on computing power. A single missing word might not be too demanding for even an older PC.
Finally, it's good to hear you escaped the horror by finding "horror".

That's great! Have you tested it and import the complete seed + word, and see the same address there? Its my first time to see someone announced the successful recovery of their missing seed using this tool.

It was just one word at previously unknown position so it would only take a second (or few) to bruteforce it even with the weakest hardware out there.
That's 1 out of 24,576 chance to be successful with optimized token file.
He used the simple "best guess" prompt so it was slightly slower but still very easy.

In comparison, most of the "unsolved BTCRecover posts" have 3 or more missing words that most of them must have forgotten their thread after a successful attempt.
Or it's just plain impossible with their hardware.

Yeah, these might be the very reasons, i can't imagine how long it will take even a 2 missing word on the seed knowing there are 24,576 4,194,304 combinations of available words to guess or im am i right number? Or its more than that?

There are 4,194,304 possibilities if two words are missing and you know the position of those two words in the seed phrase.
If two words are missing and you don't know the position of those two words in the seed phrase, there will be 553,648,128 possibilites.

2048 * 2048 * 12 * 11

You are lucky you got the missing word fast.

So we're right that there's no 11 seed phrase in Electrum. You are forcing us to believe recently that it was 11 phrases generated from Electrum with 1 passphrase.

How do you manage to get the exact word?
Would you mind sharing the tokens and procedures you use to find this single phrase exactly in the middle of the seed?

It would be helpful if someone had a similar case; your contribution would help others to solve a similar case.

In the future just in case you experience to lose one single word again there is much easier tool to use than BTCrecovery.
You can check this tool The FinderOuter, a bitcoin recovery tool (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5214021.0)

Even if he didn't specified it in his last reply,
The procedures that he did is in one of his reply, basically, he relied on BTCRecover's pop-up GUI and filled in the required information and "Best Guess" prompt.

Here:

Then the follow-up reply told him to specify the --passphrase arg to be able to enter it.