Bitcoin Forum

I just downloaded electrum wallet ,
1-can I check it first without sending any fund
2- also can I check the entropy of 12 word

[GUIDE] How to Safely Download and Verify Electrum [Guide] (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5240594.0)

But you already got the answers for this in your own thread which is How to verify electrum wallet in windows (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5453355.msg62269957#msg62269957)

Sure, you can. Creating a wallet doesn't require the user to send any funds.

If you'd like to test it out, you can run Electrum as a testnet and get coins from testnet faucets. These coins are worthless but you can experiment using them. To do so, you have to run command prompt and go to your directory bef, and run electrum.exe --testnet.
You cannot check the entropy of your seeds. Electrum's seeds should have 132bits of entropy by design, and unless you have a catastrophic failure of the randomness generated by your computer, you should be fine.

What do you mean by checking? Do you worry that you send some fund to your wallet and then you won't be able to spend the fund?
Create a new wallet on electrum. Select "I already have a seed" and import your seed phrase. After creating the wallet, go to "Addresses' tab and check if you see the same addresses.
(If you don't see "Addresses", click on "View" on top of the window and check "Addresses".)

Do you worry about security of your wallet?
If so, take note that any online device is always prone to hacking. If you have created your wallet on an online device, there is no way to make sure that your wallet is completely secure. People find out their wallet is compromised when it's late and their fund is stolen.
If you want your wallet to be completely secure, you should create your wallet on an air-gapped device.

I hope you downloaded it from the correct site? https://electrum.org

You do not need to send any coin before you will be able to generate a seed phrase, keys and addresses on Electrum.

If you want the testnet, this should help: [TUTORIAL] - Electrum Testnet Guide (under construction) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5393289.0)

But I can remember that after electrum shortcut was created on my laptop, I was able to use the testnet as it was created automatically. You will need some testnet coin (not real bitcoin) for the testing it.

If you are afraid as some people used to if they are newbies, just make sure you avoid malware. Go for wallet on an airgapped device (https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/coldstorage.html) for high amount, or you can get yourself a hardware wallet like Passport (bitcoin-only wallet) or Trezor.

Have fun with this topics: Good topics on security and privacy (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5239098.0)

I think this question comes from the weak entropy generated by Libbitcoin Explorer (bx). Don't worry, Electrum generates seeds that are secure and random enough. The code is open source and you can read it. But if you are skeptical, you can use make_seed to generate an entropy of 256.


https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/electrum/commands.py

But I don't think you need that, the seeds are entropy-safe, make sure you download the wallet from electrum.org and verify the signatures.

This command generates a 24 word legacy seed phrase.
As it's always recommended to use segwit wallets, it may worth mentioning that you can use the following commands to generate a 24 word segwit seed phrase.


Or



Edited.
Thanks Yamane_Keto for the correction.

I think you mean

If you are afraid of someone randomly generating or guess the same seed phrase as yours why not use "extended seed with custom word" when creating a new wallet?

It's an extra layer of security that can prevent hackers from guessing the seed phrase or even the main seed phrase being compromised without the custom word they won't be able to open the right wallet.

If Electrum was using Libbitcoin Explorer to generate its seed phrase (it isn't), then whether or not you generated a 12 word phrase via the GUI or a 24 word phrase via the console would be irrelevant. The nature of the vulnerability in Libbitcoin Explorer is such that it was always being seeded with a string of 32 bits with no additional entropy being added from elsewhere, and so any resulting seed phrase regardless of length would have entropy of 32 bits.

Also, as an aside, Electrum does not use BIP39 checksums, and so its seed phrases do not encode 128/256 bits of entropy, but rather 132/264 bits. If you use make_seed(264) instead, you will still get a 24 word seed phrase.

If you want to know if the wallet is seeding and receiving coins and what to know the workability of the wallet then you have to test it by receiving and send it back to another wallet but before then, you have to secure your entropy seed phrase in a safe place and also save your public key (BTC address) before taking any action in the wallet. The beauty of the wallet is when you use it to receive and send. The more you use it, the more you understand it. As I said, write down the entropy seed phrase in the process of opening the wallet address and keep it in a place where only you can see.

Entropy is entropy. Seed phrase is seed phrase. Seed phrase are generated from entropy and checksum, but it is good to refer to seed phrase just as seed phrase.

Public key is different from address. You do not necessarily have to save your public keys or addresses. What that is most important for backup is the seed phrase which can generate the private keys, public keys and addresses.