Finally ready to get back to this again.


I must confess this bit I'm unclear on, and yes, you guys mentioned this before, but I never fully understood it, but as I wasn't there yet, I chose to seek clarification when it was time.

"Dusting" - does this mean sending/receiving a tiny amount?

And to clarify, @Loyce, are you suggesting I send you (via PM?) a receiving address, and you'll send me a tiny/insignificant amount of BCH? And then, when you say:


Do you mean the transaction from Electron Cash to my Ledger Nano S? Or somewhere else? To another wallet (Coinomi, as per that other guide linked to earlier in the thread?) that will enable me to split BCH and BSV?

I'm just reading more about this... There's the ElectrumSV wallet, and it looks like it has a coin-splitting feature built in. But I guess I was hoping it would be possible to basically repeat the process of importing the seed to claim the fork coins. So, just like I installed Electron Cash, imported the old BTC seed, which made my BCH balance appear, couldn't I now install Electrum SV, import that same seed, and the balance of BSV would appear? But I guess the splitting of BCH and BSV does not work this way.

As ever, very grateful for all the help and assistance.

Success!  

Electron Cash is now showing an identical balance in BCH as I had in BTC.

Thank you guys for all your help, I really appreciate it!  

When it comes to splitting the coins, I'll leave this for tomorrow, as I bet most of us are watching the historic events in Washington D.C. now.

Thanks again for all the help!

Thanks @Lucius and @LoyceV.

I'm sure the private keys were correct, as I used copy and paste, and was very careful throughout the entire process (and also, I found others had the same problem, not just in this forum, but also in the comments of the guide).

However, it seems the consensus is that it's unnecessary to bother doing it that way anyway, and that I can import the seed, just as I always thought. Just wonder why that guide recommends doing it with private keys, when that's much more fiddly... 

I'll give importing the seed a go, and report back.

Thanks for the help.

Hi guys, happy new year to everyone!

I haven't yet had a go at claiming my BCH and I want to try it now.

I'm following the inscructions from this guide (which is from 2017, so potentially out of date, but I wasn't able to find a newer guide). https://medium.com/@itsjameswhite/how-to-claim-bitcoin-cash-from-electrum-to-an-spv-wallet-111c65c5a131

I'm getting stuck at the step 4, panel 5. I'm supposed to copy and paste the private keys from the previously exported private keys file from Electrum. So I copy and paste some addresses, but the button to proceed (Next) remains grayed out, and I am unable to proceed.

However, even though I've never attempted this before, my understanding of the process was that I would create the wallet in Electron Cash by importing my seed (the 12 words) from the Electrum wallet, which contained my BTC before I sent it all to my Ledger Nano S.

So now I'm confused, and not sure how to proceed. Are the instructions in that guide wrong?

I did find another thread on this forum where someone was having the same issue as me, and was indeed advised (by @TryNinja) to create a new wallet in Electron Cash and import his seed instead of copying and pasting the private keys (here's that thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2555007.0), but I'd be really very grateful if someone here could confirm this (as that thread is also 3 years old), and/or clarify exactly what needs to be done.

To summarise, what I'm trying to do, is claim the balance of my BCH, and make it show in the Electron Cash wallet. The next step would then be to split that BCH balance, and claim BSV, but I'm not there yet.

Many thanks as always.

It took about 5 days, and the transaction has now confirmed. Thank you ALL for all your help here, it's been invaluable!

Now, I'll try and claim the BCH and maybe a few other forks too.

Thanks again, and merry Xmas (those that celebrate)!

I do understand all that. Still, because I'm aware how a lot of people lose access to their coins, be it due to their own mistakes, or by being hacked, I was extra paranoid, and then still managed to do something stupid myself , although, thankfully, not catastrophic. In the moment immediately after accidentally deleting my transaction, and in my heightened state, I really reacted viscerally, and needing some kind of reassurance I posted here.

I'm very thankful to you and others here who have contributed and helped me along the way.

Right now, I'm still waiting for the transaction to confirm...

Thanks again.

That's strange, my Electrum looks different. I'm on version 4.0.5. Downloaded from the official site, signatures checked and verified.

Thank you again.

EDIT: I think I know what's going on. I have "Advanced" checked under Transactions, under Preferences. I guess you don't, but if you don't, and you go to send, you then get the Advanced button in the transaction details window, which gives you the Advanced options, which I have ticked to always see.

Ok, I'll broadcast, and pray! 

Hi, firstly, THANK YOU.

I'm not sure what you mean by clicking "advance". I don't remember clicking anything like that. I did manually adjust the fee though.


I guess you're saying that I do what I wrote in the EDIT of that previous post. I can right-click that transaction in the History tab in Electrum, then click View Transaction, and the window with the transaction details and the Broadcast button appears, and I can just click it?

What confuses me here is that there seems to be two places Electrum shows history (previous) transactions. One under the Send tab, where by mistake I deleted it, but also under History, where I can (thankfully) still see it.

And also, the Delete and Details being adjacent in the right-click menu!!!! So easy to click the wrong one by mistake! 

OH SH111T!

I just did something STUPID, and I don't know if I lost all my BTC. My heart is beating so fast now, and my hands are shaking.

Whilst waiting for one of you here to reply to my last message, asking if everything was looking ok, I decided to CLOSE the last window, and not Broadcast yet, thinking I'll be able to do it once one of you has answered here.

It then said the transaction is unsaved, do I want to save it? I said yes. It then said it's saved offline or something, and that I'll have to broadcast it if I want the network to see it. Ok.

So then I'm back in the main Electrum window, in the Send tab, and I see my transaction listed in the window below, and it says Paid, and has a green tick next to it. This alarms me, as I didn't think I sent it yet, and I'm not sure if what I'm seeing means that I have. So I right-click it, meaning to click details, but click DELETE by mistake, and it's gone!!! No undo (ctrl+z).

I'm praying and hoping it's nothing, and I've just deleted an unbroadcast transaction, and that I haven't lost my BTC irretrievably.

Now, in the History tab in my Electrum, it's a little weird. In the very bottom of the window, it's still showing my full amount of BTC, but in the list of transactions, the most recent one is the one I fudged, says Local [rbf, my fee], then description, then full amount I was going to send, with a minus in front (negative amount), and 0 under balance.

So I'm not sure what's happened, and what I'm looking at. Like I said the bottom left of Electrum is still showing my full balance.

Do I just create the whole transaction again?? And then hit Pay, then Finalize, then Sign, then Broadcast? Or have I fu**ed it all up somehow???

Thank you.

EDIT: If I right-click the Local [rbf, my fee] entry in the History tab, and click View Transaction, I seem to be back at the window, with all the details of my transaction, and the Broadcast button. Is that it? I just hit Broadcast, and it should all be ok?

Hi all,

I've put this off for a few days, and I'm back at it now, and ready to send my BTC. It seems that the fees are much lower and that when I was first discussing this with you all, 1st December, for some reason, fees were really high that day.

Anyway, I'm about to send it all in Electrum, and I'm nervous!

Just wanted to check that everything I'm seeing on my screen, and doing, is correct (because it's changed since I last sent any BTC from electrum, many years/versions ago). There just seems to be MANY more steps before your coin is finally sent.

So I entered the receiving address (checked it about 8 times), and clicked the max amount. Then I click the Pay button, and a new window appears, where I can set the fee. I do that. RBF is checked. Then I click Finalize (thinking it's the last step). Another window! Sign. So I click Sign. Another window!!! With the Broadcast button now. I haven't clicked it yet. Is that it, I just click Broadcast and it's sent? Or will there be more windows and confirmations? And does everything sound kosher? 

Thanks!

Thank you @LoyceV and @Lucius!

Yes, there are many small inputs, which I now understand are the reason the fee is high.

@Lucius, no, I didn't miss anything, and I appreciate you trying to help, it's just that initially I didn't know I could manually enter whatever fee (satoshi/byte) I want, I thought I had to go with what Electrum was pre-populating, which was something like 105 sat/B. Yes, of course I understand I have to pay a fee, and I will happily pay more than 1 sat/B, but not 100x more, which results in a very large fee for me, because I really just need the transaction to confirm, but speed isn't of major importance.

I understand lower fees mean longer confirmation times. Do I have any reason to worry if my transaction doesn't confirm in a long time, I don't know days, or even weeks? Because during that time, I feel like my BTC is in "limbo", neither here nor there, and that's quite unnerving. Or is being patient the only requirement, and the transaction WILL DEFINITELY eventually confirm, and it's not possible for the BTC sent to "vanish", never reaching the receiving address? 

Thanks!

@LoyceV Thank you.

Some parts of the process, mainly how to send BTC from Electrum to Ledger I'm clear on. Others, a little less so, all this about claiming BCH and BSV (and potentially others you mention), but I'll figure it out. Like you said, I'll do the most important thing first, which is secure my BTC by transferring it from Electrum to my Ledger. Although, because of the super-high fees, I've put this off for now too, and am trying to figure out the best way forward. Are the fees likely to go down at any point? Is it even possible to know this?

Again, thank you all who have contributed here, you've really helped me out, really appreciate it! 

Well, I won't be doing anything tonight definitely!

I just went to try and transfer a very small amount (BTC from Electrum to Nano) as a test. I tried to transfer 0.0001 BTC. However, I noticed the fee was larger than this amount! It was about 0.0004.   Ok, so I incrementally increased the hypothetical amount I want to transfer (never actually completing the transfer) until I actually pressed the MAX button, to transfer everything. The fee is exorbitant (EDIT: this is even when sliding the slider all the way to the left)!   Obviously, I won't share my exact figures here, but I seem to remember reading not that long ago (in the last few months or so) about some or other whale moving some astronomical amounts of bitcoin and paying a tiny fee, I mean a fee that was magnitudes lower than the fee I'd be paying if I initiated the transfer now, on my nowhere-near-whale-status-qualifying amount.

So I'm confused... I'm just trying to read up on fees now...  

@TryNinja - thanks!

You guys rock! Thank you so much, all who have responded here, I think I've exhausted all my questions (for now)! 

I'll let you know how it goes.

Hey bob123, thanks again for taking the time to respond. Please see above in bold.

Thank you SO much for your help!

@Lucius - thank you

Yes, I'm taking my time, probably being overly cautious/paranoid, before I send my BTC to my Nano. I've scanned my PC with several different anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-keylogger, anti-rootkit applications, and made sure it's as clean as can be. I also use the On-Screen-Keyboard when working in Electrum and Ledger Live, as I've read that keylogger apps can't read this and can only read physical keyboard inputs. But I digress.

Thanks for the link on how to split BSV from BCH. I'm reluctant to introduce yet another wallet into the mix, as I haven't used Coinomi in the past.

I've sent off a support request to Ledger directly, asking for their input on splitting BCH from BTC, and BSV from BCH, and mentioned the article from 2017 which talks about how to do it in Ledger apps, which, btw, is here (but I think it's outdated, as it refers to Ledger applications which no longer exist, and have all been replaced by Ledger Live): https://coinsutra.com/bitcoin-cash-ledger-wallet/

I'll report back once I've made some progress, or when I hear back from Ledger Support.

I guess I'll figure it all out in the end, wish me luck! 

Thank you Marvelman.

I just found an article online, from 2017, about effectively splitting the BTC account (into BTC and BCH and that way claiming BCH) directly in Ledger, rather than having to use Electron Cash or anything external. However, the article is old, and references a Ledger Manager and BTC Wallet apps, which no longer exist and have been replaced by Ledger Live. Does anyone know if this is still possible? I searched the help articles on Ledger's website, but haven't found anything definitive. If possible, this sounds like the most straightforward way to go about claiming BCH.

And regarding BSV, which I'm just reading about... I understand there was a BCH hard fork about two weeks ago. Can I claim BSV too, or do I have to have claimed BCH FIRST, before 15th November? Or is it enough to have owned BTC prior to 15th November, regardless of whether I claimed BCH or not?

This is all a steep learning curve! 

Sorry for all the questions, and many thanks to everyone who has already contributed!

@bob123

Thank you, that clarifies things really well.

Just to clarify myself, I've already set up the device, and understand that it's even possible to initialize it by having it just plugged into a USB charger (so not connected to any computer of phone).

Now, one more thing, if you all don't mind.

Is there anything I could inadvertently do that would cause me to lose the ability to claim BCH (and maybe other forks)? There's isn't anything like a claiming window or deadline, is there? I'm mainly interested in claiming BCH.

I'm keen to move my BTC to my Nano, and that's my first priority, but I don't want to rush, in case the exact sequence of doing things in order to claim fork coins is important.

And finally, just to make 100% sure.

The steps, in my particular situation, to move my BTC from my current Electrum wallet, to my Ledger Nano S.

• Fire up my existing Electrum installation on my PC.
• Plug in my Ledger Nano S
• Create a new standard wallet and choose Hardware Device (will this automatically create a BTC "account" on my Nano, or do I have to create the account in Ledger Live first? I've already installed the BTC app on the device, but have not yet created an account.)
• Copy the receiving address of the new wallet
• Send BTC from old address to new address (paste)

Is that really all there is to it?

Many thanks!

Hi,

Thank you all very much for replying and all the tips and advice.

There's a reason I posted this in the Beginners section.  Although I think I understand adequately well what's involved and the precautions I have to take, I'm afraid I didn't fully understand everything everyone said, for example this:


or this:


I'm trying to simplify this for myself as much as possible, but still stay safe obviously.

I learned (after posting my initial post) that Ledger officially supports Electrum too, as an alternative to Ledger Live (at least when it comes to BTC). So what I'm wondering is, can I create a new wallet in the same Electrum installation that currently hold my BTC, but set it up to use the Ledger Nano S? And then simply send from original wallet to the newly created Ledger wallet? Or is this unsafe for some reason? Also, if I do decide to set up my Nano S with Electrum, will I then be able to view it (and do everything else) in Ledger Live? In other words, if I make some transactions in the Electrum Nano S wallet, will I see those transactions in Ledger Live (and vice versa)?


That, exactly, is the purpose of this post. 

Again, thank you everyone.

Hi,

I'm hoping I'm posting this in the correct section.

As per the title.

I have some BTC stored in an Electrum Wallet. I've read many guides on safe methods for claiming the BCH (equal in amount to BTC owned prior to hard fork). Most guides say to FIRST transfer the BTC from their original wallet in Electrum to a new Electrum wallet, then use the old (now with 0 balance) BTC address to claim BCH from.

I've just bought a Ledger Nano S, and set it up and created brand new BTC and BCH accounts on it. I haven't transferred anything to it yet.

What I'm wondering is can I simply transfer the BTC from my Electrum into my Ledger Nano S (instead of transferring to a new Electrum address) and then install Electron Cash (on a different machine, although, post-successful-transfer, I doubt it matters, but better be safe than sorry) and use the old Electrum BTC address to claim BCH from?

I hope what I'm asking is clear and also that I haven't inadvertently said something stupid.  

Many thanks!