It's not an "instant auto update"... you get a notification that a new version is available, and clicking on it will lead you to the "standard" electrum.org download page.

https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/5d4f8f316480776eb78d98ea9ac9c3b2a05ef01d/electrum/gui/qt/update_checker.py#L21


You are still advised to do the verification even if you have the update notification on.

It's highly likely you're trusting someone somewhere along the chain... Unless you have created a handcrafted paperwallet, with a selfcoded app to convert your dicerolls/coin flips into a private key.

Otherwise, you're trusting your wallet software (yes, even 'open source' unless you have diligently checked every line of code in the wallet and every line of code in every library that the wallet uses)... you're trusting your OS... you're trusting your hardware... you're trusting your PRNG etc...

The "rabbit hole" for this goes deep.


Hardware wallets provide a nice blend of security and convenience. You get a nice mix of the "ease of use" and convenience of hot wallets and security of cold wallets with the keys being "shielded" from the world.

"Don't Trust, Verify" is a nice ideal... but in practical terms very difficult to get 100%.

Did you just copy the "blocks" folder? or the entire Bitcoin Core "datadir"? If you didn't take the "chainstate" folder as well, then you'd need to do the reindex, otherwise you'd likely get the full download and sync.

Obviously, it isn't designed to be a way to get "free" BTC... it's to incentivise people to help with the Folding@Home project to help combat Covid-19.

You should be doing it to help the effort... not to make BTC.

With Ledger you have actually TWO options for using a passphrase/25th word... You can either bind it to a secondary PIN (to shortcut the process) or you can "set temporary" and manually enter the passphrase when you want to access those wallets.

So, just because a user only ever setup one PIN, doesn't mean they didn't use a passphrase.

Having said that... the process for manually entering a "temporary" passphrase (particularly a strong, "random" one with numbers/letters/symbols etc) is particularly onerous on a Ledger Nano S.   Which is why most users opt for the "2nd PIN" option.

Not particularly... but it does make the chance of "malware" being the root cause of this issue less likely (by a large factor)... assuming that Tails was setup, and is being used, correctly.

Are you using persistence with Tails? Or do you recreate the wallet by entering the seed each time?

If you're recreating it each time you run, it's possible that you used a different seed, copied an address from that wallet... and are now "restoring" a different seed/wallet.
If you're using persistence, it's possible you have multiple wallet files and simply copied an address from a different wallet. Click "File -> Open" and see how many wallet files are shown in your "wallets" folder.

Your notebook will probably thermal throttle like a mofo... but it'll shut itself down before it catches on fire!

These sorts of programs were not really designed for laptops... and laptops[1] were not really designed for these sorts of programs.

Also, if you're doing this simply to make a few BTC, then do the math... you need 100,000 credits to get 0.0001 BTC... which is currently worth about $0.67 USD... now calculate how much $$$ worth of electricity you're going to burn gaining those credits. You'd be better off just buying some BTC from someone.

This is pretty much the most inefficient way to "mine" BTC




[1] "Gaming" laptops would be an exception

TrustedCoin have been helpful in the past with other users in a similar position. If he still has the wallet file and the password, then all you need is the 2FA code.

Once he gets the 2FA reset, he needs to create a new wallet and move those funds as soon as possible. Without the seed mnemonic... well, he's already had a glimpse of the issues not having access to the recover seed mnemonic presents!

Quoted... but it doesn't verify in Electrum. Please double check your message (make sure there are not trailing whitespaces etc) and the signature used.

EDIT: Figured it out... there is a trailing space after the date... so it should be "... Today is April 04, 2020. ". Then it verifies.

Sounds like a driver/USB issue with Windows. Can sometimes be a bit of a bugger to diagnose and fix. I assume you've already tried the "usual" fixes of plugging into a different USB port, don't use a USB hub etc and/or uninstalling all the Ledger USB devices using something like USBDeview?


According to the fancy new Ledger Manager in Ledger Live 2.0... BTC is 40Kb, while LTC, Dash and ZEC are only 4Kb... so that would take up around 52Kb of the 160Kb storage on the Ledger Nano S... like this:



It's a shame that you're having so many issues with it I've found the new update to have some really nice UI/UX improvements... even if I am a bit disappointed with the continued lack of certain features (like coin control etc).

Did you try the client-type "hack" that was mentioned earlier in the thread? Since putting that in, I've had a steady stream of WU's for both the CPU and the GPU.

I'd say it was an "OK" wallet. But I would say that the Trezor hardware wallet that you had () or Electrum would be a much better choice.

What are your specific requirements? Are you wanting just a Bitcoin wallet, or did you want to dabble in altcoins as well?

If you click on the "Addresses" tab (might need to use "View -> Show Addresses" to see the tab)... do you see the bc1q2vl6x8y9rcntq00y3fvc77unlwg5sqlu2xtvn6 address in the list of addresses shown?

If you do, then chances are that it's a network issue of some description and the wallet just hasn't synced properly. If you don't then it's possible that you've copy/pasted the wrong address

Where exactly did you copy that address from within Electrum? Was it from the "Receive" tab?

At least you took the time to seek clarification... can't fault you for that! It can be difficult admitting that you don't know or don't understand something, especially when everyone else around you seems to already have the knowledge.

I believe the reason that "blocknumber" (aka Height) is not used as an identifier is explained by this:

So, as stated, the unique identifier for a given block is the hash of the header.

And thank you for taking the time to come back and explain what the solution was and provide a good detailed explanation of how you solved your issue. Too many times, we either get a post that just says something like "Solved!" or "Fixed it!" and provides zero details which is completely useless to anyone searching through threads looking for similar issues... or the user simply disappears into the ether and no one knows what the end result was.

Kudos to you... glad you got it sorted.

Not wanting to dull your thirst for knowledge... but isn't that sort of escrow scenario already handled by a simple 2-of-3 multisig wallet setup?

I'd also recommend browsing the BitcoinJ Project: https://bitcoinj.github.io/

It's Java... but seems to have tips for JavaScript devs as well.

Are you wanting to build a full wallet from scratch for any particular reason? (ie. The challenge, learning something new etc?) or were you just unaware that there are a lot of pre-existing libraries and frameworks that you could leverage to incorporate wallet functionality into your project?

Is that for the Democratic Nomination... or the actual General Election and Presidency?

Also, is that an address you hold or are the funds being held in escrow?

Yes... all the wallets generated within your ledger for all coins all use the same "seed" as the starting point. This "seed" will be restored from your 24 words when/if you need to restore using it.

That is the whole point of seed-based recovery for HD wallets... you can always recover everything from those 24 words.

You can even use a completely new device, put in the 24 words and you'll get the same wallets recovered.


So, from this point, I'd recommend starting with a firmware update and then see if the device plays nicely with Ledger Live after it is updated to the latest firmware.