Electrum Wallet + BitBox02

[Bitcoiner2023]

Good evening dear bitcoin community.

I would like to connect my Electrum wallet to a BitBox02 to be safer.
If I lose my BitBox in the future and the seeds from the BitBox as well, are my coins always gone on the Electrum Wallet?
Or can I just restore my Electrum wallet with the seeds and just connect a new BitBox to it?


Best regards

[Charles-Tim]

If you lost your Bitbox02 wallet and you have your seed phrase, you can buy another Bitbox02 to import the seed phrase on it and you will recover all your coins.

If you do not have your seed phrase anymore and you lost your hardware wallet, your coins are gone (lost).

Take note that your seed phrase and keys remain on your hardware wallet, not on Electrum wallet.

[Bitcoiner2023]

Unfortunately you misunderstood my question.

I only use the hardware wallet as a security device to authorize my payments.

My coins stay on the Electrum Wallet not on the BitBox

[NeuroticFish]

Unfortunately you misunderstood my question.

I only use the hardware wallet as a security device to authorize my payments.

My coins stay on the Electrum Wallet not on the BitBox

You misunderstood how bitcoin works. The coins are never in a wallet, they are on the network. The wallet only handles the keys (and shows the amounts).
This being said, as long as you have a properly backed up seed and nobody else has access to it, you're good and you'll be able to recover your wallet/addresses/keys. It's preferable to do that with a/another hardware wallet for obvious reasons.

[Bitcoiner2023]

ok got it

Do I have to restore my Electrum wallet if I lose my BitBox or can I simply remove the BitBox from Electrum and add a new one?

[coupable]

ok got it

Do I have to restore my Electrum wallet if I lose my BitBox or can I simply remove the BitBox from Electrum and add a new one?

You are thus making it seem more difficult with your answer. The question is simple, do you have a copy of the seed words that you are supposed to have used previously? In any case, if you have the seeds of any of the two wallets, you can make some attempts before asking, and this will not affect your savings.
Assuming you lost your bitbox wallet, can you still use it on electrum after it is lost?

[Stalker22]

Do I have to restore my Electrum wallet if I lose my BitBox or can I simply remove the BitBox from Electrum and add a new one?

If you lose your BitBox device, you can recover your wallet using the backup seed phrase (recovery phrase), without necessarily requiring a new BitBox device. This means you can opt to use an alternative hardware wallet such as Ledger or Trezor, or a software wallet like Electrum. Your seed phrase serves as the master key, rendering everything else irrelevant.

[BlackHatCoiner]

To clear up the situation: access to the wallet is granted by the private keys. The private keys are inside the hardware wallet, and the seed phrase in paper. Each time you open up Electrum to make a transaction, the computer will communicate with the hardware wallet to have the transaction signed.

- If your computer is damaged, and you possess the hardware wallet and the seed phrase, you still have access to the coins.
- If your hardware wallet is damaged, and you possess a computer and the seed phrase, you still have access to the coins.
- If the seed phrase is damaged, and you possess a computer and the hardware wallet, you still have access to the coins, but you need to make another copy of the seed phrase ASAP.

Generally, if you either own seed phrase or private keys, you can move your coins.

[Bitcoiner2023]

To clear up the situation: access to the wallet is granted by the private keys. The private keys are inside the hardware wallet, and the seed phrase in paper. Each time you open up Electrum to make a transaction, the computer will communicate with the hardware wallet to have the transaction signed.

- If your computer is damaged, and you possess the hardware wallet and the seed phrase, you still have access to the coins.
- If your hardware wallet is damaged, and you possess a computer and the seed phrase, you still have access to the coins.
- If the seed phrase is damaged, and you possess a computer and the hardware wallet, you still have access to the coins, but you need to make another copy of the seed phrase ASAP.

Generally, if you either own seed phrase or private keys, you can move your coins.

I think I made a mistake...

I thought if I connect Electrum to the BitBox I get 2 seeds

1x from the BitBox
1x from Electrum

but I think I'm wrong.
The coins are still on the seed of the BitBox because Electrum only serves as an interface

[BlackHatCoiner]

The coins are still on the seed of the BitBox because Electrum only serves as an interface

Correct. Your computer sends the unsigned transaction from Electrum to BitBox. Then, BitBox signs it. Then it sends it back to Electrum. You're essentially making usage of Electrum with the exception that the creation of signature doesn't happen on your computer.

[NeuroticFish]

I thought if I connect Electrum to the BitBox I get 2 seeds

1x from the BitBox
1x from Electrum

but I think I'm wrong.
The coins are still on the seed of the BitBox because Electrum only serves as an interface

You start to understand.
The point of having BitBox (or any hardware wallet) is to not allow Electrum handle the seed (and private keys) because Electrum stays on a computer connected to the internet, thus unsafe.
As long as you have BitBox correctly set up and connected, Electrum will know that it doesn't have to handle seed/keys/signatures, instead ask BitBox do that job.

"The coins are still on the seed of the BitBox" <- this is not correct, but still a not too bad representation either. The coins are not in a wallet or a seed. They are on the blockchain and anybody can see them as long as he knows the address(es). And that's OK. However, only the person(s) having the private keys (which are created from the seed) can spend the coins. And that's where BitBox helps in a secure manner.

[dkbit98]

I would like to connect my Electrum wallet to a BitBox02 to be safer.
If I lose my BitBox in the future and the seeds from the BitBox as well, are my coins always gone on the Electrum Wallet?
Or can I just restore my Electrum wallet with the seeds and just connect a new BitBox to it?

With BitBox device you can connect their native Bitbox app, Electrum wallet, Sparrow wallet, etc.  but keys (seed) are never moved from secure element chip that is in BitBox device, and they are always offline.
If you lost your BitBox device, and you lost your seed backup that is written on paper or metal (that should always be kept separated), than you can't restore your coins anymore.
Be careful experimenting with keys and stuff like multisig setup.

The coins are still on the seed of the BitBox because Electrum only serves as an interface

Correct.
Unless you leak it yourself, send it to some suspicious website, or keep it in digital form on your computer... you should never do this.