V2.6 - privacy feature, multisig, qr, donations, ios questions

[johnny508]

First off, im so happy this app exists and cant wait for the day i can do everything i need to do in electrum (i still use a few other wallet apps for coinjoin and multisig stuff).

Im hoping that a few things can be clarified:
1. What exactly is the feature that is enhancing privacy in the new version?  Is it a mixing mechanism or is it the fresh address generating mechanism?  Im confused if any privacy enhancing feature was added or not.

2. Multisig - i know u can basically create a multisig wallet.  But can electrum also handle simple signing of transactions for multisig wallets outside of electrum wallet?  Similar to coinbin sign and broadcast.  Is it possible with electrum?  If not, is it something planned for future?

3. Ios version - no questions but so excited to see this.  Any beta testing going on?  Would love to help report bugs, etc.

4. Donations - how does electrum make money?  Purely donations?  If so, i am going to start making donations every few months and am sorry i havent done so til now.  Projects like these are so taken for granted and this one deserves support more than most. 
- have u considered a service like blockchain coinjoin where u charge fees for simple mixing?  I would think something like this would be easy to implement and id much rather see the fee go towards electrum project rather than others.
- is there any target dollar amount pages that exist?  I always wonder how much to donate to projects and have trouble with how much i can afford being the answer   if i donated 10 a quarterly year would
That make me a cheapass mooch?  Or would that be decent considering if 1000 people donated like that, project takes in 40k a year.
- donate button in electrum app itself would be good idea in the help menu, no?
- can i ask how big the core team is?  I see thomas is obviously a full timer but are there more?  It seems like a lean run project with few resources outputting a tremendously large app.  Are there more thomas's hidden in the basement?

5. Webcam support for osx - does anybody have this confirmed working?  I cant get that zbar manual workaround to work for the life of me.  Just curious but why is it so harrd on osx?  What. Do u guys use as workarounds?  Riight now, i tend to use little barcode scanning apps on osx.  Further, is there an ability or future possibility to feed a jpeg with qr code into electrum rather than using live webcam?  That would be a workaround i could live with.

I imagine the ios app will solve a bit of this, right?  Since i think u can have one wallet tied to ur desktop and phone, u can basically use phone to snap a qr as needed and ur desktop will benefit from that action too.

Thank. You to the electrum team for this great app.  I love it!!

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[ThomasV]

thanks.

1. "Privacy" is a coin selection method, not a mixing mechanism. what it exactly does is described in the desktop version
2. I do not know about coinbin. Electrum uses its own format for partially signed transactions, that might not work in other apps.
3. the iOS version will be identical to the android app; same code, compiled or a different platform.
4. the project does not accept donations. you may donate to the people who run electrum servers, though. and you may donate some of your time to fix bugs
5. I tried to get zbar to work on osx, but could not manage to do it. any help is welcome.

[johnny508]

1. Somehow i wound up still running the earlier version so when i reinstalled latest, i know see the coin selection options.  I think i understand concept at high level,  its basically meant to leverage new fresh wallets in a way that might be described as an advanced change wallet method.  Ill run an example tx and watch it on blockchain wallets and thatll help me visualize im sure.

2. Can u give me point me down the right direction here?  I assume i need to run in console,  but with the way im trying to accimplish signing - i basically have a regular electrum wallet and choose one address as my signing address.  Then some other party might pass me a tx that is signed with 1/3 sigs.  My goal is to sign it to add 2nd sig.  And then broadcast it.  Does that sound like its possible with current elec version?  And is there a technical term to describe electrums encoding?

Coinbin and ms brainwallet are two open source projects that are really cool for multisig.  They let u validate to see which pubkeys underlying a multisig redeemscript exist.  Then u can sign using related privkey and broadcast or copy the partial tx out to another party.  Super user friendly and a tool i think is critical to msking people understand the inner workings of Msig.

3. Ios - So scanning qr will be possible, ya?  And in essence, this kinda resolves the trouble with that zbar mac workaround for users who have a wallet shared on their iphone and desktop.

4. Interesting.. If u ever open up ur company for seed money to monetize, id be very interested.  U must have some secret plans for thos great project to monetize this amazing app so if ever u start accepting investors, i would love to hear about it.

- any advice on picking a server to donate?  The big ones?  Or the lil ones that might be struggling?  Anybody else feel free to suggest.  I usually autoselect my connection.  Is it true that all the connection servers avail are somehow vetted by electrum or can literally anybody open one up?  Ill google recommendations for donating to see what ppl have said in past.
- i see donate to server in the help menu of electrum.  Should i just take leap of faith and send donation there?

- id love to participate in bug fixes but im not a coder.  I understand more tan the average guy about technology and can sorta understand what python code and php code is doing but im one of those ppl that know enouh to be dangerous.
- bug REPORTING and testing fixes is something i think id be quite good at.  Is that what the common person can do to help or am i useless without coding skills?
- i assume i should google how to use github and basically poke my head in at the electrum github.  Which branch is the one to focus oN?  Dev branch, right?

5. Ya i gave up..  Ios app should kinda resolve.  Is it complained about often enough that a help guide would be a huge contribution?  If so, i can try harder and post help guide if i get it done.  
- But what about making it accept a jpg of a qr code instead?  That would be a workaround that most could live with?

[johnny508]

I tried looking on the docs.electrum link help page for any details on privacy vs priority snd couldnt find anything.. Anywhere else to look?

I tried a few test sends to see if that coukd help me visualize:
1. I sent btc to a wallet and change addresses and use multiple change addresses selected and priority control set.   It did use 1 change wallet as usual and im familiar wih that concept.
- but it did not use multiple change addresses as i thought it would based on the setting to use multiple change addresses.  Maybe im misunderstanding or maybe its a bug

2. I sent another btc using same settings above and this time chose privacy.
- same resukts as test 1.

3. I used same settings as test #2 but this time unchecked use change wallets.  I tried both priority and privacy but im not seeing any difference in how coins are handled.
- is there a test environment ud recommend?  In other words, i ran my tests using a nice clean wallet with a single wallet holding btc and then sent them to a new addees in same wallet.  Would i visuualize this better if i had a balance in multiple addresses?
- is this feature similar to any other wallet apps features?  We already clarified its not like any mixer or coinjoin.  What about coin control in bitcoin core?  This is kinda what im thinking is the app function that this priority/privacy setting might be closely defined to.