Problems for a noob

[richuurd]

Hi there, very new to bitcoin.

So I've just finished trading for bitcoins on Kraken. I managed to transfer some into Mycelium on my phone, and some into Electrum 2.6.4 on my PC. I'm trying to send bitcoins from Electrum to Mycelium, but my screen shows up as Partially signed (1/2), and it gives me an option to Copy, Save, and Close.

A quick search shows that my wallet may be in Watch-Only mode. It's a fresh wallet, I haven't done any importing/exporting/sweeping of keys. I also want to use 2 factor authentication on this wallet. How exactly do I go about changing my current wallet to use 2 factor authentication, and for me to be able to send using Electrum? My intuition says that I have to export the private keys, then create a new wallet with 2FA, and to write down a new set of seeds. I want to confirm whether or not that's all I have to do to transfer all my bitcoins from my current wallet to a 2FA wallet.

Thanks a ton in advance.

[OmegaStarScream]

It's probably not wise to upgrade to Two factor authentication right now as there is some issues , see here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1656917.msg16644415#msg16644415 . If you want to upgrade then I'd recommend sending the funds somewhere else (to an online wallet or something until you are setup electrum) , installing the latest version of Electrum (2.7.9 at the moment)  and choose these options :




Once that's done , send funds from the online wallet I told you above above to one of your Electrum 2FA addresses. In case things goes wrong or you are not able to spend your coins , you can always recover your wallet using the SEED.

[BitcoinNewsMagazine]

If it is not wise to use 2FA on Electrum right now why are you recommending creating a new wallet with 2FA enabled? IMO the best way to use Electrum is with a Trezor managing your private keys. Ledger Nano S also supports Electrum but you have the option of passphrase protecting your seed with Trezor.

[Abdussamad]

FYI you can have more than one electrum wallet:


To create a new wallet use file > new/restore. To open it use file >open. To make a shortcut to it use the command `electrum -w /path/towallet/file`. The wallet file is stored in this directory:

http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/faq.html#where-is-my-wallet-file-located

[richuurd]

Thanks for the responses.

I'll take the advice and avoid 2FA for now. I'll look into Trezor and other cold storage methods.

At the moment, I'm not able to send bitcoins with Electrum, but there's bitcoins sitting in it. Am I to understand that creating a new standard wallet will resolve the sending issue? Just export keys from current wallet, and import to new one? I don't remember doing anything the first time around to create a Watch-only wallet. Is there a specific step I should pay attention to avoid this issue on a new wallet?

Thanks again.

[OmegaStarScream]

Thanks for the responses.

I'll take the advice and avoid 2FA for now. I'll look into Trezor and other cold storage methods.

At the moment, I'm not able to send bitcoins with Electrum, but there's bitcoins sitting in it. Am I to understand that creating a new standard wallet will resolve the sending issue? Just export keys from current wallet, and import to new one? I don't remember doing anything the first time around to create a Watch-only wallet. Is there a specific step I should pay attention to avoid this issue on a new wallet?

Thanks again.

It's definitely weird that you can't use them , It could mean that It's on Watch-only but as long as you have the private keys , there is nothing to be worried about , try to export the private keys and import them into another wallet (Bitcoin core for example) and see how things goes from there (you may need to download the whole blockchain in that case)

[btchris]

but my screen shows up as Partially signed (1/2), and it gives me an option to Copy, Save, and Close.

It sounds like you created a multisig wallet for some reason.

In Electrum, go to the Wallet menu and select Master Public Keys. How many are listed? If more than one is listed, how are the labeled (e.g. "x1/ (self)" and "x/2 (something)")?

Also, how many words are present in your seed (Wallet menu -> Seed)?

[Abdussamad]

Thanks for the responses.

I'll take the advice and avoid 2FA for now. I'll look into Trezor and other cold storage methods.

At the moment, I'm not able to send bitcoins with Electrum, but there's bitcoins sitting in it. Am I to understand that creating a new standard wallet will resolve the sending issue? Just export keys from current wallet, and import to new one? I don't remember doing anything the first time around to create a Watch-only wallet. Is there a specific step I should pay attention to avoid this issue on a new wallet?

Thanks again.

watch-only wallets don't have private keys. but it could be you have a multisig wallet like btchris said. What does the address on the receive tab look like? Does it begin with the number 3 or the number 1?

[richuurd]

but my screen shows up as Partially signed (1/2), and it gives me an option to Copy, Save, and Close.

It sounds like you created a multisig wallet for some reason.

In Electrum, go to the Wallet menu and select Master Public Keys. How many are listed? If more than one is listed, how are the labeled (e.g. "x1/ (self)" and "x/2 (something)")?

Also, how many words are present in your seed (Wallet menu -> Seed)?

Sorry for the long delay. Forgot about the Bitcoins for a while. Appreciate the responses. It does appear to be a multisig wallet. It's x1 (self) and x2 (cosigner).

There are 12 words in my seed.

watch-only wallets don't have private keys. but it could be you have a multisig wallet like btchris said. What does the address on the receive tab look like? Does it begin with the number 3 or the number 1?

The receiving address starts with a number 3

Again, appreciate the help again. I may have created a multi-sig wallet, thinking it'd be more secure.

[btchris]

Sorry for the long delay. Forgot about the Bitcoins for a while. Appreciate the responses. It does appear to be a multisig wallet. It's x1 (self) and x2 (cosigner).

There are 12 words in my seed.

watch-only wallets don't have private keys. but it could be you have a multisig wallet like btchris said. What does the address on the receive tab look like? Does it begin with the number 3 or the number 1?

The receiving address starts with a number 3

Again, appreciate the help again. I may have created a multi-sig wallet, thinking it'd be more secure.

OK, so this is a 2 of 2 multisig wallet, and it has stored inside it only one of the two master private keys required to send transactions out of this wallet.

Back when you created this wallet, Electrum must have asked you for the cosigner master public key (which starts with xpub), there's no other way you could have created such a wallet (unless you happen to have a hardware wallet?).

Is it possible you entered the xpub from your Mycellium wallet when you created the Electrum 2 of 2 wallet? You can check to see if the xpub displayed in Electrum under Wallet menu -> Master Public Keys, the second/cosigner one, matches the xpub in Mycellium.

If not, do you know where else you may have gotten that xpub?

(I'm assuming that the 12-word seed you do have is the same one that's displayed when you go to Wallet menu -> Seed, correct?)

[richuurd]

Thanks again, btchris

That indeed happens to be the case. The current xpub under my mycellium doesn't match. I'm going to go through all the apps I've used to see which one it is. I went through a couple of wallets on electrum, mycellium, and copay. Good thing I wrote down all those seeds. Coinbase and Kraken shouldn't be possible to get a master public key from, right?

I'm such an idiot. Lol, being the idiot that I am, I tried to restore a wallet with the cosigner master public key in electrum. Tried to use that second wallet to cosign, but it said it wasn't the right one.

I have multiple 12 word seeds for different wallets that I tried, and one of them does match the current Electrum wallet that I'm using.

Appreciate your patience with me.

[richuurd]

Wow, I was literally shitting my pants and my heart sank when I realized that the cosigner is Copay. I downloaded the app, then I tried to restore backup using the 12 word master seed, it didn't work. I thought I was done, all the bitcoins were lost. Then I realised that I had installed Copay on my beater phone. Opened up Copay, and it matched the master public key. Turns out I can't write for chickenshit - one of the words I wrote down was "change." It was infact "charge" - I had written the "r" too long...I'll walk myself out now.

[btchris]

OK (and wow! ), so I think you should be able to create an Electrum 2.7.x wallet with both master private keys that can finally spend your funds.

Download the latest Electrum (it must be at least Electrum 2.7, or maybe even later, I'm unsure, just grab the latest to be sure).
Create a new wallet, choose multi-sig, and choose 2 of 2 (which is the default).
Select "I already have a seed", and enter your Electrum seed. It will display an xpub which you can ignore.
For the cosigner, choose that you "Enter cosigner seed" (not "key").
Before entering a seed, click Options, and enable "BIP39 seed". Then enter your newly discovered Copay seed.
It will ask for an account number, accept the default of 0.

Hopefully that should be it, but I'm not 100% sure, so let us know. Incidentally it doesn't make much sense to use this wallet going forward; it will be a 2 of 2 wallet which creates larger txs (more fees) with none of the advantages of a 2 of 2 wallet (separate signing devices).

[richuurd]

If it works, you'll get some bitcoins coming your way. Again, can't emphasize how much I appreciate all your help.

Moving forward, what is the best idiot-proof and secure setup for Electrum? Think 2 factor authentication would suit me better?

[ranochigo]

If it works, you'll get some bitcoins coming your way. Again, can't emphasize how much I appreciate all your help.

Moving forward, what is the best idiot-proof and secure setup for Electrum? Think 2 factor authentication would suit me better?

Consider using Electrum on one offline device for signing and an online device for creating transactions and broadcasting. That's the most foolproof setup.

For a normal desktop, it is impossible to completely guard against malware. However, 2FA would work fine since it would protect against anyone having access to your computer for a short period of time.

[btchris]

If it works, you'll get some bitcoins coming your way. Again, can't emphasize how much I appreciate all your help.

Thanks!

Moving forward, what is the best idiot-proof and secure setup for Electrum? Think 2 factor authentication would suit me better?

There's really no single "best", or rather "best" is very much a matter of opinion.

There are at least three factors to consider when security is your most important goal: risk (of loss), convenience, and cost. There's no single solution which maximizes all three. (And of course there are plenty of other non-security-related factors, e.g. privacy, tx validation type, software license, protocol stance (block size/RBF/SegWit), etc.)

I'm not an Electrum expert, but I believe you'd have these five options: "standard" online; standard cold/watching-only; 2FA; multisig; and hardware. The breakdown in order of best to worst looks something like this (and even this is somewhat a matter of opinion):

Risk
Cold/watching-only & hardware > multisig > 2FA > online

Convenience
Online > 2FA > hardware > multisig > cold/watching-only

Per-tx Cost (least expensive to most)
Hardware, cold/watching-only & online > multisig > 2FA
(Of course, hardware wallets have a startup cost, and so might cold/watching-only, multisig, or 2FA if you don't already have spare hardware/phones available.)

So the best option for you is impossible for me to say, but if you have any specific questions about the above, ask away!