Electrum wallet help

[Peter789]

I am reasonably new to wallets. I have an electrum wallet. I kept all the information, encrypted(1048) in an encrypted safe place.
I opened a second electrum wallet and as an experiment used the same seeds.

I put some btc in wallet one- but they are not in wallet 2.

I did this to show that the seeds could be used to retrieve my btc if I lost my computer.

What have I done wrong? Perhaps the public or private keys?

Peter

[1714196644]

1714196644

[1714196644]

1714196644

[1714196644]

1714196644

[Peter789]

I just made a third wallet with the exact same seeds and it worked.

I must have made a mistake with the second wallet- perhaps spelling.

I retract my question.

Thank you anyway.

Peter

[jackg]

I am reasonably new to wallets. I have an electrum wallet. I kept all the information, encrypted(1048) in an encrypted safe place.
I opened a second electrum wallet and as an experiment used the same seeds.

I put some btc in wallet one- but they are not in wallet 2.

I did this to show that the seeds could be used to retrieve my btc if I lost my computer.

What have I done wrong? Perhaps the public or private keys?

Peter

If you lose your computer you lose your coins. The seed is just an extra piece of encryption your private keys are not sent to the electrum servers (just the public keys to check balance → these public keys cannot be used to root access to the private keys either).

I just made a third wallet with the exact same seeds and it worked.

I must have made a mistake with the second wallet- perhaps spelling.

I retract my question.

Thank you anyway.

Peter

If it pulled up the same transactions window and the same address information then you did not make a third wallet. You merely recovered the first one from it's seed and changed the name to something different while keeping that initial one in it's original format as well as the new one?

[Peter789]

Ok well I will find out soon. I will send some btc out of each wallet to my cold storage

[Peter789]

And you are proven wrong. I just send a ridiculously small amount of money from BOTH electrum accounts to my ledger.

Interesting thing happened though.
1/ I first opened up my ledger account.
2/ Then I attempted to open my electrum accounts and NO GO.
3/ Closed my ledger and withdraw my usb.
4/ Opened electrum successfully and sent $7.71 and $0.051 to ledger. Just waiting for confirmation now.

I rest assured that with the help of this forum, HI-tech, Gpg, a certain secure encrypted mail server and ledger- my savings are safe.

[jackg]

And you are proven wrong. I just send a ridiculously small amount of money from BOTH electrum accounts to my ledger.

Interesting thing happened though.
1/ I first opened up my ledger account.
2/ Then I attempted to open my electrum accounts and NO GO.
3/ Closed my ledger and withdraw my usb.
4/ Opened electrum successfully and sent $7.71 and $0.051 to ledger. Just waiting for confirmation now.

I rest assured that with the help of this forum, HI-tech, Gpg, a certain secure encrypted mail server and ledger- my savings are safe.

They are certainly safe in the ledger.
Did you get the confirmation on both transactions? If I read the first post right then I am not proven wrong until both transactions have confirmed.

Edit: or did you mean you backed up your wallet and imported it from there? Or just using the same seed for two wallets isolated from each other?

[Peter789]

Jack,
I waited 60mins for both transaction to be complete.

I simply opened a second wallet using the same seeds. To prove that i can retreive the funds. A sort of learning experience.

No I don't think I 'backed up my wallet' the way you describe. I must learn to do that too.

HTech, has shown me how to use public keys to 'verify' a signature. I will be working on that tonight. I am presently doing 12hr days in the mines, with an hours travel- so research time is limited for 2 weeks.

I will, however, learn to 'back up' my wallet.

[kolloh]

Jack,
I waited 60mins for both transaction to be complete.

I simply opened a second wallet using the same seeds. To prove that i can retreive the funds. A sort of learning experience.

No I don't think I 'backed up my wallet' the way you describe. I must learn to do that too.

HTech, has shown me how to use public keys to 'verify' a signature. I will be working on that tonight. I am presently doing 12hr days in the mines, with an hours travel- so research time is limited for 2 weeks.

I will, however, learn to 'back up' my wallet.

Yep, you are correct. Should you lose your wallet or your PC, you can use the seed to recover all coins that were stored in that wallet. The seed allows you to recreate the same exact wallet and all its addresses.

Backing up your seed is equivalent to backing up your wallet and should be just fine unless you need labels/contacts or other data being stored in the wallet.

[jackg]

Jack,
I waited 60mins for both transaction to be complete.

I simply opened a second wallet using the same seeds. To prove that i can retreive the funds. A sort of learning experience.

No I don't think I 'backed up my wallet' the way you describe. I must learn to do that too.

HTech, has shown me how to use public keys to 'verify' a signature. I will be working on that tonight. I am presently doing 12hr days in the mines, with an hours travel- so research time is limited for 2 weeks.

I will, however, learn to 'back up' my wallet.

Well then yes you've done this correctly and have two wallets encrypted with the same seed.
To back up all you really need to do is cpy the electrum_data folder to back it up. As the private keys and addresses are irretrievable if you lose your computer.

[Peter789]

Yes Jack thanks.
I do not move btc around enough to warrant to keep a record of all my transactions. I am simply saving money and wish to be able to retrieve my funds in case- say i loose my cold wallet.

There are places on the net, that are highly encrypted, for a small cost you can keep information that only the NSA or CIA can break into- if at all.

This is unlikely as I don't do anything to attract such attention. I do however, have reason to be concerned about the loss of btc as i have lost a btc recently. Security is now a serious issue.

[jackg]

Yes Jack thanks.
I do not move btc around enough to warrant to keep a record of all my transactions. I am simply saving money and wish to be able to retrieve my funds in case- say i loose my cold wallet.

There are places on the net, that are highly encrypted, for a small cost you can keep information that only the NSA or CIA can break into- if at all.

This is unlikely as I don't do anything to attract such attention. I do however, have reason to be concerned about the loss of btc as i have lost a btc recently. Security is now a serious issue.

Hardware wallets are probably the way to go if you want good security that is the most difficult to hack, however, keeping yor electrum wallet on your computer (providing your computer doesn't get a virus or get hacked) should be secure enough for you sto store the funds on - or running a dual boot and putting the wallet on a different operating system to the main operating system would also work (you only need a strong security factor such as a hardware wallet or dual boot if it is worth it -- you have enough funds to warrent the use of that).

[Peter789]

I have chosen cold storage.
Dual boot sounds good too, for paper wallets. Wonder if you could use a partition? Such as true crypt.
I thought that IF i was to use a paper wallet, then use a seperate laptop. Only used for btc. I have, as we all do, an old laptop.
I have several encrypted vpns. I run them whenever i am on the net. Also, ccleaner, spybot, avanti.

Never use a keyboard to input a password or secret email...always use virtual keyboard. They wont break encryption.
Say use a shakepear quote, Samuel Coleridge Taylor?, the bible?, your favourite politition? Philosopher? But nothing too close to your favourite authors, or too obvious. If you study physics dont choose Sir Isaac....choose say....Shakespear.
If your a poet...choose the quadratic formula.