separate wallets within one seed

[someone111]

A single wallet with multiple addresses doesn't provide strong separation of funds. I don't want the addresses to be mixed up for change and whatnot.

Is it possible to have a wallet with a seed that allows to have multiple sub wallets?

[kolloh]

A single wallet with multiple addresses doesn't provide strong separation of funds. I don't want the addresses to be mixed up for change and whatnot.

Is it possible to have a wallet with a seed that allows to have multiple sub wallets?

I believe you would need to create a separate wallet with a separate see to achieve this with Electrum unless you are using a hardware device.

I know that hardware wallets such as Ledger Nano S support using multiple wallets with an index ( pretty sure they use the same seed as well ). So if you were to get a device like this, it should be possible.

[HI-TEC99]

You can create multiple separate wallets using the same seed, but you have to create each with a different account number. These instructions should work.

Before entering your seed you have to click the options button, then check "BIP39 seed"








After entering the seed you have to use the BIP44 Account dialog to give each account a different number, starting from 0 for the first wallet, then 1 for the next wallet, 2 for the next, and so on.

[kolloh]

Ah yeah, so I guess as long as you are using BIP39, it should be possible. Hardware wallets utilize the BIP39 protocol, but I forgot you could create a BIP39 wallet without a hardware wallet as well. Thanks for the info HI-TEC99

[Coin-Keeper]

Please continue this thread to teach ME something here.  Maybe others as well.

Lets say a user creates 6 different wallets using ONE SEED with BIP39 as described above.  Now my computer drive crashes and I lose everything I have EXCEPT the SEED (written on paper), and in fact I don't even remember how many wallets I have been using (example of course).  Was it 3 wallets or 10 wallets, see where I am headed here?  Can you describe the easiest way to restore?  If you restore in BIP39 mode using the single seed wouldn't you have to click on the BIP44 account numbers and restore individually?  But then as mentioned above I (example) don't even know how many wallets I have been using?  I do all this already using my Trezors but I know without a doubt if I forget or lose the individual passphrases for each wallet the coins are gone!  It appears to my logic that a user would also need to have an idea of the account number (starting anyway) to recapture all the accounts on that SEED.  Where am I falling off the trail here?

[Abdussamad]

You don't need the bip39 option. In fact you shouldn't be using the bip39 option unless you are restoring another software's wallet in electrum. That is because electrum may drop support for bip39 in future.

Instead just use the extend seed with custom words option. Then you can add your own word(s) to create a different wallet with the same seed. It can be as simple as a number 1,2,3 etc.



However each wallet will have to be opened separately. And you can only view one wallet in a window at a time. There won't be any mixing of funds between the wallets unless you explicitly choose to mix them by sending from one to the other.

[kolloh]

You don't need the bip39 option. In fact you shouldn't be using the bip39 option unless you are restoring another software's wallet in electrum. That is because electrum may drop support for bip39 in future.

I don't foresee Electrum dropping bip39 support in the future. Hardware wallets use bip39 so dropping support for this would also make the hardware wallets no longer function.

Extended the seed like you mentioned is certainly another method of accomplishing the same thing though.

[Coin-Keeper]

I am back again, and both of you have stated what I suspected above:  namely, the user MUST know the wallets exist to "find" their coins.  With either the BIP39 or the extend seed option you will NOT see your entire collection of coins by simply entering the one SEED.  This makes complete sense but it does create a potential for coin loss.  The cool feature of Electrum has always been simply know your SEED and no matter what happens you get it all back.  If you deviate from a normal configuration things get a bit more complicated.

Sidenote:  is there a decent link where I could study the math on just how secure the extend seed option would be at "hiding" a wallet.  Is it basically the same math used by my Trezors in creating hidden wallets.  Sounds identical.  Love math, links?

[HCP]

I thought Trezors (and other hardware wallets) were just utilising the "account" feature in BIP32 and BIP44: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawiki#specification-wallet-structure and https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0044.mediawiki#account

I believe this is also what Mycelium does when you create new "accounts" in the wallet (derived from the same seed)

[Abdussamad]

You don't need the bip39 option. In fact you shouldn't be using the bip39 option unless you are restoring another software's wallet in electrum. That is because electrum may drop support for bip39 in future.

I don't foresee Electrum dropping bip39 support in the future. Hardware wallets use bip39 so dropping support for this would also make the hardware wallets no longer function.

bi39 is the standard for seed mnemonics. When it comes to HW wallets the seed mnemonic stays in the HW wallet. It is only shown to the user on the display for backup purposes. Electrum never gets to handle it because that would defeat the purpose of using an HW wallet (private keys, such as those derived from a seed, remain on the HW wallet). So bip39 support is not required in order to support HW wallets.

You can see here that ThomasV has said he can't guarantee bip39 support will always be there.

Sidenote:  is there a decent link where I could study the math on just how secure the extend seed option would be at "hiding" a wallet.  Is it basically the same math used by my Trezors in creating hidden wallets.  Sounds identical.  Love math, links?

You can see the code here. It's running the mnemonic through a key derivation function. The custom words are used as salt. This is a function first proposed (ironically enough) in the bip39 standard.

[Coin-Keeper]

Abdussamad,

That Github link you posted was exactly what I needed.  Its crystal now.  Playing with the math.  I can clearly see where there would be a place for extend seed in Electrum.  As a user I still don't like the idea of having my seed on an online computer (even encrypted).  However; you would still have the option to generate unique MPKs for those extend seed wallets and run in the two computer cold wallet mode.  This way the SEED is always offline and yet you only need one seed list + extend seed "passphrase/words".

[kolloh]

You don't need the bip39 option. In fact you shouldn't be using the bip39 option unless you are restoring another software's wallet in electrum. That is because electrum may drop support for bip39 in future.

I don't foresee Electrum dropping bip39 support in the future. Hardware wallets use bip39 so dropping support for this would also make the hardware wallets no longer function.

bi39 is the standard for seed mnemonics. When it comes to HW wallets the seed mnemonic stays in the HW wallet. It is only shown to the user on the display for backup purposes. Electrum never gets to handle it because that would defeat the purpose of using an HW wallet (private keys, such as those derived from a seed, remain on the HW wallet). So bip39 support is not required in order to support HW wallets.

You can see here that ThomasV has said he can't guarantee bip39 support will always be there.

Sidenote:  is there a decent link where I could study the math on just how secure the extend seed option would be at "hiding" a wallet.  Is it basically the same math used by my Trezors in creating hidden wallets.  Sounds identical.  Love math, links?

You can see the code here. It's running the mnemonic through a key derivation function. The custom words are used as salt. This is a function first proposed (ironically enough) in the bip39 standard.

Ah interesting and thanks for the link where ThomasV mentioned that. I guess if Electrum dropped support for bip39, it would just make it difficult to restore a hardware wallet's seed without purchasing another hardware wallet. So if your Trezor or Ledger broke or got lost, you wouldn't be able to simply restore your seed to recover the funds. I'm sure there would be other ways of converting it though and just might require using some other tool.

[Coin-Keeper]

Changing Electrum's code in a way resulting in an inability to restore the two most widely circulated hardware wallets would be a catastrophic magnitude error in judgement.  No hardware wallet user would carry a device they could not restore from without getting another hardware device.  Therefore they would be forced to gravitate to a software wallet that leaves them able to restore and protect all coins in the event of a hardware device being lost.  There is no time to wait for another device to arrive in that instance.  You need to generate a software wallet and move your coins before the "unthinkable" could happen with your device in the wrong hands.  Thomas knows that, obviously.