Bitcoin Stuck on Watching-Only Electrum! How to Send/Use it again?

[Takanawa]

Hello,

Totally new to digital currencies. This is what happened:

I first purchased $100 worth of Bitcoin on Coinbase. Decided to download Armory and transferred the money into a cold storage wallet in Armory. I was not aware of the storage required to go online on Armory, so I downloaded Electrum, and transferred the money from my offline wallet in Armory to offline wallet in Electrum.

Now, it seems like the transaction worked and in my Electrum the wallet has a balance. However it is "imported, watching only" and under the address tab it says it is "receiving". And I can't send (under send tab the option to "send" does not even appear).

What did I do wrong, and how can I use/send my Bitcoin?

Thank you in advance,
total nube

[Ayanamirs]

Do you have your seed saved?

If yes, create a new wallet.

Choose the option "already have a seed".

[Takanawa]

I do have my "seed"  saved, although it is called "passphrases" in Armory.

I have tried to create a new wallet by "already have a seed" method, but it seems like Electrum does not support passphrases from Armory. Any help?

I also checked, Electrum's seeds have 12 words, while passphrases in armory only has 6 words, no space.

[pooya87]

as far as i know Armory uses a specific seed which can not be used in any other client (it is not BIP32 or BIP39) so your only option is to go to your Armory and export the private keys of addresses with funds individually and then import them into your Electrum.

in Armory double click your address with funds and select "View Address Keys", you will be asked to enter your password

also for Electrum http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/faq.html#can-i-import-private-keys-from-other-bitcoin-clients

[Lucius]

Hello,

Totally new to digital currencies. This is what happened:

I first purchased $100 worth of Bitcoin on Coinbase. Decided to download Armory and transferred the money into a cold storage wallet in Armory. I was not aware of the storage required to go online on Armory, so I downloaded Electrum, and transferred the money from my offline wallet in Armory to offline wallet in Electrum.

Now, it seems like the transaction worked and in my Electrum the wallet has a balance. However it is "imported, watching only" and under the address tab it says it is "receiving". And I can't send (under send tab the option to "send" does not even appear).

What did I do wrong, and how can I use/send my Bitcoin?

Thank you in advance,
total nube

When you say that you transfer BTC from Armory to Electrum what exactly did you do?It seems to me that you are only create Electrum watch only wallet and import your public key so you only can see balance in Electrum,but your BTC is still actually in Armory wallet.

If this is the case and you want to have BTC in Electrum there is 2 options :

1.Create new wallet in Electrum with option File - New/Restore -Standard wallet(you will get new wallet protected by seed/write seed down).After that send BTC from Armory to new Electrum wallet.

2.You can try to export private keys from Armory and import them in Electrum,in that case that wallet will not have seed.I check how to export keys from Armory so read this :

For armory users, the private key can be located by double-clicking your wallet in the Armory main window, click “Backup this wallet”, select “Export Key Lists” and click the button of the same name. After having supplied your password, you’ll be presented with your private key in different encodings. You can remove all checkboxes, except “Private Key (Plain Base58)”. Check the “Omit spaces in key data” box. Now select the key string and copy it to the clipboard.

More info Exporting Private Key from Bitcoin Clients

[HCP]

... I was not aware of the storage required to go online on Armory, so I downloaded Electrum, and transferred the money from my offline wallet in Armory to offline wallet in Electrum.

Now, it seems like the transaction worked and in my Electrum the wallet has a balance. However it is "imported, watching only" and under the address tab it says it is "receiving". And I can't send (under send tab the option to "send" does not even appear).

Sounds like you did not transfer anything from Armory to Electrum... it sounds like all you did was copy the address and import that into Electrum using the "Import Bitcoin Addresses or Private Keys" option.

Firstly, create a new wallet in Electrum that has a seed ("File -> New\restore -> Standard wallet -> Create a new seed")... make sure you write the seed down! Then use the following options in Armory:
- Wallet Properties
- Backup This Wallet


- Select "Export Keys List" (top left box)
- Click "Export Keys List" (bottom box)


- Select the following options: "Address String", "Private Key (Plain Base58)","Include Unused (Address Pool)"... and make sure "Omit spaces in key data" is checked


You'll end up with a list of all the addresses and private keys displayed in the text box. The private keys will be labelled as "Plain Base58"

You can then go to your new Electrum wallet and use "Wallet -> Private Keys -> Sweep" to move the bitcoins into the new wallet that is backed up with the seed.

[Lucius]

HCP,very nice presentation as always-no doubt about it.But I wrote almost the same thing(only without pictures).Do you think I'm not well enough explained what OP should do?I see some others think just like that,based on merit they give for your post.Do not get me wrong,I am not for merit-but if I am bad poster for this part of forum I will move elsewhere.

[HCP]

Not at all... the only real comment I have is that what you posted might only work for Armory wallets that have been properly synced at least once.

If you don't use the "Include Unused (Address Pool)" option when exporting keys from an unsynced Armory wallet, it is quite possible it won't show all your addresses/private keys as the wallet doesn't know that they have been "used" and will ignore them (although this might only be an issue after restoring your wallet from a backup)... also, by using the "Address String" option, it is a lot easier to find specific private keys that relate to specific Bitcoin Addresses.

Otherwise, your post was pretty decent. I actually thought I had merited it? weird... must not have sent properly (I had some cloudflare issues with the forum earlier today)

[pooya87]

HCP,very nice presentation as always-no doubt about it.But I wrote almost the same thing(only without pictures).Do you think I'm not well enough explained what OP should do?I see some others think just like that,based on merit they give for your post.Do not get me wrong,I am not for merit-but if I am bad poster for this part of forum I will move elsewhere.

a bit off topic but i have to say since i was one of the "merit-givers" here!
the reason was simply because i tend to give merit to lower ranks over others. and also i think your comment is basically what i said above with addition of the option #1 which i didn't say.