[ANNOUNCE] Electrum - Lightweight Bitcoin Client

[SebastianJu]

Personally, I'd never give anyone any of my private keys unless they were from an isolated wallet I didn't use for any other purpose (which I'd then consider compromised for all intents and purposes).

Why do you consider it a risk to give out a single private key for a single address when you say its not risking the other addresses? Electrum wont use an already used addres out of its own. And new addresses should be safe.

"Risk" is exactly the right word. As I said, once someone has a single private key, they only need to get your master public key to compromise the rest of your wallet. Your master public key is stored in you wallet file unencrypted, so it's not that hard to get.

If you're comfortable there's no way an adversary could gain access to your master public key, then you're probably safe, but it remains risky....

(Note that if you decide to take this risk and give out a single private key, there's no additional risk to giving out more private keys to the same adversary.)

Oo Why is electrum storing the master public key unencrypted? I would assume that, when i encrypt electrum, that everything is encrypted that could mean a risk.

I anyway planned to change my wallets, it can be done fast with electrum so i think ill do so instantly. I dont think there is a big risk that someone will get it... my wallets are practically empty anyway.

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[btchris]

Oo Why is electrum storing the master public key unencrypted? I would assume that, when i encrypt electrum, that everything is encrypted that could mean a risk.

It's an ease-of-use trade-off. Because it's unencrypted, you don't need to type in your password if all you want to do is check your balance or generate a new receive address. (Of course, all of your private keys are encrypted when you set a password.)

[TheButterZone]

I would prefer the MPK to be encrypted and a password prompt shown upon opening Electrum. I think Mycelium does this now?

[SebastianJu]

I would prefer the MPK to be encrypted and a password prompt shown upon opening Electrum. I think Mycelium does this now?

I would second that. I never thought about that till now. My wallet is private and when its encrypted then it should mean no one can see inside, except me. At the moment everyone who has access to my pc, which is in fact no one but still, can take a look in my wallet. Why should he be able to do so? No reason to allow that.

It would even be easier. I mean, its somewhat annoying that i have to put my password in for every single transaction. I see that it makes sense in order to have your wallet protected when youre not on your pc, but i would like to have some more control about that.

For example setting a timeout of "After 1 Minute of inactivity with electrum (no clicks or anything done in it) hide the wallet and ask for the pass again".

This way no one could look at my addresses and when i would need to send a couple transactions then i would be able to do so without having to enter the pass again and again.

[TheButterZone]

I would prefer the MPK to be encrypted and a password prompt shown upon opening Electrum. I think Mycelium does this now?

I would second that. I never thought about that till now. My wallet is private and when its encrypted then it should mean no one can see inside, except me. At the moment everyone who has access to my pc, which is in fact no one but still, can take a look in my wallet. Why should he be able to do so? No reason to allow that.

It would even be easier. I mean, its somewhat annoying that i have to put my password in for every single transaction. I see that it makes sense in order to have your wallet protected when youre not on your pc, but i would like to have some more control about that.

For example setting a timeout of "After 1 Minute of inactivity with electrum (no clicks or anything done in it) hide the wallet and ask for the pass again".

This way no one could look at my addresses and when i would need to send a couple transactions then i would be able to do so without having to enter the pass again and again.

Concur.

[simpic]

I send a payment and i get this error:

global name 'paymentrequest_pb2' is not defined

The payment has been sent anyway, but what does that error mean?
I'm using Electrum 2.1.1

[btchris]

I send a payment and i get this error:

global name 'paymentrequest_pb2' is not defined

The payment has been sent anyway, but what does that error mean?
I'm using Electrum 2.1.1

It appears to be a bug. I opened an issue here: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/1312

Edit: it's just been fixed, and should make it into the next release (after 2.3.2).

[BillyBobZorton]

If BIP47 gets accepted, will the practice of sharing MPK be deprecated by it?
I have never used Electrum but I was planing to do so because I like the idea of increased privacy of sharing a MPK, but i've read that sharing a MPK has its risks.. doesn't BIP47 do what HD wallets tries to achieve (avoiding that the sender can know where he is paying to) but better?

[TheButterZone]

Can there be a feature added to alert that you're using an outdated stable version of Electrum? OSX client didn't the last couple of versions.

[JWU42]

Can there be a feature added to alert that you're using an outdated stable version of Electrum?

In windows there is a notice of a new version.  Sadly, it hasn't been updated and still says New version available: 2.2 (where 2.3.2 is current).

[ThomasV]

In windows there is a notice of a new version.  Sadly, it hasn't been updated and still says New version available: 2.2 (where 2.3.2 is current).

I just updated it, thanks.

[peligro]

Why is the new electrum enforce a minimum fee of 0.00001BTC? Even when setting the fee settings to zero. So why is that? Previous versions allowed to send zero fee transactions and those transaction went through with the same speed practically.

When a fee isnt sufficient then the nodes will say something, resulting in an error message from electrum. So this should be enough. Why the not changeable minimumfee now?

[mmortal03]

I would prefer the MPK to be encrypted and a password prompt shown upon opening Electrum. I think Mycelium does this now?

I third this, as an option in the GUI to password protect on opening, and encrypting of the MPK.

Also, there should be an option to enable a password on opening Electrum for a Trezor wallet, especially when it's watch only. When it's not watch only (i.e. the Trezor is plugged in) the Trezor requires its PIN, so an additional password wouldn't be as necessary, but it may still be necessary for decryption of the MPK, or can having the Trezor plugged in bypass this?

[mmortal03]

Why is the new electrum enforce a minimum fee of 0.00001BTC? Even when setting the fee settings to zero. So why is that? Previous versions allowed to send zero fee transactions and those transaction went through with the same speed practically.

When a fee isnt sufficient then the nodes will say something, resulting in an error message from electrum. So this should be enough. Why the not changeable minimumfee now?

If this is the case, it's also problem for me, because I specifically started using Electrum with my Trezor to be able to make no-fee transactions when the coins are sufficiently old.

[JWU42]

In windows there is a notice of a new version.  Sadly, it hasn't been updated and still says New version available: 2.2 (where 2.3.2 is current).

I just updated it, thanks.

Thanks Thomas!

[JWU42]

Why is the new electrum enforce a minimum fee of 0.00001BTC?

By "new electrum" do you mean 2.3.2?

I am still on 2.0.4 and not an issue for me 

[simpic]

I send a payment and i get this error:

global name 'paymentrequest_pb2' is not defined

The payment has been sent anyway, but what does that error mean?
I'm using Electrum 2.1.1

It appears to be a bug. I opened an issue here: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/1312

Edit: it's just been fixed, and should make it into the next release (after 2.3.2).

Thank you so much!

[peligro]

Why is the new electrum enforce a minimum fee of 0.00001BTC?

By "new electrum" do you mean 2.3.2?

I am still on 2.0.4 and not an issue for me 

I believe i switched because the new electrum is WAY faster. When you have a certain numbers of transactions or/and addresses then the older electrum versions tend to block you from working with them alot. It was no fun using them anymore. So im bound to use them. Its not that the fee is so costly that i cant pay it. But still. I prefer to enter my value and not to take care about how many 9 i have to put in order to pay the fee at the end.

I dont know why it was implemented since the server would not accept a transaction with too few fees anyway. So that i could raise it.

So @developer i hope zero fee will come back.

[SebastianJu]

Something i always found is confusing is that electrum shows outgoing coins as a black line and incoming coins as a grey line. Normally in financials being in the black means being positive and being in the red means negative. Here the black line is negative and the weak grey is positive.

I would prefer switching that and turning grey into red. That would be way more easy to read.

[SebastianJu]

I only now realized that its even more confusing. I found a transaction that came in and was black. Then it went out and was black too.

The only difference i can see with the ongoing transaction is that the actual received amount is smaller as the amount that went from the source address to the change address of the senders wallet.

Thats really confusing.