[ANNOUNCE] Electrum - Lightweight Bitcoin Client

[IveBeenBit]

You will always have as many free addresses available as your gap limit. If you have a gap limit of 5 and you already gave out those five addresses but did not receive any money on them you will have to increase the gap limit to account for that. I never had to change the gap limit as I never have 5 outstanding payments at the same time. But I guess it could happen.

When a receiving address loses its virginity, Electrum automatically generates a fresh address and lists that one, correct? I just started using Electrum, so I'm not sure.

While I'm asking about it, if my initial wallet has a gap limit of 5 (default) and I restore the wallet from a seed, but if I set the gap limit to a higher number, I'll still be able to recover all the coins that were in my wallet?

[Anynomous]

Hello,
I freshly installed Electrum on a PC, but I don't need it on this computer anymore.
How can I uninstall it? I am on Fedora 17 and installed it "from scratch".

[btcven]

You will always have as many free addresses available as your gap limit. If you have a gap limit of 5 and you already gave out those five addresses but did not receive any money on them you will have to increase the gap limit to account for that. I never had to change the gap limit as I never have 5 outstanding payments at the same time. But I guess it could happen.

When a receiving address loses its virginity, Electrum automatically generates a fresh address and lists that one, correct? I just started using Electrum, so I'm not sure.

While I'm asking about it, if my initial wallet has a gap limit of 5 (default) and I restore the wallet from a seed, but if I set the gap limit to a higher number, I'll still be able to recover all the coins that were in my wallet?

Electrum generates addresses for you as you use the ones are in your wallet, always until the gap limit you've set. If you change that gap limit because you need more addresses to use simultaneously, then you'll need to remember the new gap limit you've set to be able to recover your wallet in the future.

[BkkCoins]

You will always have as many free addresses available as your gap limit. If you have a gap limit of 5 and you already gave out those five addresses but did not receive any money on them you will have to increase the gap limit to account for that. I never had to change the gap limit as I never have 5 outstanding payments at the same time. But I guess it could happen.

When a receiving address loses its virginity, Electrum automatically generates a fresh address and lists that one, correct? I just started using Electrum, so I'm not sure.

While I'm asking about it, if my initial wallet has a gap limit of 5 (default) and I restore the wallet from a seed, but if I set the gap limit to a higher number, I'll still be able to recover all the coins that were in my wallet?

Electrum generates addresses for you as you use the ones are in your wallet, always until the gap limit you've set. If you change that gap limit because you need more addresses to use simultaneously, then you'll need to remember the new gap limit you've set to be able to recover your wallet in the future.

The gap limit is also used in the algorithm for generating new addresses. I think if you change the gap limit you probably should start a new wallet. I'm not 100% sure of this or if it can be worked around but if you change it part way I wonder if the restore can work fully.

It seems to me that you may have to restore with your original gap limit, it won't find all your addresses though, so then change the gap limit on the restored wallet, and let it continue catching up the remaining addresses.

Thomas?

[btcven]

I understand that you can change it to have more unused receiving addresses in your wallet. But if you do change the gap limit you will need to remember the new gap limit you've just set to be able to restore your wallet in the future.

[BkkCoins]

I understand that you can change it to have more unused receiving addresses in your wallet. But if you do change the gap limit you will need to remember the new gap limit you've just set to be able to restore your wallet in the future.

I just checked again in the code and see the gap value is not used in the hash for generating new addresses so it should be fine to change the gap in an already used wallet. I thought it was when I looked before. My mistake earlier.

Also, it just occurred to me that since it's not used in the sequence generation you can use a higher gap during restore and it will still find your addresses. So if in doubt then enter a larger number then likely you used originally.

[ThomasV]

I understand that you can change it to have more unused receiving addresses in your wallet. But if you do change the gap limit you will need to remember the new gap limit you've just set to be able to restore your wallet in the future.

I just checked again in the code and see the gap value is not used in the hash for generating new addresses so it should be fine to change the gap in an already used wallet. I thought it was when I looked before. My mistake earlier.

Also, it just occurred to me that since it's not used in the sequence generation you can use a higher gap during restore and it will still find your addresses. So if in doubt then enter a larger number then likely you used originally.

exactly.
note that the window tells you what is the minimum value you can use to restore your wallet (1 in the screenshot), and the software will refuse a value that is lower than the minimum

[ThomasV]

Version 1.6.0 is available.

This version contains an important bugfix; the previous versions had a bug with the seed encryption, that could (in some rare cases) damage your wallet file.
Therefore I advise you to download the new version. (also, always you keep a paper copy of your wallet seed, it will protect you from that kind of bug.)

This version fully supports compressed keys (the new key format from bitcoind).
It is possible to import keys and delete them in the GUI

Various improvements have been added to the GUI (see changelog).
The 'import' command (command line) was renamed to 'importprivkey', to make it compatible with bitcoind

Windows and MacOS builds will be available soon.

[sacko]

Version 1.6.0 is available.

This version contains an important bugfix; the previous versions had a bug with the seed encryption, that could (in some rare cases) damage your wallet file.
Therefore I advise you to download the new version. (also, always you keep a paper copy of your wallet seed, it will protect you from that kind of bug.)

This version fully supports compressed keys (the new key format from bitcoind).
It is possible to import keys and delete them in the GUI

Various improvements have been added to the GUI (see changelog).
The 'import' command (command line) was renamed to 'importprivkey', to make it compatible with bitcoind

Windows and MacOS builds will be available soon.

Thanks a lot for the improvements 
I look forward to test the new windows build. Where is the changelog?

[slush]

Windows builds are ready on http://electrum.bitcoin.cz/download/electrum-1.6.0-setup.exe , Thomas just need to change link on Download page.

[flatfly]

Also my build (with console support) is ready - See link at http://electrum.org/download.html   (look for "flatfly")

[ThomasV]

I look forward to test the new windows build. Where is the changelog?

it's in RELEASE_NOTES ; but I now realize that it is not comprehensive

[gyverlb]

Is Electrum working again on Android 4.1? From what I understand, it used to work on Android but some Android update broke it (at least it doesn't work when I try it)?

Edit: for reference i tried 1.5.8 which seemed to have another bug (a reference to 1.5.7 instead of 1.5. but didn't work after patching the version.

[phelix]

I am trying to understand how electrum works: Is it correct that I can not create a new address at will but only by modifying the gap setting?

What do I do if want a new address to receive money for some top secret business? I do not usually reuse addresses and make sure not to link them.

You will always have as many free addresses available as your gap limit. If you have a gap limit of 5 and you already gave out those five addresses but did not receive any money on them you will have to increase the gap limit to account for that. I never had to change the gap limit as I never have 5 outstanding payments at the same time. But I guess it could happen.

It would be nice to write something like that in the gui: "more will be generated when these will be used up". It freaked me out that there was no "New address" Button. 

In some cases it could very well happen that unused addresses that can not be recycled would accumulate. What would I do then? Send a cent to them myself?

btw: thanks for the new version v1.6.0

[Tachikoma]

Windows and MacOS builds will be available soon.

Latest OS X release is available for download will be on the site as soon as Thomas merges the fork request

[IveBeenBit]

Thanks, guys for all your great work on this.

Can anyone tell me what a "master public key" is? There's a menu item that says "copy master public key to clipboard." What is that number good for?

[Tachikoma]

Thanks, guys for all your great work on this.

Can anyone tell me what a "master public key" is? There's a menu item that says "copy master public key to clipboard." What is that number good for?

Services like http://acceptbit.com/ can use the MPK to generate your public addresses. This way payments can automatically end up in your wallet without you having to give them out. It's completely save since the private keys can't be derived from the MPK.

[01BTC10]

I tried Electrum for the first time yesterday. I needed to sign a message with Bitcoin and didn't want to download the Blockchain. I was suprised how fast and effecient Electrum is. Good job!

[BkkCoins]

Thanks, guys for all your great work on this.

Can anyone tell me what a "master public key" is? There's a menu item that says "copy master public key to clipboard." What is that number good for?

Also, useful for creating a "watch only" wallet. So if you have an offline wallet tucked away to ensure no one can hack it (w/keylogger), then you can take the mpk to an online computer and restore as wallet without ability to send coins.

This is one way to run a web server with merchant ability. Having the watch only wallet on the server allows it to generate new addresses and receive payments without the ability to have them spent. Any refunds or "spends" would be done on another computer, with full wallet, not related to the web server.

For merchants, there is a script on github using Electrum to do this. I've also created a variant using only a mysql table rather than jsonrpc calls.

[ThomasV]

Electrum 1.6.1 is released. see http://electrum.org/download.html

Changelog:

== Core
* It is now possible to restore a wallet from MPK (this will create a watching-only wallet)
* A switch button allows to easily switch between Lite and Classic GUI.

== Classic GUI
* Seed and MPK help dialogs were rewritten
* Point of Sale mode: requested amounts can be expressed in other currencies and are converted to bitcoin.

== Lite GUI
* The receiving button was removed in favor of a menu item to keep it consistent with the history toggle.