Electrum long term viability

[tezza123]

Hi I am new to the crypto world, so excuse my naivety. 

I have chosen Electrum to use as my wallet as it seems well respected.
So I have setup an offline cold storage wallet on and old pc with xubuntu freshly installed.
I have successfully bought bitcoins at an ATM and added the funds to one of the public keys provided by Electrum.
I have high hopes for the future of bitcoin and I am now intending on just leaving them to hopefully grow for a few years.
I have stamped the seed words into two pieces of stainless steel and keep them at separate locations.
So now my question
  what happens if I get hit by a bus and become unconscious for a few years and awake to find the demise of Electrum for whatever reason.

I note that a number of wallets have become obsolete I am thinking Multibit which I used for my first venture into bitcoin years back.
I have seen stories of people with other wallet software struggling to regain their bitcoins.
Will the Electrum seed words suffice for me to restore my bitcoin easily into another wallet and are they a standard format or should I also take note of the private keys?

Thanks for reading.

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[LoyceMobile]

The word phrase is all you need, several tools can recreate the private keys.

What's important is to make sure you don't install a compromised version of Electrum, many scam sites try to trick people

[tezza123]

The word phrase is all you need, several tools can recreate the private keys.

What's important is to make sure you don't install a compromised version of Electrum, many scam sites try to trick people

Thanks for your quick response 

I wont be installing electrum any time soon. I am just leaving my xubuntu netbook and bitcoins offline for a few years and hopefully they will mature

[tezza123]

When I want to buy more bitcoin would i be best to send to the same public key provided by electrum or use one of the others it provided?

Or for added security would I be better having different wallets to spread my funds. Then also store seed words for them wallets  on steel plates?

In fact once I have setup more wallets and got the public keys to add funds. Do I really need to keep my xubuntu pc with electrum installed if I am not intending on spending any time soon. Would that not be safer?

Thanks again

[TryNinja]

When I want to buy more bitcoin would i be best to send to the same public key provided by electrum or use one of the others it provided?

The ideal is to always use the one shown in the "Receive" tab. It gives you 1 address for every new transaction. You can reuse the same address as many times as you want, but if it doesn't matter, choose the 1 per tx (for more privacy).

Or for added security would I be better having different wallets to spread my funds. Then also store seed words for them wallets  on steel plates?

I don't think that's necessary other if you don't want to mix a set of coins to the other (e.g you want a personal wallet and one for your online alias).

In fact once I have setup more wallets and got the public keys to add funds. Do I really need to keep my xubuntu pc with electrum installed if I am not intending on spending any time soon. Would that not be safer?

You don't have to. All you need is to keep your backup seed safe.

[Abdussamad]

The word phrase is all you need, several tools can recreate the private keys.

What's important is to make sure you don't install a compromised version of Electrum, many scam sites try to trick people

This is not true. Electrum does not abide by bip39 which is the standard other wallets support

@ tezza123 You will need the algorithm contained in the electrum source code to convert your seed to the individual address private keys. Backing up the private keys is not safe since electrum creates new ones as you use old addresses. You would have to keep backing up private keys each time you spent bitcoin. It would defeat the entire purpose of using a deterministic wallet.

If you're worried about electrum disappearing I suggest you archive a copy of the software as well.

[tezza123]

Thanks for your replies guys.

So it seems that;
-best to use a different public key provided by electrum for every time I want to deposit bitcoins
-just use a single wallet
-keep the seed words (very safe) not the private keys
-keep a copy of the electrum version I used to create my wallet

Maybe for long term storage Electrum is not the answer if it disappears or is compromised? Any other ideas? I dont fancy HW wallets anything that requires a webbrowser interface seems a security problem just waiting to happen. Also nothing to say that the companies providing HW wallets could disappear or be compromised themselves. Over the years I have bought USB Memory Sticks that have since failed.

So what is the answer if you want to invest in bitcoins and forget about them for a couple of years without having to worry about security and updating wallets?

[tezza123]

I suppose i should add im not looking at a masive investment in BC, but it will be a lot to me. At least  1BC or may be 2BC depending on how the price moves over the next few months while im buying them. Currently have 0.2bc bought from a BC atm and im looking to do the same for the next couple of months when i have the funds.

After that I just want to forget about them without having to worry about security and updates. Also happy to get rid of the clean xubuntu machine and electrum wallet for a couple of years. That way I wont be tempted to spend any bc. However in a couple of years I dont want to find electrum is defunct and that it is very difficult or even impossible to convert my electrum seed words to import my bc into another wallet

[HCP]

@ tezza123 You will need the algorithm contained in the electrum source code to convert your seed to the individual address private keys.

As far as I can tell the algorithm itself isn't actually different to "BIP39" when converting from mnemonic to seed.

The only difference I can find with Electrum is the calculation of the checksum when going from seed -> mnemonic. But for mnemonic -> seed you can theoretically ignore as it is just a "check" and makes no difference to the derived value of your seed... and "electrum" is used as the default passphrase instead of "mnemonic"... but the algorithm itself would appear to be identical.

It is why my "hack" of the Ian Coleman Mnemonic Code Converter works... it simply ignores the checksum (not really safe I know, but it is a "hack" ) and uses the "electrum" default passphrase, all other code is unchanged.


One of these days, I'll get around to implementing the checksum calculation

So what is the answer if you want to invest in bitcoins and forget about them for a couple of years without having to worry about security and updating wallets?

Paper wallets?

[nc50lc]

-snip-

So what is the answer if you want to invest in bitcoins and forget about them for a couple of years without having to worry about security and updating wallets?

Paper wallets?

@tezza123 Paper wallet: All you have to do is to pick one Private key and address pair from any offline-generated wallet or generate it yourself using tools/math, then discard the SEED if you picked the wallet method.
Stamp the PrvKey+Address+(optional Public key) to a durable material and keep it safe.

All you have to do to fund it is to send the Bitcoins to that address (you can monitor the balance by typing the address to any online blockexplorer).

When I want to buy more bitcoin would i be best to send to the same public key provided by electrum or use one of the others it provided?

Sending more than one BTC transaction to your offline storage won't pose a risk to your privacy since it wont be used for a long time or displayed online. Unless you're planning to use it frequently.
Reusing address will be an issue for a "Hot wallet" with a few "public" addresses.

[tezza123]

-snip-

So what is the answer if you want to invest in bitcoins and forget about them for a couple of years without having to worry about security and updating wallets?

Paper wallets?

@tezza123 Paper wallet: All you have to do is to pick one Private key and address pair from any offline-generated wallet or generate it yourself using tools/math, then discard the SEED if you picked the wallet method.
Stamp the PrvKey+Address+(optional Public key) to a durable material and keep it safe.

All you have to do to fund it is to send the Bitcoins to that address (you can monitor the balance by typing the address to any online blockexplorer).

When I want to buy more bitcoin would i be best to send to the same public key provided by electrum or use one of the others it provided?

Sending more than one BTC transaction to your offline storage won't pose a risk to your privacy since it wont be used for a long time or displayed online. Unless you're planning to use it frequently.
Reusing address will be an issue for a "Hot wallet" with a few "public" addresses.

Sounds the way to go thanks. When you say

All you have to do is to pick one Private key and address pair from any offline-generated wallet or generate it yourself using tools/math, then discard the SEED if you picked the wallet method.

That is what I have done so far with Electrum. I picked the first receiving address (I assume the public key) and bought BC from an ATM sending to that address. Then went online with my freshly installed xubuntu machine and confirmed the BC was in my wallet.

So what you are saying is over the next few months as I want to buy more BC I should just use the same receiving address to buy BC from the ATM and view the balance of it on blockexplorer website. Therefore I can destroy my xubuntu installation along with my Electrum wallet.

Before destroying it though I need to get the private key for this receiving address from Electrum. Then I can discard the seed words and just stamp the private key and the receiving address (I assume the public key) into my stainless plate. When you say

Stamp the PrvKey+Address+(optional Public key) to a durable material and keep it safe.

I understand what PrvKey is and how to get it, but not sure about 'Address+(optional Public key)' is the receiving address and Public Key not the same thing?

When I get the private key from Electrum using the above method is it in a standard format which can be easily used at a much later date with other wallets? Electrum shows mine begin with p2pkh: so I am guessing that is the format it is being displayed to me in?

Thanks again

[pooya87]

address is not exactly public key, and you don't need to store your public key. i don't want to confuse you with the technical background of bitcoin (i can explain more if you like) but know that public key is the public part of the "key pair" that is safe to share but you don't need to do that. it is derived from private key then it is hashed and then it is encoded so that you see a human readable string which you call your address.
all you need to store is your private key (keep secret) and your address (can share so that you can receive bitcoin)

as for "p2pkh:" it is specific to Electrum, it is telling you what type of address your private key links to. as long as you are also storing your address, you should know this and even if it was unclear from address (like if it was starting with 3) or if you didn't have your address anymore you could still derive all possible addresses from your private key and see which one is the correct one.
by the way"p2pkh:" is saying it is a "Pay To Pubkey Hash" or in other words you have an address that starts with `1`

[nc50lc]

-snip-

Uh, mostly correct but as pooya said, public key isn't the same as the address.
I've only added "+(optional Public key)" because most paper wallets have a public key included but in reality, you only need the address' private key to spend it.
It's up to you to include it.

Next, you don't need to connect the "freshly installed xubuntu PC" to the internet to confirm the bitcoin balance.
If you really need to see it "received" to electrum, just create a new "watch-only wallet" to an online machine by either importing the whole wallet's Master Public key or your picked address.

By connecting the source wallet to the net, it can't be called a "cold storage" anymore.
Just really-really make sure that the private key and the address are the correct pair.

[Abdussamad]

@ tezza123 You will need the algorithm contained in the electrum source code to convert your seed to the individual address private keys.

As far as I can tell the algorithm itself isn't actually different to "BIP39" when converting from mnemonic to seed.
....
and "electrum" is used as the default passphrase instead of "mnemonic"... but the algorithm itself would appear to be identical.

So it is a little different Then there's the derivation path which varies based on script type and there is the process of generating new addresses based on which addresses have already been used. All in all it's a lot easier for a lay person if they simply archive the software or better yet understand that electrum isn't going to just disappear and their fears are ungrounded.

[tezza123]

Thanks everyone for your input you been really helpful and youre obviously very knowledgeable.
I am feeling much better now and know my BC will be quite secure.
I intend to learn more and will follow the forum closely.
My bitcoin journey begins here!
Good luck to you all

[DireWolfM14]

Pardon my lack of technical knowledge, but wouldn't bitcoin core be able to import any HD wallet seed generated by Electrum? 

Seems like as long as bitcoin is around there will be some way of accessing your wallet.  Worst case scenario you'll have to archive the last version of Electrum if the dev team gives up on it.

[nc50lc]

[1] Pardon my lack of technical knowledge, but wouldn't bitcoin core be able to import any HD wallet seed generated by Electrum?  

[2] Seems like as long as bitcoin is around there will be some way of accessing your wallet.  [3] Worst case scenario you'll have to archive the last version of Electrum if the dev team gives up on it.

• [1] No, Electrum does use BIP39 word list but it doesn't generate the SEED the same way as standard BIP39 wallets; thus, it's not compatible.
• [2] Yes, there are tools that can be used to extract the Mater Private key or List of Private keys of Electrum's SEED like HCP's simple "hacked" version of iancoleman.io.
  Or if he picked the Paper Wallet as cold storage, it doesn't matter which wallet he's planning to use in the future as long long as it supports Sweep or Import Private key.
• [3] If ever, I will be useful for natively exporting the keys but can't be used to send out since if the development and support had ended, "good" servers might vanish as well (but that's a far-fetched scenario).

[DireWolfM14]

• [3] If ever, I will be useful for natively exporting the keys but can't be used to send out since if the development and support had ended, "good" servers might vanish as well (but that's a far-fetched scenario).

I didn't think about that, very good point.  And thanks for the explanation on the other points as well.

Another question, if I may paint a hypothetical;  If (god forbid) Electrum dev team gave up, and eventually servers stopped supporting the software, one could still install a version of Electrum which is compatible with his seed phrase and extract the private keys, correct?

[pooya87]

• [3] If ever, I will be useful for natively exporting the keys but can't be used to send out since if the development and support had ended, "good" servers might vanish as well (but that's a far-fetched scenario).

I didn't think about that, very good point.  And thanks for the explanation on the other points as well.

Another question, if I may paint a hypothetical;  If (god forbid) Electrum dev team gave up, and eventually servers stopped supporting the software, one could still install a version of Electrum which is compatible with his seed phrase and extract the private keys, correct?[/list]

that is correct because servers have nothing to do with your seed and deriving private keys from your seed. everything is happening inside your software which will be usable forever and even if you couldn't or didn't want to use the Electrum version you could always ask someone who is familiar with Electrum code to write you a simple script that you then run offline to generate your keys from your seed. (it is an easy thing to write). that is the beauty of open source applications.
then you can use the private keys (which are universal and work in any bitcoin implementation) to import in another wallet and have access to your funds.

[tezza123]

• [3] If ever, I will be useful for natively exporting the keys but can't be used to send out since if the development and support had ended, "good" servers might vanish as well (but that's a far-fetched scenario).

I didn't think about that, very good point.  And thanks for the explanation on the other points as well.

Another question, if I may paint a hypothetical;  If (god forbid) Electrum dev team gave up, and eventually servers stopped supporting the software, one could still install a version of Electrum which is compatible with his seed phrase and extract the private keys, correct?[/list]

that is correct because servers have nothing to do with your seed and deriving private keys from your seed. everything is happening inside your software which will be usable forever and even if you couldn't or didn't want to use the Electrum version you could always ask someone who is familiar with Electrum code to write you a simple script that you then run offline to generate your keys from your seed. (it is an easy thing to write). that is the beauty of open source applications.
then you can use the private keys (which are universal and work in any bitcoin implementation) to import in another wallet and have access to your funds.

You would also need to make sure that the version of Electrum was still compatible with the OS in the future. So I assume you would need the current version of Electrum and the OS to be on the safe side or a working virtual machine with the correct version of the OS ?