Electrum error: not enough Credit

[itsmimi]

Hi there,

Just today i bought my first bitcoins and was about to send them on - sadly it won't let me, the error says that the Credit is too low.
It's about 20Euros in BTC I've got in my Electrum wallet, it can't be that the amount is stuck there and I'm unable to transfer,right?
I already tried setting the transaction fees to manual, but nothing will  do.

Anybody out there who can help?

[AB de Royse777]

Hi there,

Just today i bought my first bitcoins and was about to send them on - sadly it won't let me, the error says that the Credit is too low.
It's about 20Euros in BTC I've got in my Electrum wallet, it can't be that the amount is stuck there and I'm unable to transfer,right?
I already tried setting the transaction fees to manual, but nothing will  do.

Anybody out there who can help?

Are you sure that your funds are in an Electrum wallet? Do you have the seed (Do not share it to anyone) or what was the process to create this wallet?

I doubt it's an Electrum wallet.

[Rath_]

It's about 20Euros in BTC I've got in my Electrum wallet, it can't be that the amount is stuck there and I'm unable to transfer,right?

Can you see the 'Max' button next to the 'Amount'? Once you click it, you should be able to adjust the fee manually. 'Credit is too low' doesn't sound like Electrum error.

[mocacinno]

I've never seen this error message... Some things do come to mind:

• Did you setup 2fa? If you did, you should have been shown a popup telling you that 2fa is provided by a thirth party and it is a PAYING option... I myself have never used 2fa within electrum, so i have no idear whitch error message is shown if you don't have enough funds to pay the 2fa fee
• Are you sure you downloaded electrum from the official site?
• Did you check electrum's signature?
• Are you running the latest version?
• Are you connected to a node (green button in the right bottom corner)
• Are you sure the transaction funding your wallet is confirmed?
• Are you sure the problem is spending from electrum? It's not the person that sold you the btc that is telling you he cannot fund your address (for example due to scammy behaviour on their side)

[jackg]

Can you send us a screenshot of what the wallet says?

Have you already tried sending or are you waiting to send? If it's sent is the transaction unconfirmed and you want to speed it up?

@moc I expect its the error message on the bottom left that says "not enough funds"?

[bob123]

You are right with the fact, that it's not possible that you can't send them.

Chances are high that you created a 2FA wallet. With this, you are using a 3rd party to co-sign your transactions (they can't steal your funds).
TrustedCoin charges 0.0005 BTC per transaction and you need to buy credits for 20 iirc. That would be 0.01 BTC additional fee for your 1st transaction (with credits for the next 19 co-signed tx's).

Since your wallet cointains 20€, which is roughly 0.002BTC, that's probably the issue.
A lot of people had the same problem once setting up a 2FA wallet.

Can you confirm whether you have set up a 2FA wallet ?

[Abdussamad]

you can tell whether you have a 2fa wallet or not via wallet menu > information. wallet type listed there should be illuminating.

if it's a 2fa wallet then restoring from seed should give you the option to disable 2fa protection. then you won't have to pay trusted coin to cosign your transactions.

to restore from seed just go to file > new/restore, enter a unique filename, click next, choose i already have a seed and follow on-screen instructions for the rest. when asked whether you want to keep 2fa protection be sure to choose not to.

[HCP]

Disclaimer: this is based on a post about 2fa I remember from probably hcp a year or so ago so it might not be completely accurate anymore if someone could confirm this?

It is indeed inaccurate... if you have the seed mnemonic for your 2FA wallet you can do exactly as described by Abdussamad. Restore from seed and select "Disable" when asked if you want to keep 2FA. Essentially, the 2FA seed mnemonic encodes 2 of the 3 private keys necessary to recreate the 2-of-3 multisig with full spending ability, so that you don't need to utilise TrustedCoin.

Basically with an Electum 2FA wallet you have a 2-of-3 MultiSig arranged as:
Private Key #1 - Derived from your 2FA wallet seed mnemonic and stored in wallet file
Private Key #2 - Derived from your 2FA wallet seed mnemonic but not stored in wallet file
Private Key #3 - Held by TrustedCoin

NOTE: Unlike a "standard" Electrum wallet, the seed mnemonic itself is not stored in a 2FA wallet file

When you want to send, you sign with Private Key #1 from your wallet and then send the partially signed transaction to TrustedCoin to sign with Private Key #3 that they are holding (after you complete the 2FA requirements of course ).


The recovery method is to restore using your 2FA seed mnemonic, and selecting "Disable" when asked if you want to keep 2FA:


Then you will get a wallet that has private keys #1 and #2 included... satisfying the 2-of-3 requirement and allowing you to spend coins without needing to send to TrustedCoin and needing the Google Authenticator code etc.


@jackg the only reason you'd need to be using private keys and manually creating 2-of-3 wallets is when you're trying to recover "forkcoins" from Electrum 2FA wallets... that is about the only reason I can think of that you'd need to start messing about with private keys as opposed to simply restoring from seed.

[khaled0111]

@jackg, what Abdussamad said is correct. When you create a 2fa wallet, you will get a seed that allows you to restore the wallet but he missed to say that you have to specify the type:

Restoring from seed
Even if TrustedCoin is compromised or taken offline, your coins are secure as long as you still have the seed of your wallet. Your seed contains two master private keys in a 2-of-3 security scheme. In addition, the third master public key can be derived from your seed, ensuring that your wallet addresses can be restored. In order to restore your wallet from seed, select “wallet with two factor authentication”, as this tells Electrum to use this special variety of seed for restoring your wallet.

http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/2fa.html

[Lucius]

Haven't used 2fa but I'm pretty sure you get two seeds?

This is the first time someone has come up with something like this, why should one wallet (in this case Electrum) give user two seeds when 2FA wallet is created?

We are often surprised how some newbies have trouble understanding seemingly simple things, but such posts are only make confusion and require corrections from members like HCP or Abdussamad.


jackg, my advice to you is, more sleep and less falling into trance

[jackg]

Does the one seed store 2 cosigners then? I have an empty 2fa wallet and assume one is the trusted coin xprv and 2 are generated from the seed mnemonic or am I completely wrong.

jackg, my advice to you is, more sleep and less falling into trance

Hmmm interesting reference there...

Edit: deleted previous post so it doesn't confuse
Also thanks Lauda

[Lauda]

Does the one seed store 2 cosigners then?

Still asking about 2FA?

Restoring from seed
Even if TrustedCoin is compromised or taken offline, your coins are secure as long as you still have the seed of your wallet. Your seed contains two master private keys in a 2-of-3 security scheme. In addition, the third master public key can be derived from your seed, ensuring that your wallet addresses can be restored. In order to restore your wallet from seed, select “wallet with two factor authentication”, as this tells Electrum to use this special variety of seed for restoring your wallet.

http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/2fa.html

[Abdussamad]

@jackg, what Abdussamad said is correct. When you create a 2fa wallet, you will get a seed that allows you to restore the wallet but he missed to say that you have to specify the type:

Restoring from seed
Even if TrustedCoin is compromised or taken offline, your coins are secure as long as you still have the seed of your wallet. Your seed contains two master private keys in a 2-of-3 security scheme. In addition, the third master public key can be derived from your seed, ensuring that your wallet addresses can be restored. In order to restore your wallet from seed, select “wallet with two factor authentication”, as this tells Electrum to use this special variety of seed for restoring your wallet.

http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/2fa.html

This is no longer necessary since the seed mnemonic encodes the wallet type so as soon as you enter the seed mnemonic electrum will automatically detect it as a 2fa wallet.

[Abdussamad]

Does the one seed store 2 cosigners then? I have an empty 2fa wallet and assume one is the trusted coin xprv and 2 are generated from the seed mnemonic or am I completely wrong.

Yep 2 of the cosigners' xprvs are derived from the seed. There's a detailed explanation here: https://bitcoinelectrum.com/frequently-asked-questions/#how-does-a-2fa-wallet-work