Electrum and Ledger Nano S - BTC legacy addresses

[rory4ever]

Hi,

So I have a fairly old Ledger Nano S and since the official ledger live address is not able to find every BTC address I downloaded the latest version of Electrum wallet (I run Ubuntu 18.04)

Installation went fine and I was able to connect to my Ledger without any problem.
I was able to select 3 types of BTC addresses, legacy, segwit and native segwit. The latter two I already know my public BTC addresses of but I want to know the legacy public address. I select "legacy" and it shows me 1 legacy (1xxxxxx address) address so that's cool, apparantly it's empty. Can I be assured that Electrum is able to find all BTC legacy addresses on my Ledger Nano S? Many thanks. I suspect I never sent BTC to this device tho so it could make sense that nothing is showing, I just need to be certain without crawling through every single transaction starting from the exchange where I bought my BTC. Thanks!

[Rath_]

Can I be assured that Electrum is able to find all BTC legacy addresses on my Ledger Nano S?

Yes, Electrum will be able to find all of them. However, if you created new accounts in the Ledger Live or the Chrome app before, you will have to create a new wallet and modify the derivation path slightly for each account separately. If you want to see a list of about 20 addresses then go to 'View -> Show Addresses' and you should see a new tab called 'Addresses'. Since there is nothing on your default account (I assume that there is no transaction history), I don't think if there is any point in checking other accounts.

Also, don't use legacy addresses. Nested SegWit addresses (starting with 3) ensure full compatibility while letting you save on fees. Not as much as if you were using native SegWit (bc1...) but it is not supported by some exchanges and services yet.

[o_e_l_e_o]

you will have to create a new wallet and modify the derivation path slightly for each account separately

To elaborate on this, once you have created a new Electrum wallet and selected "Standard Wallet" followed by "Use a hardware device", you would select "legacy (p2pkh)", and change the derivation path from m/44'/0'/0' to m/44'/0'/1' to check your second account, m/44'/0'/2' to check your third account, and so forth.

Can I be assured that Electrum is able to find all BTC legacy addresses on my Ledger Nano S?

Yes, provided you never used a passphrase with your Nano S? You should remember if you did, it's a fairly lengthy process to set it up (as described here: https://support.ledger.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005214529-Advanced-passphrase-security). If you did, then you will need to input it in to your Nano S to check any addresses hidden behind it.

[rory4ever]

Can I be assured that Electrum is able to find all BTC legacy addresses on my Ledger Nano S?

Yes, Electrum will be able to find all of them. However, if you created new accounts in the Ledger Live or the Chrome app before, you will have to create a new wallet and modify the derivation path slightly for each account separately. If you want to see a list of about 20 addresses then go to 'View -> Show Addresses' and you should see a new tab called 'Addresses'. Since there is nothing on your default account (I assume that there is no transaction history), I don't think if there is any point in checking other accounts.

Also, don't use legacy addresses. Nested SegWit addresses (starting with 3) ensure full compatibility while letting you save on fees. Not as much as if you were using native SegWit (bc1...) but it is not supported by some exchanges and services yet.

Thanks for the info! Ok so I played a bit with that checked a lot of legacy addresses but no balances or history on them either.
I am aware of better not use legacy addresses but I was new to crypto back in early 2018 and back then I had the option to use legacy or segwit and I wasn't sure and didn't read into it and so I chose legacy IIRC. It's still not very user-friendly of not being able to directly see all used addresses and transaction info of the device when you are in doubt if you send btc to it or not, or legacy or not etc. etc. At least with Electrum I can check this but Ledger should take care of that IMO. Again, many thanks

[rory4ever]

you will have to create a new wallet and modify the derivation path slightly for each account separately

To elaborate on this, once you have created a new Electrum wallet and selected "Standard Wallet" followed by "Use a hardware device", you would select "legacy (p2pkh)", and change the derivation path from m/44'/0'/0' to m/44'/0'/1' to check your second account, m/44'/0'/2' to check your third account, and so forth.

Can I be assured that Electrum is able to find all BTC legacy addresses on my Ledger Nano S?

Yes, provided you never used a passphrase with your Nano S? You should remember if you did, it's a fairly lengthy process to set it up (as described here: https://support.ledger.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005214529-Advanced-passphrase-security). If you did, then you will need to input it in to your Nano S to check any addresses hidden behind it.

Many thanks for the elaboration
I changed the derivation path from m/44'/0'/0' up to /5' and that showed a LOT of legacy addresses but all with no balance unfortunately. I can still check for more but if I see it right I can presume that I never send any BTC to this ledger? (I already checked segwit and native segwit addresses) At least that would open another door for me to hopefully get my BTC back.

[Rath_]

I can still check for more but if I see it right I can presume that I never send any BTC to this ledger?

There is no point in checking more accounts. As far as I remember, Ledger does not allow to create new accounts if the previous ones didn't receive any coins (at least that's how it worked in the Chrome extension). Did you use a passphrase by any chance? If not then it looks like you didn't send any coins to this device.

[rory4ever]

I can still check for more but if I see it right I can presume that I never send any BTC to this ledger?

There is no point in checking more accounts. As far as I remember, Ledger does not allow to create new accounts if the previous ones didn't receive any coins (at least that's how it worked in the Chrome extension). Did you use a passphrase by any chance? If not then it looks like you didn't send any coins to this device.

Yes, you are right. Do you know by chance if Ledger used some sort of default btc legacy address? (in derivation path 0') and if Electrum then showing that default address or addresses in derivation path 0' ?

[Rath_]

Do you know by chance if Ledger used some sort of default btc legacy address? (in derivation path 0') and if Electrum then showing that default address or addresses in derivation path 0' ?

Addresses generated by Electrum should be exactly the same as the ones in the Ledger Live. The order of the addresses should also match. If there were any coins in your wallet, you would have already seen them.

[bitmover]

Do you know by chance if Ledger used some sort of default btc legacy address? (in derivation path 0') and if Electrum then showing that default address or addresses in derivation path 0' ?

Addresses generated by Electrum should be exactly the same as the ones in the Ledger Live. The order of the addresses should also match.

I think it is best to install ledger live and check if your balance in ledger live software matches with the balance in Electrum.
This way you can be sure you are not ignoring some derivation path which may have balances.

[Abdussamad]

- Your ledger wallet has unlimited addresses. You could spend your entire life deriving addresses and not make a dent.

- No one knows about a particular address unless you told them about it and asked them to send money to it.

- If you're using ledger with electrum then it'll only care about the particular HD account and script type you told it to use during the wallet setup. p2sh-segwit, p2pkh (legacy), p2wpkh are all different script types. So unless you create a legacy script type wallet it won't know about it.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I can still check for more but if I see it right I can presume that I never send any BTC to this ledger?

The advice I gave regarding changing the derivation path can also apply to both nested SegWit and native SegWit addresses. For nested SegWit, try m/49'/0'/1', m/49'/0'/2', and so forth, and for native Segwit, try m/84'/0'/1', m/84'/0'/2', and so forth.

As far as I remember, Ledger does not allow to create new accounts if the previous ones didn't receive any coins (at least that's how it worked in the Chrome extension).

This is true of Ledger Live as well.

If you check the first 5 or so accounts each of legacy, nested SegWit, and native SegWit, and find no transaction history, then there is pretty much no point in checking further.

[Lucius]

I have to admit, it's weird that someone has a Ledger Nano S and never used it for any BTC transaction, and even not completely sure if he is send any coins to this device. This Ledger was apparently collecting dust, or it has been used exclusively for altcoins.

The only option left to check is that BTC is not sent to Ledger change address. This was possible in time when Chrome app was main UI for Nano S, but such transaction will not be displayed in Ledger Live. There is way around in Electrum which increase change address gap limit, just copy paste this code in console, and number you pick will be number of created change address.

Code:

for i in range(0, 50): wallet.create_new_address(True)

[rory4ever]

I have to admit, it's weird that someone has a Ledger Nano S and never used it for any BTC transaction, and even not completely sure if he is send any coins to this device. This Ledger was apparently collecting dust, or it has been used exclusively for altcoins.

The only option left to check is that BTC is not sent to Ledger change address. This was possible in time when Chrome app was main UI for Nano S, but such transaction will not be displayed in Ledger Live. There is way around in Electrum which increase change address gap limit, just copy paste this code in console, and number you pick will be number of created change address.

Code:

for i in range(0, 50): wallet.create_new_address(True)

Yes and I have to admit that it's kinda weird that I don't know anymore. Yes I used it exclusively for altcoins back then, and after a few months I bought another Nano S and moved some funds from the old Nano to the new one. Now I have a nano X and I want all my funds possibly existing on both my Nano S's to be moved to the Nano X. I will also double-check my exchange withdrawal history to see where it went but regarding BTC addresses it is sometimes quite difficult to track your funds because most of the time it is a part of a large transaction or it gets divided etc etc.

Thanks for the option to increase the change address gap limit, will definitely try that

[Lucius]

Yes and I have to admit that it's kinda weird that I don't know anymore. Yes I used it exclusively for altcoins back then, and after a few months I bought another Nano S and moved some funds from the old Nano to the new one.

Thanks for the option to increase the change address gap limit, will definitely try that

Then you probably move everything from old Nano S to new one, and since you try all possible address combinations and derivation paths it can be concluded that the old Nano S is completely empty, at least there are no private keys on it which control BTC.

Regarding gap limits, it can not hurt to check this, but if you did not play with Sign Message option in Ledger Chrome app, you probably won't find anything. I do just that wrong move when I get my Nano S, and I think I need to create 150 or maybe 200 change address to get access to my BTC.