How to recover Ledger to other online wallet?

[SiverSurfer]

Hi,

I want to use my recovery phrase and move my cryptos into a new computer wallet.

Since I have not done this before please bear with me, since I have both bitcoins and ETH in my ledger, what if I use my recovery phrase for a bitcoin-only wallet like Electrum, what happens to my Ethereum, or I can actually use the same recovery phrase on a ETH-only wallet like MEW and also get my ETH.

Thanks!

PS: I know it's better to use a hardware wallet, but my intended question is really what happens if I perform my recovery on a  bitcoin-only wallet, what happens to other coins such at ETH.

[TryNinja]

Yes, you can. You can, for example, use Iancoleman's BIP39 tool to get the private-key of your address and manage it from MEW.

Most, if not all coins, can actually be recovered that way.

[SiverSurfer]

Yes, you can. You can, for example, use Iancoleman's BIP39 tool to get the private-key of your address and manage it from MEW.

Most, if not all coins, can actually be recovered that way.

That's very helpful, thanks!

The website is really advanced level stuff, do I just enter my mnemonics (seed phrase) in sequence into the "BIP39 Mnemonic" column. What about "BIP39 seed" column, what's that for?

[TryNinja]

That's very helpful, thanks!

The website is really advanced level stuff, do I just enter my mnemonics (seed phrase) in sequence into the "BIP39 Mnemonic" column. What about "BIP39 seed" column, what's that for?

Yeah, you don't actually write anything in the "BIP39 seed" field. Usually you just put your seed in the "BIP39 Mnemonic" field, choose the "Coin" and change the settings if needed (derivation path, account number, etc...).

However, I recommend that you download the source code of the page and run it offline for better security. The link is at the bottom of the page: https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39

[SiverSurfer]

That's very helpful, thanks!

The website is really advanced level stuff, do I just enter my mnemonics (seed phrase) in sequence into the "BIP39 Mnemonic" column. What about "BIP39 seed" column, what's that for?

Yeah, you don't actually write anything in the "BIP39 seed" field. Usually you just put your seed in the "BIP39 Mnemonic" field, choose the "Coin" and change the settings if needed (derivation path, account number, etc...).

However, I recommend that you download the source code of the page and run it offline for better security. The link is at the bottom of the page: https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39

I gather BIP39 is a seed/mnemonics generating algo and has nothing to do with BIP49(BIP44), these are two different algo.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I gather BIP39 is a seed/mnemonics generating algo and has nothing to do with BIP49(BIP44), these are two different algo.

Essentially yes.

BIP stands for Bitcoin Improvement Proposals. Each one is a separate proposal for some new feature to be added to bitcoin, although many BIPs build on the work of previous BIPs. You can read about all the BIPs here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips

BIP39 is entitled "Mnemonic code for generating deterministic keys", and as you say, lays out how to generate a mnemonic phrase from a seed and vice versa.
BIP44 is entitled "Multi-Account Hierarchy for Deterministic Wallets" and lays out how to derive multiple addresses for multiple coins and accounts from a single seed.
BIP49 is entitled "Derivation scheme for P2WPKH-nested-in-P2SH based accounts" and lays out a similar thing to BIP44 for nested segwit addresses.

As you say, BIP39 is focusing on a different issue than BIP44 and BIP49.


To back to your original question - yes. You can use the same mnemonic phrase in both Electrum and MEW to recover your bitcoin and ethereum, respectively. Just be aware that once you have entered your phrase in to an electronic device, it should be considered compromised (in case your device has malware, your connection is being monitored, or something similar you are unaware of). I would recommend recovering all your coins as quickly as possible and transferring them out to new, secured addresses.

[ewaspiro]

Hi,

I want to use my recovery phrase and move my cryptos into a new computer wallet.

Since I have not done this before please bear with me, since I have both bitcoins and ETH in my ledger, what if I use my recovery phrase for a bitcoin-only wallet like Electrum, what happens to my Ethereum, or I can actually use the same recovery phrase on a ETH-only wallet like MEW and also get my ETH.

Thanks!

PS: I know it's better to use a hardware wallet, but my intended question is really what happens if I perform my recovery on a  bitcoin-only wallet, what happens to other coins such at ETH.

As long as you have the recovery phrase your coins are on the block chain. You dont actually have to "move" them to your desktop, its just which way you want to access it.

The recovery phrase is same for both ETH and BTC, but they are derived from different paths.

Not all wallets support the same derivation paths, so you have to read about the wallet you choose that it supports the Ledger recovery phrase, otherwise you might recover to an empty wallet and panic that the coins are gone.

Ewa

[bartekjagoda]

Yes, you can. You can, for example, use Iancoleman's BIP39 tool to get the private-key of your address and manage it from MEW.

Most, if not all coins, can actually be recovered that way.

That's very helpful, thanks!

The website is really advanced level stuff, do I just enter my mnemonics (seed phrase) in sequence into the "BIP39 Mnemonic" column. What about "BIP39 seed" column, what's that for?

Before you enter the mnemonic you have to choose if you want the BTC or ETH as it does not show both.

My five cents
BJ

[bL4nkcode]

Since I have not done this before please bear with me, since I have both bitcoins and ETH in my ledger, what if I use my recovery phrase for a bitcoin-only wallet like Electrum, what happens to my Ethereum, or I can actually use the same recovery phrase on a ETH-only wallet like MEW and also get my ETH.

Yes, it will probably work and your coins will be recovered the same thing with some coins (BTC, ETH, LTC, etc..) you have on your ledger recovery phrase once imported on some wallet that supports the same format as ledger.

[Lucius]

I want to use my recovery phrase and move my cryptos into a new computer wallet.

You should use your seed from hardware wallet only in the event that it has broken down, and you have no other choice to access coins. Moving coins from hardware wallets to desktop/mobile wallets is just a step in the wrong direction which may result in the loss of your coins. If you do that you need to be absolutely sure you have a computer that is clean (malware/virus free), and that wallet where coins will be moved is not fake.

For your second question, if you recover coins with your seed, always recover those most valuable firsts, because the moment you enter the seed from the hardware wallet in any desktop/mobile wallet you may consider it potentially compromised.