Purchased bitcoin cash by mistake and sent to electrum

[boomtown1234]

I purchased bitcoin cash by mistake thinking I had purchased bitcoins (when slightly inebriated) and sent it to my Electrum wallet. It shows the transaction as unpaid in electrum. I did some research on here and I understand that I need a different wallet that can accept bitcoin cash. I have downloaded electron cash but I don't know what to do next. Can someone please in very simple instructions help me to set up bitcoin cash and recover the money so that I can send it back to my coin base account. Sorry I am out of my depth here. Thanks a lot in advance   

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[OmegaStarScream]

Using your Electrum wallet seed, follow these instructions[1] to restore your wallet inside ElectronCash.

Or, you can also export the private key of the address that contains the funds (by right clicking it and choosing "private key") and then sweep[2] it in Electron Cash.

[1] https://bitcoinelectrum.com/restoring-your-standard-wallet-from-seed/
[2] https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html#:~:text=To%20sweep%20private%20keys%2C%20go,from%20your%20existing%20electrum%20wallet.

[Charles-Tim]

<...>

I think the bitcoin address type matters in this case. I have read in a thread on this forum that only private key to bitcoin with legacy addresses (addresses that start from 1) can be used for such Bitcoin cash recovery.

If this is true, it will be good for boomtown1234 to let us know if the address is legacy or not. Legacy addresses starts from 1.

[ranochigo]

I think the bitcoin address type matters in this case. I have read in a thread on this forum that only private key to bitcoin with legacy addresses (addresses that start from 1) can be used for such Bitcoin cash recovery.

If this is true, it will be good for boomtown1234 to let us know if the address is legacy or not. Legacy addresses starts from 1.

Or P2SH.

Bitcoin Cash doesn't support Segwit, for obvious reasons and if you manage to send Bitcoin Cash to a Bech32 address, the transaction couldn't have gone through or a nested Segwit address, then it's gone for good. Multisig and other script standards are fine.

[Charles-Tim]

<...>

Which means if boomtown1234 sent the bitcoin to private key wallet that of multisig, nested segwit or legacy address, he will still be able to recover back his bitcoin cash fund, but will not able to if sent to native segwit? For just to be clearer.

[ranochigo]

Which means if boomtown1234 sent the bitcoin to private key wallet that of multisig, nested segwit or legacy address, he will still be able to recover back his bitcoin cash fund, but will not able to if sent to native segwit? For just to be clearer.

No. You can't send BCH to bech32 addresses because they're invalid. You can't recover funds sent to nested segwit addresses because they are anyone can spend.

[boomtown1234]

Thanks for all of the replies although I don't understand the latter ones unfortunately.

The address I sent the bitcoin to begins with a 1.

I followed OmegaStarScreams instructions 1 (thanks a lot - much appreciated). My electron cash wallet shows I have some BCH. I also had some bitcoin in Electrum.

Does the Electron Cash wallet include the bitcoin I had in Electrum? If so how do I distinguish between the bitcoin and bitcoin cash? When I went to get a receiving address from coinbase it warned me if I send the wrong currency to it, it will be lost forever.

Also the dates for the transactions shown in Electron cash are from 2017 not 2021 and they don't seem to correlate with the amount I sent. I sent 0.77 bitcoin cash and the balance showing is 0.00489243 BCH, which appears more like a bitcoin balance to my uneducated eye. I am certainly not aware of it but is it possible that I have put the wrong seed in and this is showing me and old wallet I did not know/remember I had with bitcoin in?

Thanks a lot

[ranochigo]

Does the Electron Cash wallet include the bitcoin I had in Electrum? If so how do I distinguish between the bitcoin and bitcoin cash? When I went to get a receiving address from coinbase it warned me if I send the wrong currency to it, it will be lost forever.

It doesn't. It should only show the Bitcoin Cash that is in those addresses.

Also the dates for the transactions shown in Electron cash are from 2017 not 2021 and they don't seem to correlate with the amount I sent. I sent 0.77 bitcoin cash and the balance showing is 0.00489243 BCH, which appears more like a bitcoin balance to my uneducated eye. I am certainly not aware of it but is it possible that I have put the wrong seed in and this is showing me and old wallet I did not know/remember I had with bitcoin in?

Yes. Go to Console and type in this:
ismine("ADDRESS").

If the response is false, then you have the wrong wallet. If the Console is not in the tabs, go to View and Show Console.

Another possibility which is also quite likely is that the address that you've generated is not within the gap limit. For that, just key in this into the console:
[wallet.create_new_address(False) for i in range(100)].

The command above generates 100 additional addresses. This assumes that you have generated and used at least 100 additional addresses from the 2017 to the current day. You can increase the integer as necessary.

[boomtown1234]

The command above generates 100 additional addresses. This assumes that you have generated and used at least 100 additional addresses from the 2017 to the current day. You can increase the integer as necessary

That has fixed it 

Your legendary status is well earned! Thanks ever so much for your help

[LoyceV]

Also the dates for the transactions shown in Electron cash are from 2017 not 2021 and they don't seem to correlate with the amount I sent. I sent 0.77 bitcoin cash and the balance showing is 0.00489243 BCH, which appears more like a bitcoin balance to my uneducated eye.

Electron Cash only shows BCH, not BTC. My guess is your wallet had 0.00489243 Bitcoin when the Bitcoin Cash fork happened. You've (probably) long spent the Bitcoin amount, but the BCH amount was still there waiting for you. In that case you'll also have some other Forkcoins, but it isn't worth much.

After using your seed phrase in Bitcoin Cash, I would consider it compromised and create a new Bitcoin wallet for future use.