Seed phrase not written on hard drive if you recover a wallet

[BlackHatCoiner]

Hi, I've just noticed that if you recover a wallet by importing its seed phrase on electrum, it won't be stored anywhere on your hard drive. Alongside, if you normally create a wallet, the seed phrase can be found on the electrum wallet file (that has no extension).

Does this make any sense that I'm too dumb to understand? If you recover a wallet by that way, the master private key is stored on your hard drive, but not the seed phrase. Is there any reason why it stores only one child private key? Shouldn't there be a warning about that?

[ranochigo]

Are you opening the correct file? Are you importing BIP39 seeds or Electrum seeds?

I've tested it again and I can't seem to replicate it. Here's the format represented in JSON in the wallet file with a recovered seed:

Code:

    "keystore": {
        "derivation": "m/0'",
        "pw_hash_version": 1,
        "root_fingerprint": "-snip-",
        "seed": "-snip=",
        "type": "bip32",
        "xprv": "-snip-",
        "xpub": "-snip-"
    },

If you are able to see the seeds from the UI, the seed should be stored in the wallet file.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I'm importing a BIP39 seed on Electrum 4.0.4. Your code doesn't seem to be the same with mine:

Code:

"keystore": {
        "derivation": "m/84'/0'/0'",
        "pw_hash_version": 1,
        "root_fingerprint": "-snip-",
        "type": "bip32",
        "xprv": "-snip-",
        "xpub": "-snip-"
    },

[ranochigo]

I'm importing a BIP39 seed on Electrum 4.0.4. Your code doesn't seem to be the same with mine:

Oh. Electrum doesn't store the mnemonics when you're importing with BIP39, just generates the relevant seeds and discards the mnemonics. Not sure why it wasn't mentioned before actually but it was something I noticed when looking at the BIP39 specific codes. You can probably make an issue about it on Github if you want, should be an easy implementation.

[NotATether]

Oh. Electrum doesn't store the mnemonics when you're importing with BIP39, just generates the relevant seeds and discards the mnemonics. Not sure why it wasn't mentioned before actually but it was something I noticed when looking at the BIP39 specific codes. You can probably make an issue about it on Github if you want, should be an easy implementation.

In a way, it's good that the mnemonics aren't stored particularly if they aren't encrypted since the wallet password would then be useless.

My guess is that since the devs aren't thrilled about BIP39 importing support, judging by the depreciation notice on that window, they glossed over some details that were implemented for Electrum mnemonics, storing them in the wallet file (hopefully with encryption!) being one of them.

[HCP]

Electrum hasn't stored BIP39 seeds since forever... it creates the xprv and stores that in the keystore in the wallet file.

It's the reason why the "Wallet - Seed" option in the GUI is greyed out once you have restored a BIP39 wallet. I vaguely recall seeing somewhere once that the reasoning was because restoring a BIP39 seed was to be able to recover funds and move to a new wallet... not to use the BIP39 wallet on an ongoing basis.

[BlackHatCoiner]

In a way, it's good that the mnemonics aren't stored particularly if they aren't encrypted since the wallet password would then be useless.

But it does show the master private key. There wouldn't be any difference if it had the mnemonic too, despite the fact that you could derive more master keys.

My guess is that since the devs aren't thrilled about BIP39 importing support, judging by the depreciation notice on that window, they glossed over some details that were implemented for Electrum mnemonics, storing them in the wallet file (hopefully with encryption!) being one of them.

They surely aren't thrilled with BIP39, I got my answer here: BIP39 seed words/mnemonic not stored in wallet file. It has also been discussed 3 years ago: Seed option is greyed out. Still, I don't find it reasonable to not store the seed. I recently lost a piece of paper containing the seed phrase and thought that I could rewrite it from the wallet file. Warning you that it doesn't generate BIP39 seeds and that it isn't recommended based on their safety standard doesn't mean that they should skip such inclusion.

Question: Besides the 8-bits checksum, is there any other difference with electrum seed generation?

[HCP]

Question: Besides the 8-bits checksum, is there any other difference with electrum seed generation?

Yes, you can refer here: https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/seedphrase.html

Additionally, when converting from mnemonic phrase to actual seed... Electrum uses the fixed string "electrum" rather than "mnemonic" as the beginning of the mnemonic passphrase.

Ie. if you "extend seed with extra words"... the passphrase becomes "electrumMyExtraWords"... whereas, with BIP39, it is "mnemonicMyExtraWords"

[ranochigo]

In a way, it's good that the mnemonics aren't stored particularly if they aren't encrypted since the wallet password would then be useless.

My guess is that since the devs aren't thrilled about BIP39 importing support, judging by the depreciation notice on that window, they glossed over some details that were implemented for Electrum mnemonics, storing them in the wallet file (hopefully with encryption!) being one of them.

As mentioned, it probably doesn't make any difference in terms of security.

While they aren't happy about people and wallets using BIP39, they could still have some form of uniformity with seed behavior. Having this could force them to eventually switch to Electrum but would be a pain if the user wants to continue using it for the time being. Since they've already implemented BIP39, might as well just be able to display the seed. Judging my the github issue above, it seems like they are alright with having a feature like this.

[pooya87]

In a way, it's good that the mnemonics aren't stored particularly if they aren't encrypted since the wallet password would then be useless.

I can't see how this option can be good at all.
This involves any other wallet type too, even the wallets Electrum generates with its own seed phrase algorithm. The reason why the wallet stores the mnemonic is to let the user copy it in the future if they wanted to or lost the paper backup or didn't make one in first place.
It is encrypted similar to any other key or extended keys in the wallet file so security-wise it is the same.

[HCP]

In a way, it's good that the mnemonics aren't stored particularly if they aren't encrypted since the wallet password would then be useless.

That's not how the encryption with Electrum wallets work... "Secrets" like mnemonics are never stored unencrypted in the wallet file if there is a wallet password set. Basically, there are 3 levels of "encryption" for Electrum wallet files:

1. No Password - The wallet file is stored as plain JSON text... everything (including private keys, seeds/mnemonics etc) is stored in plaintext

2. Wallet Password only (encrypt wallet box is NOT checked) - The wallet file is stored as plain JSON text, "Secrets" including private keys, seeds/mnemonics and xprvs are stored encrypted, everything else is plaintext

3. Full file encryption (wallet password set, encrypt wallet box IS checked) - The entire wallet file is encrypted using the wallet password. Nothing is in plaintext.

[DireWolfM14]

According the passage below, it appears that the Electrum development team's primary issue with Bip39 is a fixed word list being required, as indicated in the quote below.

A fixed wordlist is still required. Following our recommendation, BIP39 authors decided to derive keys and addresses in a way that does not depend on the wordlist. However, BIP39 still requires the wordlist in order to compute its checksum, which is plainly inconsistent, and defeats the purpose of our recommendation. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that BIP39 proposes to create one wordlist per language. This threatens the portability of BIP39 seed phrases.

However, they are still using the fixed 2048-word Bip39 list to populate their seed phrases.  Is there a plan to change this in the future?  I guess I'm not sure why a fixed word list is such a problem if sufficiently long enough to provide the required entropy.  The entire dictionary is essentially a "fixed word list" just significantly longer.

[o_e_l_e_o]

However, they are still using the fixed 2048-word Bip39 list to populate their seed phrases.

Electrum uses this by default simply because it is easy and a wordlist everyone is familiar with, but there is absolutely no requirements to do so. You can create a wallet using any wordlist you like by editing the file electrum/electrum/wordlist/english.txt, and you can import an Electrum seed phrase created using any wordlist you like without any knowledge of said wordlist. For example, I created the following ChipMixer inspired seed phrase:

Code:

mk4 TryNinja mocacinno tyKiwanuka TryNinja NeuroticFish Trofo OmegaStarScream o_e_l_e_o Welsh GazetaBitcoin HeRetiK Rath_ mole0815 Trofo Rath_ d5000 malevolent mikeywith GazetaBitcoin LeGaulois Trofo dkbit98 BitMaxz

Which you can import in to your Electrum to obtain the first address bc1qy6usnz6fxprqkjn8szjdcgnkv4t2znwpwqj8jv despite not knowing my original wordlist.

I guess I'm not sure why a fixed word list is such a problem if sufficiently long enough to provide the required entropy.

The wordlist doesn't even need to be long. You can create an Electrum seed phrase using a "wordlist" with only two words, although your seed phrase will obviously then be 132 words long.