Creating a bitcoin wallet on electrum and trying to recover it on wasabi wallet

[testingelcrypto]

Hi

I just created a wallet on electrum then i copy paste the seed on wasabi wallet in order to recover it but it gives me acess to another wallet not the electrum wallet. I have 0 bitcions on this test but i assume is a diferent wallet because the master public key is diferent.

I want to add that electrum calls it " Master public Key" and wasabi wallet "Extended account zpub" i am assuming both are the same because it starts like this : zpub...

Can someone help me  ?

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[hosseinimr93]

The seed generated by electrum can't be imported into Wasabi. Because electrum uses its own algorithm and the seed generated by it is not BIP39.
If you want to have a same wallet in electrum and wasabi, you can generate the seed in Wasabi and then import it into electrum. Note that you need to check "BIP39" when importing the seed into electrum.

[testingelcrypto]

What info do i need to backup in order for the seed phrase from electrum can be used by any other wallet? i thought i could recover any bitcoin with a seed phrase but its not true from what i understand i also need to know what wallet was used right? and maybe some other info.

I also tried to do the other way around and it didnt worked. i created a wallet on wasabi and copy pasted the 12 words private key on electrum and selected bip 39 and the wallet was recovered by electrum  althout the master public key is diferent from eletrum and from wasabi

[hosseinimr93]

What info do i need to backup in order for the seed phrase from electrum can be used by any other wallet?

You can export the master private key. It can be used for deriving all your private keys.
To do so, go to console tab and paste the following command.

Code:

getmasterprivate()

i thought i could recover any bitcoin with a seed phrase but its not true from what i understand

Electrum seed phrase is enough for recovering your wallet.
Note that all your keys (private keys, public keys, addresses) can be derived from electrum's seed phrase.

If you think that electrum may not exist in future, there is no need to worry about.
Electrum is open-source. In the case developers leave the project and the website shuts down for any reason, there will be other websites hosting the code.

Also, you can use blue wallet for importing the seed generated by electrum.
(Just note that electrum's wallet can be imported into blue wallet only if the wallet has been funded.)  

If you want to have a seed phrase that can imported into almost all other wallets, you should generate a BIP39 seed phrase. Electrum doesn't do that.

[BitMaxz]

What info do i need to backup in order for the seed phrase from electrum can be used by any other wallet? i thought i could recover any bitcoin with a seed phrase but its not true from what i understand i also need to know what wallet was used right? and maybe some other info.

You can export a private key from Electrum but you can not import the private key to wasabi.
However, you can able to import the private key to another wallet like bitcoin core, armory, Mycelium, or any wallet that supports a private key.

Electrum is different you can't able to recover the seed phrase that generates from Electrum to another wallet but you can able to import seeds from other wallets to Electrum by enabling the BIP39 option.

Why not just make a wallet on Wasabi and then send your BTC there and then if you want to use Wasabi wallet you can import it to Electrum through a master public key(zPub).
The guide can be found here https://docs.wasabiwallet.io/using-wasabi/RestoreElectrum.html#restoring-wasabi-wallet-via-electrum-gui

[testingelcrypto]

I tried to do the other way around and it didnt worked. i created a wallet on wasabi and copy pasted the 12 words private key on electrum and selected bip 39 and the wallet was recovered by electrum but the master public key from eletrum is not the same as the extended acount zpub from wasabi.

I want to add that both wallets are empty are just a test

[hosseinimr93]

---------------

Didn't you use a passphrase when you were creating the wallet on Wasabi?
If so, you need to check "Extend this seed with custom words" as well and in the next step enter your passphrase.

Also note that the script type should be "native segwit (p2wpkh)" and the derivation path should be m/84'/0'/0'.

[testingelcrypto]

"Didn't you use a passphrase when you were creating the wallet on Wasabi?"

This was the problem. Now it worked. thanks man

[pooya87]

I just created a wallet on electrum then i copy paste the seed on wasabi wallet in order to recover it but it gives me acess to another wallet not the electrum wallet.

This may be a bit late but this should not have happened. You are either using an old version of Electrum (in which case you should upgrade) or Wassabi wallet has a bug¹ because Electrum seed (as it was mentioned are not BIP39) are generated in a way that they will not be a valid BIP39 mnemonic and should be rejected by wallets validating such seed phrases!

You can see it in the code where it avoids creating BIP39 valid mnemonics:
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/5c91212fabe1e4c674acbf0ff84fb2ef4674e86d/electrum/mnemonic.py#L217

¹ This is one of the reasons why we say do not import keys into another wallet, sweep them or create a new wallet.

[larry_vw_1955]

 because Electrum seed (as it was mentioned are not BIP39) are generated in a way that they will not be a valid BIP39 mnemonic and should be rejected by wallets validating such seed phrases!

why would they want to avoid being complaint with a standard. That doesn't make any sense. did they just do a "roll your own" kind of thing and think it's better for some reason? almost every other wallet is compliant they aren't. go figure.

[pooya87]

why would they want to avoid being complaint with a standard. That doesn't make any sense. did they just do a "roll your own" kind of thing and think it's better for some reason? almost every other wallet is compliant they aren't. go figure.

There is no such thing as "standard" in Bitcoin apart from consensus rules. Everything else including mnemonic algorithms are "proposals" and optional which means implementations can choose to use if they like it.
For your information Electrum mnemonic algorithm existed before BIP39, it is addressing some flaws in BIP39 such as lack of a version.

[nc50lc]

why would they want to avoid being complaint with a standard. That doesn't make any sense. did they just do a "roll your own" kind of thing and think it's better for some reason? almost every other wallet is compliant they aren't. go figure.

This what the developers or at least the author of electrum's official documentation say about that matter:
https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/seedphrase.html#motivation

In short, yes "it's better" for them but not in a "roll your own" way because BIP39 was just new before they implemented v2.0 electrum seed.

[o_e_l_e_o]

why would they want to avoid being complaint with a standard. That doesn't make any sense.

See here: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/pull/6001

It helps prevent some confusion. If a user is unaware of the difference between Electrum and BIP39 seed phrases (as many are), generates a seed phrase on Electrum which happens to also be a valid BIP39 seed phrase, and then imports that seed phrase in to another wallet, they will end up recovering an entirely different wallet with entirely different addresses.

Electrum seed phrases contain a significant advantage over BIP39, which is the version that pooya mentioned. When you recover an Electrum seed phrase, Electrum knows exactly what type of wallet (legacy or segwit) to recover. When you recover a BIP39 seed phrase, you also have to know which type of wallet you want to recover, some wallets and services do not give you an option or do not support all types, many users don't know the difference, etc.

[Pmalek]

If you are using a seed created in a hot wallet, that seed is already at a greater risk depending on how safe the system where you created it is. A seed generated by a hardware wallet and especially one created on an airgapped device is much safer than using Electrum as a hot wallet (or Wasabi). You further increase that risk by exporting and importing that seed into multiple other hot wallets (Wasabi > Electrum > Blockchain.com > Coinomi, etc.). The chances for a compromise are higher because multiple clients have been used with the same seed. Especially, if you are using a software that is closed-source and you don't know what it's doing.

[ABCbits]

"Didn't you use a passphrase when you were creating the wallet on Wasabi?"

This was the problem. Now it worked. thanks man

In case it's not obvious, seed generated by Wasabi is useless if you don't remember the passphrase. I would recommend you to write few hint of the passphrase alongside with the seed.

because Electrum seed (as it was mentioned are not BIP39) are generated in a way that they will not be a valid BIP39 mnemonic and should be rejected by wallets validating such seed phrases!

why would they want to avoid being complaint with a standard. That doesn't make any sense. did they just do a "roll your own" kind of thing and think it's better for some reason? almost every other wallet is compliant they aren't. go figure.

What they actuall do is creating new standard. Imagine BIP 39 and "Electrum Seed Version System" as HDMI and DisplayPort.

[larry_vw_1955]

There is no such thing as "standard" in Bitcoin apart from consensus rules. Everything else including mnemonic algorithms are "proposals" and optional which means implementations can choose to use if they like it.
For your information Electrum mnemonic algorithm existed before BIP39, it is addressing some flaws in BIP39 such as lack of a version.

The only flaw i can see in bip39 is you don't know the derivation path which can be really confusing. I once had some money stuck on an address and I couldn't find out what derivation path the stupid wallet was using. Even when I knew the seed phrase. if they could fix that then bip39 would be perfect. probably even better than the way electrum does it since bip39 is way more widely supported right?

[Charles-Tim]

The only flaw i can see in bip39 is you don't know the derivation path which can be really confusing. I once had some money stuck on an address and I couldn't find out what derivation path the stupid wallet was using. Even when I knew the seed phrase. if they could fix that then bip39 would be perfect. probably even better than the way electrum does it since bip39 is way more widely supported right?

Either you are using this type of wallet or you are not getting it right when you were importing the BIP39 seed phrase. BIP39 has a specific derivational part.

keys and addresses derivation have derivational standard which are BIP44 for legacy keys and addresses, BIP49 for nested segwit and BIP84 for native segwit. So either you used non reputed noncustodial wallet for the seed phrase generation which keys and addresses derivational path is not following the BIPs standard as indicated above or you are getting it wrong.

To be careful of the private key wallet we are using these days

If you used a wallet that follow the BIP39 standard and also BIP44, BIP49 and BIP84 standard, then you should be able to import the seed phrase successfully on reputed wallets that follow the BIP standards. Also you can check BIP39 on Electrum and the importation will be successful, choose the right derivational path and your coin will appear. You can also use Bluewallet.


Just that BIP39 seed phrase do not include a version number.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The only flaw i can see in bip39 is you don't know the derivation path which can be really confusing.

Confirming whether or not the BIP39 checksum is correct also requires the importing wallet to have the exact same word list as whichever wallet generated the seed phrase in the first place. While there is obviously a set word list which all BIP39 wallets use, this does mean that the word list cannot be changed in the future or it will no longer be compatible with current seed phrases. It has also posed problems with people generating seed phrase in languages other than English.

Electrum seed phrases, on the other hand, do not require a fixed word list and do not require the importing wallet to know the word list which was used to generate the seed phrase in the first place.