Importing an encrypted paper wallet

[pateyway]

Hello! I have an encrypted paper wallet, I know the pass phrase, no worries however I wonder if I can import an encrypted wallet to electrum. Is it better to import or sweep? As soon as I decrypt it I am gonna send the funds to other addresses. Are there any guides to follow?

[OmegaStarScream]

It's better to sweep than to import but I just tried to copy an encrypted private key into Electrum and the sweep button is still greyed out, so I'm guessing BIP38 is not supported. You should however be able to sweep encrypted PKs on Exodus but it's not the type of wallet I'd recommend for storing large amounts.

[nc50lc]

however I wonder if I can import an encrypted wallet to electrum.

Unfortunately, Electrum doesn't support BIP38 yet.
And based from a tagged 'open' issue in its GitHub repository, it's in their low priority feature, link: github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/3786

[pooya87]

You can download the popular open source tool called bitaddress[1] from github and run it on an airgap system. Steps:
1. Open the html file
2. Ignore the first page and instead go to the "Wallet Details" tab
3. Enter the BIP38 encrypted string in the text box saying "Enter Private Key" and click "View Details"
4. Enter your passphrase and click "Decrypt BIP38"
5. You'll see 2 bitcoin addresses, see which one is the one you used (is funded) and see if it says "Bitcoin Address" or "Bitcoin Address Compressed" on top
6. Scroll down and copy the corresponding private key starting with 5 or L/K and use it in Electrum

[1] https://github.com/pointbiz/bitaddress.org

[Kakmakr]

You can download the popular open source tool called bitaddress[1] from github and run it on an airgap system. Steps:
1. Open the html file
2. Ignore the first page and instead go to the "Wallet Details" tab
3. Enter the BIP38 encrypted string in the text box saying "Enter Private Key" and click "View Details"
4. Enter your passphrase and click "Decrypt BIP38"
5. You'll see 2 bitcoin addresses, see which one is the one you used (is funded) and see if it says "Bitcoin Address" or "Bitcoin Address Compressed" on top
6. Scroll down and copy the corresponding private key starting with 5 or L/K and use it in Electrum

[1] https://github.com/pointbiz/bitaddress.org

It would be great if we could get a "offline" method to encrypt and decrypt these wallets, with all the "Clipboard" Malware going around that can grab those keys, when you do things like this. 

This is one of the things I hate when I sweep Private keys (Paper wallets) into Electrum..... you need to be quick... to copy&paste it..and then you have to quickly transfer those coins to another wallet.    (All the forked coins are also compromised... because someone can extract them from those Private keys, if they can "Clipboard" it.)

[o_e_l_e_o]

It would be great if we could get a "offline" method to encrypt and decrypt these wallets

There is one. You just follow pooya87's instructions to decrypt the private key on your offline, airgapped system. Once you've done that, import it in to Electrum on the same airgapped system. Grab the address it generates, take the address only (and not the private key) over to your online system, and import the address in to a brand new watch only Electrum wallet. Let that watch only wallet sync up all the transactions, then create a transaction sweeping all the coins to wherever you want them to go. Move that transaction to the airgapped wallet to be signed, then move it back to the watch only wallet to be broadcast.

By doing this you import the encrypted key, decrypt it, and use it to sign a transaction, all without it ever touching the internet.