Generating a 24 word seed with electrum

[unknowncustomer]

Hello,

For personal reason I want to create a 24 word seed through electrum (instead of a typical 12 word), this will be done on cold storage through an air gapped computer.

Should I use:

1) Electrum console to do this ? If so do you know how to ?

2) Can I use this website ? https://iancoleman.io/bip39/#english

What will be the difference between option 1 and 2 ?
Would I be able to retrieve my wallet also with Blue Wallet (for example) for option 1 and option 2 ?

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[Charles-Tim]

On Electrum console, type this:

Code:

make_seed(256,"","standard")

You can import your Electrum wallet seed phrase or BIP39 seed phrase on Bluewallet.

If you want to use iancoleman, use it offline on airgapped device: https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39/releases/latest/

[hosseinimr93]

With using the command mentioned above by Charles-Tim, you create a 24 word legacy seed phrase. If you want to have a 24 word segwit seeed phrase, use the following command.

Code:

make_seed(256)

What will be the difference between option 1 and 2 ?

With iancoleman, you generate a BIP39 seed phrase while electrum uses its own algorithm.
As iancoleman uses JavaScript for generating the entropy, using electrum for generating your seed phrase is a much better option.

[unknowncustomer]

Thanks a lot.
What would be the difference between:

Code:
make_seed(256)

and

Code:
make_seed(256,"","standard")

Segwit ? BIP39 ?

[Charles-Tim]

make_seed(256)

Segwit. For bitcoin addresses that start from bc1. Recommended. For low fee.

make_seed(256,"","standard")

Legacy. For bitcoin addresses that start from 1

[Abdussamad]

On Electrum console, type this:

Code:

make_seed(256,"","standard")

This will create a legacy wallet seed. Not recommended. To create a segwit seed use this command:

Code:

make_seed(nbits=256)

@OP electrum seeds are not bip39 and can't be restored in most other wallets. Blue wallet is an exception to this. However it is best if you use the same software you originally did to generate the seed that is electrum itself.

[DireWolfM14]

@OP electrum seeds are not bip39 and can't be restored in most other wallets.

For this reason alone I prefer to not use Electrum seeds for cold storage.  A Bip-39 seed for cold storage is more practical, in my opinion, since it gives you more options to restore the wallet in case of an emergency or lack of access to computers or the Electrum software.  All you would need is a hardware wallet or a wide variety of wallet software clients to restore a Bip-39 seed.

Electrum seeds are great if you plan to use it as a hot wallet.  They are designed with an additional checksum to inform the client whether the seed is intended for a segwit wallet or a legacy wallet, helping the user when restoring the wallet from seed.

I've used the Ian Coleman tool to generate 24-word seeds, but I agree with others who've raised concerns about Java and browser-based entropy generators, they don't instill much confidence.  The Ian Coleman tool does allow one to enter their own entropy, so I use /dev/urandom to generate 256-bit entropy that I then enter into the Ian Coleman tool.

This command will generate a 256-bit HEX string that can be used for entropy:

Code:

cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc 'A-F0-9'  | fold -w 256 | head -n 1

[RickDeckard]

@OP electrum seeds are not bip39 and can't be restored in most other wallets. Blue wallet is an exception to this. However it is best if you use the same software you originally did to generate the seed that is electrum itself.

Just to complement Abdussamad reply: While Electrum isn't able to generate BIP39 version, it is able to import it. To do that you just need to click on "Options" and check "BIP39 seed" after entering your seed phrases and you'll be able to import your wallet into Electrum.

If you're interested in knowing which wallets support generating BIP39 version you've got a few to choose from:

• Hardware wallets:
  
  • All of Ledger devices generate seed phrases using BIP39[1]
  • All of Trezor devices generate seed phrases using BIP39[2]
  • Foundation devices[3]

• Software wallets:
  
  • BlueWallet[4]
  • Bither[5]

[1]https://www.ledger.com/academy/bip-39-the-low-key-guardian-of-your-crypto-freedom
[2]https://trezor.io/learn/a/what-are-bips-slips
[3]https://docs.foundationdevices.com/en/passport/setup
[4]https://bluewallet.io/features/
[5]https://bither.net/

[blue Snow]

@OP electrum seeds are not bip39 and can't be restored in most other wallets. Blue wallet is an exception to this. However it is best if you use the same software you originally did to generate the seed that is electrum itself.

I just know that after tried import the Electrum seed to Blue Wallet, that show detail on my phone: HD Electrum (BIP 32 P2WPKH), and, the difference between both wallets is, In electrum we have 10 changed address while in blue wallet only have 1 changed address. So, why is different? I used the same electrum seed, and didn't change a single letter or word seed. And, how can add the change address on blue wallet?.

[hosseinimr93]

In electrum we have 10 changed address while in blue wallet only have 1 changed address. So, why is different? I used the same electrum seed, and didn't change a single letter or word seed. And, how can add the change address on blue wallet?.

That's how bluewallet works. Whether you generate a wallet with bluewallet itself or you import an electrum's seed phrase, it displays only one change address. Once you use that change address, it will display the second one.