Adding a seed phrase to your wallet on Electrum?

[Phobos_Quake]

Hi, i have created my own private key, public key and seed phrase.

But i can't see the option to add a seed phrase to my private key.
When i created my wallet it asks you to set a type of address and the private key, i created a bech32 address with the private key successfully.

Is there a way to add my seed phrase to that private key?

If i start a new wallet and use the seed phrase i have instead, can i make it bech32?

[OmegaStarScream]

I'm not sure I understand how you created the wallet in the first place?

Creating a standard wallet with Electrum should've given you a seedphrase. See here: https://bitcoinelectrum.com/creating-an-electrum-wallet/

IF you created your address/private key somewhere else, and now you want to switch to Electrum, the nyou can do that by sweeping the funds from the private keys, to a newly generated wallet (as shown in the article above). You can't just take one address and make it part of an existing seedphrase.

[Charles-Tim]

The seed phrase that Electrum will generate you is bech32 that will start from bc1.

The seed phrase will generate the private keys, the public keys and the addresses. You do not need to bother yourself with private keys. The seed phrase will regenerate all for you. Just go to standard wallet.

Or you have a private key that you want to import on Electrum?

[Zaguru12]

Your question is quite confusing, first of all you don’t add seed phrase to private key. Infact you get your private key from seed phrase and subsequently public key from private key. So having your seed phrase alone is ok.

If i start a new wallet and use the seed phrase i have instead, can i make it bech32?

Yes you can actually generate a native SegWit address or any type of address from your seed phrase by just clicking on the option when importing your seed phrase if it is Bip 39 click it and then the next option choose native SegWit as derivation path or any of the type you wish.

Go through this guide
https://bitcoinelectrum.com/restoring-your-standard-wallet-from-seed/

If it is the private key you have and want to sweep it to another wallet. You will need to create a new wallet and then sweep using the guide below

https://bitcoinelectrum.com/sweeping-your-private-keys-into-electrum/

[Mia Chloe]

Op every Bitcoin wallet has it's own special seed phrase. The seed phrase is a series of 12 , 18 or 24 words as the case may be, which is generated simultaneously along with the wallet address. The seed phrase in turn is used to create a private key known as the master private key and for the case of an HD wallet, that Master private key is used to generate child keys for other addresses.

Hi, i have created my own private key, public key and seed phrase.
But i can't see the option to add a seed phrase to my private key.
When i created my wallet it asks you to set a type of address and the private key, i created a bech32 address with the private key successfully.

Your public key is generated simultaneously along with the ones I mentioned above. The public key is used to generate your wallet address. You can simply add a new wallet by using the seed phrase or private key of the wallet.

[Phobos_Quake]

Thank you.

Yes, i created my own Private, public key and seed phrase on my own with my own script.

But the option of just importing the seed phrase and Electrum makes it bech32 works for me.

I know Electrum is open-source but you would rely on the community to find something fishy in the code, you yourself won't go on each update and read the whole code of Electrum. That's why i wanted to create my own private key. Also, when using Electrum wallet to create your key, you are trusting their Entropy, which it can be VERY secure and everything. But i feel safer trusting my own entropy.

[hosseinimr93]

But i can't see the option to add a seed phrase to my private key.?

What do you mean by adding a seed phrase to your private key? Do you mean deriving the seed phrase from your private key? If so, that's not possible.

We generate a seed phrase and then we use that to genrate our private keys.

Op every Bitcoin address has it's own special seed phrase.

This is not true.
Each bitcoin address can be generated by a very big number of different seed phrases.

[jrrsparkles]

Also, when using Electrum wallet to create your key, you are trusting their Entropy, which it can be VERY secure and everything. But i feel safer trusting my own entropy.

Electrum doesn't collect any data whether seeds, privkeys or whatever and to ensure that you can generate the seeds on a completely offline device that gives the satisfaction of the seeds generated doesn't transmit anywhere.

But if you're technically sound and can make your own privkeys then it's good but more often the randomness of the human brain fell short in every day.

And you can completely trust the entropy of electrum seeds or BiP39 cause it's not practically possible for anyone to brute force in million years.

[hosseinimr93]

And you can completely trust the entropy of electrum seeds or BiP39 cause it's not practically possible for anyone to brute force in million years.

If your seed phrase has been generated by electrum, you can be sure that it provides enough entropy, but if your seed phrase is BIP39, it depends on what software you used for generating your entropy. For example, if you generate your BIP39 seed phrase using a close-source wallet, there is no way to know how it has been generated.

[khaled0111]

But i can't see the option to add a seed phrase to my private key.

Such option does not exist. The private key is derived from the seed phrase not the other way around.

If i start a new wallet and use the seed phrase i have instead, can i make it bech32?

Although I don't recommend doing this but yes you can. You have to create a new wallet and before typing the seed words make sure to change the seed type from "Electrum" to "bip39" then Electrum will ask you which address type you want to create, choose "native segwit (p2wpkh)".

Take note that a seed can be used to generate an infinite number of addresses while your script generates a single one. The address your script generated will be the first one Electrum generates and you can see it on the Addresses tab.

[EL MOHA]

Op every Bitcoin address has it's own special seed phrase. The seed phrase is a series of 12 , 18 or 24 words as the case may be, which is generated simultaneously along with the wallet address. The seed phrase in turn is used to create a private key known as the master private key and for the case of an HD wallet, that Master private key is used to generate child keys for other addresses.

I think your further explanation of this thread actually counters your own point in the first sentence, every address doesn’t have a specific seed phrase rather a single seed phrase can be used to generate multiple child private keys as you stated which in turn can be used to generated different bitcoin addresses. With a single bitcoin seed phrase you can even have addresses of different formats just by creating new wallets and specifying the derivation path you wish to have it. This is what I think OP is trying to do maybe get a bech32 address from his existing private key or seed phrase which he will just simply change in the options when creating a new wallet with same seed phrase

[hosseinimr93]

With a single bitcoin seed phrase you can even have addresses of different formats just by creating new wallets and specifying the derivation path you wish to have it.

A seed phrase can generate different types of addresses only if it's BIP39.
You can't generate different types of addresses from your seed phrase, if it has been generated by electrum. The script is encoded in electrum seed phrase.

[Mia Chloe]

Op every Bitcoin address has it's own special seed phrase.

This is not true.
Each bitcoin address can be generated by a very big number of different seed phrases.

I have made the necessary correction. The big number which you are referring to is actually the public key which is used to generate the respective addresses in that particular wallet. I mis typed address instead of wallet in that particular statement. Funny how choice of words can be that important in cases like this "LOL".

I think your further explanation of this thread actually counters your own point in the first sentence, every address doesn’t have a specific seed phrase rather a single seed phrase can be used to generate multiple child private keys as you stated which in turn can be used to generated different bitcoin addresses. With a single bitcoin seed phrase you can even have addresses of different formats just by creating new wallets and specifying the derivation path you wish to have it. This is what I think OP is trying to do maybe get a bech32 address from his existing private key or seed phrase which he will just simply change in the options when creating a new wallet with same seed phrase

Thanks for the heads up EL MOHA. I actually miss typed wallet in place of address. Like I was trying to express earlier, a seed phrase is for a single wallet and in the case of the wallet being an HD wallet, there could be multiple addresses having their individual private keys which were generated from the master private key which was in turn generated via the seed phrase.

[BitMaxz]

Thank you.

Yes, i created my own Private, public key and seed phrase on my own with my own script.

But the option of just importing the seed phrase and Electrum makes it bech32 works for me.

I know Electrum is open-source but you would rely on the community to find something fishy in the code, you yourself won't go on each update and read the whole code of Electrum. That's why i wanted to create my own private key. Also, when using Electrum wallet to create your key, you are trusting their Entropy, which it can be VERY secure and everything. But i feel safer trusting my own entropy.

You seems confused about the private key and the seedphrase?

Seedphrase contains unique private keys(Many private keys that can only derived from your seed phrase) and you can't just import the private key into your Seedphrase.
The private key is just a single key and the seed phrase contains many keys.

If you want to add this private key you just generated outside of your current Electrum wallet I think you will need to extract the private keys from your seed phrase and then import them into a new wallet including the private keys that you generated outside Electrum.

But that's not the best way to protect your wallet if you want a secure way never import the private key into an online device I suggest import it into cold storage Electrum wallet and only import the public key to an online device with Electrum.

[hosseinimr93]

and only import the public key to an online device with Electrum.

Electrum (and all other wallets I know) doesn't allow you to import a public key.
If you want to have a watch-only wallet in electrum, you need to import your address(es) or your master public key.

[Cricktor]

The private key is just a single key and the seed phrase contains many keys.

Sorry if this sounds like nitpicking, but confusion arises when terminology is used in a loose way, also for OP.

A private key is in the end a hopefully random 256bit number with some negligible size constraints imposed by the generator point G (private keys must be smaller than G). Edit: It's maybe more the contraint by the order of the finite group used in Bitcoin's elliptic curve; I admit not being too fluent here.

I wouldn't say the seed phrase (the mnemonic recovery words) contains many keys, but rather you can derive many many keys from it by a standardized mathematical procedure (key derivation). The mnemonic recovery words encode an initial hopefully random entropy in human readable form and include a checksum to detect an error in the word sequence.

You're not wrong, but if someone doesn't know how HD wallets work then it may be confusing to say a seed phrase "contains many keys". Or it's just me, nitpicking...  

Hi, i have created my own private key, public key and seed phrase.

But i can't see the option to add a seed phrase to my private key.
When i created my wallet it asks you to set a type of address and the private key, i created a bech32 address with the private key successfully.

Why do you start with a private key? A HD wallet usually starts with some random entropy which is represented by the mnemonic recovery words. From there you decide what kind of addresses you want to use (Electrum is fixed on one address type in one particular wallet, eg. native segwit addresses that begin with bc1q....).

When the derivation path is determined, child keys are derived and the HD wallet takes care of that.

You may want to have a read here: https://learnmeabitcoin.com/technical/keys/hd-wallets/

In Electrum you can't add an arbitrary independant private key to a HD wallet, you can only sweep (ie. empty) the independant private key to an address generated and controlled by that HD wallet.

Is there a way to add my seed phrase to that private key?

I would say, no.

If i start a new wallet and use the seed phrase i have instead, can i make it bech32?

If your seed phrase (the mnemonic recovery words) is BIP-39 compatible, you can import that to Electrum and choose to have native segwit key derivation with bech32 bc1q... addresses.

[Phobos_Quake]

For people wondering about my script to create a bitcoin address, i actually made a post showing how it works

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5489456.msg63825931#msg63825931

So yeah, my intention was to use the seed phrase and private key that script created. Because if i just import a seed phrase alone into Electrum. Electrum is creating the private key with it's own method.

What i did was to use the Private key of my script to use Electrum, but when i do that, there is no seed phrase, in case i want to recover my wallet with the seed phrase.

[hosseinimr93]

So yeah, my intention was to use the seed phrase and private key that script created. Because if i just import a seed phrase alone into Electrum. Electrum is creating the private key with it's own method.

If you import a BIP39 seed phrase in electrum, it doesn't use its own method for genrating your private keys. Electrum uses a standard algorithm to generate the private keys.

What i did was to use the Private key of my script to use Electrum, but when i do that, there is no seed phrase, in case i want to recover my wallet with the seed phrase.

You generated a private key and now you have a private key. If you want to have a seed phrase, you should generate a seed phrase.

Take note that you can derive private key from a seed phrase, but you can't derive seed phrase from a private key.

[Phobos_Quake]

Thanks.

I hope is not too off-topic but regarding "Custom Word extensions" to the seed phrase.

How does this work? Because i guess that if i try to import a seed phrase to another wallet, let's say "BitcoinCore" i don't think they will support the extension of custom words i added to my seed phrase?

[hosseinimr93]

I hope is not too off-topic but regarding "Custom Word extensions" to the seed phrase.

The custom word you add to your seed phrase is like an extra word. It's also called passphrase and some call it 13th or 25th word.
Take note that with any change to your passphrase, you will have completely different addresses and you won't be able to recover your wallet from seed phrase, if you don't know the passphrase.

It may worth  mentioning that the passphrase doesn't have to be a word and it can be any combination of words or characters.

How does this work? Because i guess that if i try to import a seed phrase to another wallet, let's say "BitcoinCore" i don't think they will support the extension of custom words i added to my seed phrase?

If you have added a passphrase to your seed phrase and you want to recover your wallet from seed phrase using a different software, you have to use a wallet that supports passphrase.

Take note that electrum uses its own algorithm for generating a seed phrase and if you have generated a seed phrase using electrum, you have to import it in electrum itself or bluewallet. You won't be able to recover your wallet from seed phrase using other softwares, regardless of you have added a passphrase to your seed phrase or not.

Also note that bitcoin core doesn't support seed phrase at all.