What actually breaks in the practice?

[Lontor]

What could go wrong importing Electrum wallet recovery seed into unstoppable wallet? I see few people saying this isn't good practice, if something is going to break with this idea, what exactly is that thing?

What and what adjustments will happen after you import a recovery seed for a wallet into another that supports such recovery seed?

[Livingleged]

The main problem is that the same recovery word do not always produce the same wallet. Electrum uses its own seed system and does not normally use the BIP39 seed. Another wallet may interpret those same as a BIP39 seed and use a different derivation method. And then the result will probably be invalid or a zero balance, even though the words were entered correctly. Importing the seed it self does not move or change any bitcoin, the new wallet is deriving the key from the seed according to its own rule.

There is also a security issue. By entering an existing Electrum seed into another wallet, you are exposing the seed into another software and device. If that device or wallet is compromised, those seed could be stolen. So if the goal is to move the coin into another wallet, it’s safer to create a new wallet with a new seed and send the bitcoin to its new receiving address. This also avoids relying on whether both wallet derived same addresses from the same seed.

[eternalgloom]

Unstoppable wallet adheres to BIP39 standard.

Afaik Electrum has bypassed BIP39 and uses its own Electrum Seed System. Version number such as Native Segwit or p2wpkh is also encoded within the Electrum seed words themselves.

So, unstoppable wallet will treat your 12 or 24 word seed as BIP39. As a result when you input your Electrum seed there, Unstoppable report it as Invalid Seed or invalid checksum.

And then the result can be different addresses and a zero balance, even though the words were entered correctly.

Did you really check this yourself? Does it actually get imported and provided different addresses?

[BALIK]

If you really need to move your bitcoin to Unstoppable Wallet then why bother importing seed phrase? There is no effectiveness in making unnecessary technical complication and placing your Bitcoin at risk!

You can simply create a brand new wallet in Unstoppable.

Then you could send your bitcoin from Electrum to address there directly via on chain transaction, problem solved.

[promise444c5]

What could go wrong importing Electrum wallet recovery seed into unstoppable wallet? I see few people saying this isn't good practice, if something is going to break with this idea, what exactly is that thing?

Nothing other than it will be rejected .. have you tried it ? For more details on why that happens read this : https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/seedphrase.html.

I’m not sure where you got this “I see few people saying this isn't good practice” .. who are these “few people” they obviously don’t have any idea about what they are saying. 

What and what adjustments will happen after you import a recovery seed for a wallet into another that supports such recovery seed?

Nothing on the wallet side.. only the seed is different and the link itself is self explanatory, just go through it .

[Cookdata]

What could go wrong importing Electrum wallet recovery seed into unstoppable wallet? I see few people saying this isn't good practice, if something is going to break with this idea, what exactly is that thing?

You should give it a try and see if it will work.

It's not because it's not a good practice. It's because it doesn't work. Electrum seed phrase is a different seed phrase, you can't import it to Unstoppable. If you try to import electrum seed, it will say invalid checksum.

The reason is electrum wallet generate 132 bits to create a seed phrase and Bip39 generate 128, this is use to create the checksum of 4 bits to make it 132 bits in other to generate the seed phrase.

Aside that, electrum also generate the addresses using a seed version where the seed phrase is hashed until the result match the seed version you want. It can be legacy, Segwit and 2fa. Bip39 does not support none of this feature.

What and what adjustments will happen after you import a recovery seed for a wallet into another that supports such recovery seed?

If you have electrum wallet, there are few other mobile wallets that support electrum. Bluewallet, Cake wallet and electrum wallet for android itself. You can't import electrum wallet to a Bip39 wallet.

And then the result can be different addresses and a zero balance, even though the words were entered correctly. Importing the seed it self does not move or change any bitcoin, the new wallet is deriving the key from the sees according to its own rule.

There is no way a seed phrase generated from electrum will work on bip39, the checksum will make it invalid even before it create a different wallet addresses.

[Livingleged]

Did you really check this yourself? Does it actually get imported and provided different addresses?

To be honest I’ve not really tried it myself but I assume If a wallet interprets the same words using a different seed standard derivation method, then it can produce different addresses , but I’ve not verified whether unstoppable actually accepts a native Electrum seed and does that. So I shouldn’t have claimed that specific behaviour without testing the exact electrum to unstoppable case.

[eternalgloom]

To be honest I’ve not really tried it myself but I assume If a wallet interprets the same words using a different seed standard derivation method, then it can produce different addresses , but I’ve not verified whether unstoppable actually accepts a native Electrum seed and does that. So I shouldn’t have claimed that specific behaviour without testing the exact electrum to unstoppable case.

Then it seems to me you are spreading false/fake/unhelpful information on Bitcoin discussion board. And frightening newbies.

Also I could see someone already sent you merit for this, dunno why!

You should stop before someone tag you. GL

[PrivacyG]

Some wallets have different derivation paths.  Different 'Seed types'.  It can get really confusing for most users unless they are advanced enough to understand what all of that means.  For example.  Years ago Electrum introduced a new type of Seed, using their own format.  Some wallets do not recognize that.

Generally speaking I would say it is a lot better to stick to the main well known wallets such as Electrum after using it to create your Seed.  If you need a hot wallet then use the mobile Electrum application which I suppose does support the Electrum Seed format or simply create a new Seed in the Unstoppable Wallet application and use that separately for your phone.  You would definitely not want to over look it one time and end up for example on a separate derivation path you would not remember.  It could complicate things with out a good reason other than the convenience of using the exact same Seed.

[ColdLava40]

Did you really check this yourself? Does it actually get imported and provided different addresses?

To be honest I’ve not really tried it myself but I assume If a wallet interprets the same words using a different seed standard derivation method, then it can produce different addresses , but I’ve not verified whether unstoppable actually accepts a native Electrum seed and does that. So I shouldn’t have claimed that specific behaviour without testing the exact electrum to unstoppable case.

I'm thinking you must be referring to cases like adding a passphrase to your seed phrase. In that case, I understand that an entirely new wallet will be created.

Just as others have pointed out, importing an Electrum seed into a wallet that doesn't support that seed type won't unlock the wallet. Instead, it will usually give you an error message.

If I'm correct, wallets like Cake Wallet can import Electrum seeds. I've never tried it myself, but I remember reading about it somewhere. There are only a few wallets that can accept Electrum type seed phrases.

You should stop before someone tag you. GL

Tag? He was wrong and everyone makes mistakes.

why should he be tagged he didn't post on the technical discussion board.

[_act_]

I assume you have read what Cookdata posted.

What and what adjustments will happen after you import a recovery seed for a wallet into another that supports such recovery seed?

I also do not like it. The only time I can do it is when a wallet is not working good and I need the coins on it urgently like what happened to Samourai when government took down the wallet.

The reason people advise against it is because if you have seed phrase on a wallet, there can be problem on just that one wallet. But if you import the seed phrase on another wallet, the problem can come from the wallet you generated the seed phrase or from the wallet you imported it to.

Example is the Coldcard vulnerability. If you generated the seed phrase on Coldcard, your coins can still be vulnerable after you imported the wallet. Also if the second wallet where you imported the seed phrase to is vulnerable, that is also bad which makes the probability of your coins to be vulnerable to increase.

[Alphakilo]

What could go wrong importing Electrum wallet recovery seed into unstoppable wallet? I see few people saying this isn't good practice, if something is going to break with this idea, what exactly is that thing?

What and what adjustments will happen after you import a recovery seed for a wallet into another that supports such recovery seed?

You should know for a start that Electrum uses a customized seed format specifically for it and not the standard BIP39 format, so that means if you import Electrum wallet recovery seeds into unstoppable wallet, there might just be complications.
Therefore, I can only advice that you instead create a new wallet inside unstoppable wallet that you can send your Bitcoin to directly from Electrum wallet, so as to avoid any complications that could arise.

[Mia Chloe]

What could go wrong importing Electrum wallet recovery seed into unstoppable wallet? I see few people saying this isn't good practice, if something is going to break with this idea, what exactly is that thing?

What and what adjustments will happen after you import a recovery seed for a wallet into another that supports such recovery seed?

Break? It's either a wallet supports that seed derivation or not if it does fine nothing happens you just have your wallet after the sync if not the wallet will instead try to read the seed in its own understandable format and proceed to give you a derivation based on that check sum.

Does it break anything? Nope.. if I take that sees back to a wallet that actually supports the seed I'll still load up the correct checksum... That's basically it.

[_act_]

You should know for a start that Electrum uses a customized seed format specifically for it and not the standard BIP39 format, so that means if you import Electrum wallet recovery seeds into unstoppable wallet, there might just be complications.

There is no complications that will occur than he will be unable to import the seed phrase on Unstoppable wallet. If he tries to import the seed phrase, it will be invalid.

Also we are all here to learn. Do not expect someone that is newer to the forum to know what you know that is commonly posted on this forum.

There are some BIP39 wallets that support Electrum seed phrase.

Therefore, I can only advice that you instead create a new wallet inside unstoppable wallet that you can send your Bitcoin to directly from Electrum wallet, so as to avoid any complications that could arise.

I agree with this.

[Ambatman]

it’s safer to create a new wallet with a new seed and send the bitcoin to its new receiving address. This also avoids relying on whether both wallet derived same addresses from the same seed.

I do agree with this
It's easier to just send to a new wallet address than importing
Though it can become a chore with an HD wallet if you have funds spread across multiple addresses
and want to preserve their separation for privacy
Rather than consolidating .

And then the result can be different addresses and a zero balance

No this isn't entirely the case
Blue wallet for example if I recall correctly accepts electrum seedphrase standard.

[Stalker22]

To be honest I’ve not really tried it myself but I assume If a wallet interprets the same words using a different seed standard derivation method, then it can produce different addresses , but I’ve not verified whether unstoppable actually accepts a native Electrum seed and does that. So I shouldn’t have claimed that specific behaviour without testing the exact electrum to unstoppable case.

Then it seems to me you are spreading false/fake/unhelpful information on Bitcoin discussion board. And frightening newbies.

Technically, he was right.  Wallets using a different derivation path will generate different addresses, and thus show a zero balance, even when using the same seed phrase.  The only thing is that in this specific case it will not work because Electrum seed will not pass BIP39 checksum verification.

Also I could see someone already sent you merit for this, dunno why!

Read his post again. You will understand.

You should stop before someone tag you. GL

No one is going to get tagged for such a minor, harmless mistake.  Stop spreading false/fake/unhelpful information on the Bitcoin discussion board and scaring newbies. 

[Proty]

It is not a bad idea to import seed phrase to a different wallet but we need to ensure that  the new wallet is of the same structure or have the same derivations as the old one. Therefore generating an address here may not be same as the old one, which the funds in the original wallet address may not appear in the address generated in the other device. Lastly, for security purposes is not good to import seed from a device to another  because the new device maybe compromised,instead creating a new seed phrase should be more preferable to avoid exposing the seed phrase to a new or different device.

[retreat]

Like what others have explained, it just doesn't work because they use different standards. But what makes you want to import your seed phrase into Unstoppable Wallet? If you want to move your assets to a new device, then you should just download Electrum and then import your seed phrase. Or, you can just create a fresh wallet in Unstoppable Wallet and then transfer your assets there. That's much more practical than importing a seed phrase from one wallet to another when they're not compatible.

[eternalgloom]

Surprised to see so many Nigerian friends in this respective thread. Anyway much love to all my Naija people!

Read his post again. You will understand.

Thought I have already done with this thread.

however since you kept pressing, I went back for another look and reread. And damn, gotta admit that none of those issue from previous version are there, this one is adorably neat & clean compared to older one.

[pooya87]

The main problem is that the same recovery word do not always produce the same wallet. Electrum uses its own seed system and does not normally use the BIP39 seed. Another wallet may interpret those same as a BIP39 seed and use a different derivation method. And then the result will probably be invalid or a zero balance, even though the words were entered correctly.

You should give it a try and see if it will work.

It's not because it's not a good practice. It's because it doesn't work. Electrum seed phrase is a different seed phrase, you can't import it to Unstoppable. If you try to import electrum seed, it will say invalid checksum.

Both of these contradicting comments can be correct.
You see the checksum size in both algorithms is very small (2-4 bits) so there can be lots of collisions. So technically an Electrum mnemonic can still be a valid BIP-39 mnemonic and vice versa. However the Electrum seed generator code added a little check in version 4.1.3 to check these cases and reject them[1]. That means if the mnemonic was generated after version 4.1.3 that little check[2] would prevent it from being a valid BIP-39 mnemonic as well so @Cookdata is correct in this case but if the mnemonic was generated before this check existed[3] there is still a chance that the Electrum mnemonic is also a valid BIP-39 one as well so @Livingleged is correct in this case!

[1] https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/commit/9f08293c0e85e7c0db77a00fc54801bd530f9307
[2] https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/4cb03ef4f1f2baaf66519342b933ee731333b1fd/electrum/mnemonic.py#L230
[3] https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/4.1.2/electrum/mnemonic.py#L190-L216

Edit: This is valid both as an Electrum mnemonic (SegWit wallet type) and as a BIP-39 seed:

Code:

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