Electrum 2.0 release

[ThomasV]

The electrum.org website was updated with 2.0 source packages. Executables for windows and OSX will be released soon.

The release notes are a bit dense, due to the large amount of changes and new features in this release. In the coming weeks we will be adding more detailed documentation to the wiki and to the website.

There has been a very long hiatus in Electrum releases, because it took me a lot of time to decide about the new seed derivation method and wallet structure. Now that this part is done, I hope that we will resume to a faster release pace.

I would like to thank all the people who contributed to this release: developers, beta testers, and ordinary users who provided useful feedback.

Cheers,

Thomas

_____________________________

RELEASE-NOTES

# Release 2.0

* Before you upgrade, make sure you have saved your wallet seed on
paper.

* Documentation is now hosted on a wiki: http://electrum.orain.org

* New seed derivation method (not compatible with BIP39). The seed
phrase includes a version number, that refers to the wallet
structure. The version number also serves as a checksum, and it
will prevent the import of seeds from incompatible wallets. Old
Electrum seeds are still supported.

* New address derivation (BIP32). Standard wallets are single account
and use a gap limit of 20.

* Support for Multisig wallets using parallel BIP32 derivations and
P2SH addresses ("2 of 2", "2 of 3").

* Compact serialization format for unsigned or partially signed
transactions, that includes the BIP32 master public key and
derivation needed to sign inputs. Serialized transactions can be
sent to cosigners or to cold storage using QR codes (using Andreas
Schildbach's base 43 idea).

* Support for BIP70 payment requests:
- Verification of the chain of signatures uses tlslite.
- In the GUI, payment requests are shown in the 'Invoices' tab.

* Support for hardware wallets: Trezor (Satoshilabs) and Btchip (Ledger).

* Two-factor authentication service by TrustedCoin. This service uses
"2 of 3" multisig wallets and Google Authenticator. Note that
wallets protected by this service can be deterministically restored
from seed, without Trustedcoin's server.

* Cosigner Pool plugin: encrypted communication channel for multisig
wallets, to send and receive partially signed transactions.

* Audio Modem plugin: send and receive transactions by sound.

* OpenAlias plugin: send bitcoins to aliases verified using DNSSEC.

* New 'Receive' tab in the GUI:
- create and manage payment requests, with QR Codes
- the former 'Receive' tab was renamed to 'Addresses'
- the former Point of Sale plugin is replaced by a resizeable
window that pops up if you click on the QR code

* The 'Send' tab in the Qt GUI supports transactions with multiple
outputs, and raw hexadecimal scripts.

* The GUI can connect to the Electrum daemon: "electrum -d" will
start the daemon if it is not already running, and the GUI will
connect to it. The daemon can serve several clients. It times out
if no client uses if for more than 5 minutes.

* The install wizard can be used to import addresses or private
keys. A watching-only wallet is created by entering a list of
addresses in the wizard dialog.

* New file format: Wallets files are saved as JSON. Note that new
wallet files cannot be read by older versions of Electrum. Old
wallet files will be converted to the new format; this operation
may take some time, because public keys will be derived for each
address of your wallet.

* The client accepts servers with a CA-signed SSL certificate.

* ECIES encrypt/decrypt methods, availabe in the GUI and using
the command line:
encrypt <pubkey> <message>
decrypt <pubkey> <message>

* The Android GUI has received various updates and it is much more
stable. Another script was added to Android, called Authenticator,
that works completely offline: it reads an unsigned transaction
shown as QR code, signs it and shows the result as a QR code.

[jackbox]

The download page says no Trezor support in this initial release. When will it be available and why was it necessary to leave it out?

[ikydesu]

Good news! Two-factor authentication service is what i need
btw how about if i already have wallet and want to upgrade to 2.0 you can explain step by step?


~iki

[saverio]

Standalone Executable for Windows gives me the following error:

Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library
Runtime Error!
R6034
An application has made an attempt to load the C runtime library incorrectly.

[ThomasV]

Standalone Executable for Windows gives me the following error:

Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library
Runtime Error!
R6034
An application has made an attempt to load the C runtime library incorrectly.

see https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/1000

[saverio]

Standalone Executable for Windows gives me the following error:

Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library
Runtime Error!
R6034
An application has made an attempt to load the C runtime library incorrectly.

see https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/1000

Thanks for the link, following it I fix the problem starting Electrum by a python script. I am sure you will fix the problem in the next releases

[Abdussamad]

Openalias is pretty cool. It will allow you to use email addresses as bitcoin addresses.

[ThomasV]

binaries for windows and osx have been uploaded, with trezor support.

[ThomasV]

How do I turn on HW1 support?

you need to install from sources; HW1 is not supported in the current executables.

[pooya87]

is updating to the newest version of Electrum mandatory? or can i still use the old version that i have on my pc.

[Mitchell]

I'm going to repeat the question I had last time, which sadly went unanswered:

you need to create a special wallet, that will contain only imported keys.
see https://electrum.orain.org/wiki/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Can_I_import_addresses_from_other_Bitcoin_clients.3F

Could you guys explain the reasoning behind this and is their anyway around it? I have some imported addresses that are important to me, so I'm going to stick with 1.9.8 for now, I guess.

[unamis76]

Any tutorial to use amodem? It's says it isn't recognized on terminal after I install it...

[roman.z]

Hi unamis76,

I am the developer of amodem, and would be happy to help you with the installation.
Could you please run the following commands on your console (to make sure the package is installed correctly on your OS):


$ python -c "import platform; print(platform.platform())"
$ python -c "import amodem; print(amodem)"

Any tutorial to use amodem? It's says it isn't recognized on terminal after I install it...

[LMoras]

Just upgraded. Looks nice, worked smoothly - good job! ...except for one thing:

There seem to be a hard limit of 5 decimals to be shown for all sums. This regardless of your choice of unit of measure (BTC, mBTC or bits). I happen to prefer BTC, but with merely 5 decimals, this will truncate a lot of my sums.

Why is there a hard limit of 5 decimals?
Is there a way, by means of console or whatever, to override this?

I want to see my satoshis!

[medUSA]

Downloaded it and installed it just now. The new wallet seed now has 13 words instead of 12 previously.

There seem to be a hard limit of 5 decimals to be shown for all sums. This regardless of your choice of unit of measure (BTC, mBTC or bits).

I have the full 8 decimal points when I select BTC as unit. Try to select "BTC", close preference window, then open again to adjust decimal points.

[cryptity]

Im having issues with Electrum Sync'ing up, and when i click the network button the client freezes, i am restarting my pc now and will report back if anything changes / fixes its self.


*edit - No change, stuck in sync mode, it looks like it is connecting to a server, and i base that off the fact that ive seen a few different messages in the console tab.

ive also tried using the "wallet.synchronize()" option as well, and that did not fix it.

I'm having similar issue. Ubuntu 14.10 if it matters.

[Seldar]

Hello

I've downloaded the portable and non-portable versions and I've got this message (Avast) :


Thank you

[unamis76]

Hi unamis76,

I am the developer of amodem, and would be happy to help you with the installation.
Could you please run the following commands on your console (to make sure the package is installed correctly on your OS):


$ python -c "import platform; print(platform.platform())"
$ python -c "import amodem; print(amodem)"

Any tutorial to use amodem? It's says it isn't recognized on terminal after I install it...

Hello, thank you for your time in developing this tool. I saw the thread in which you presented this a while ago. Your reward was well deserved

On to business: Altough it errors out on the console, amodem seems to be working directly inside electrum. I haven't had much time to fiddle with it, but it does broadcast the transaction audio. It still gives me an error on the console though.

Here's the output of what you requested

Code:

d*****@s*****:~$ python -c "import platform; print(platform.platform())"
Linux-3.13.0-32-generic-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-14.04-trusty
d****@s*****:~$ python -c "import amodem; print(amodem)"
<module 'amodem' from '/home/d****/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/amodem/__init__.pyc'>

Besides this, have you tried your tool with a Raspberry Pi? If so, can you recomend anything for audio input? Maybe a specific external/USB soundcard?

Thanks in advance

[nachoig]

2 strange things in this release:

1. The default transaction fee was changed from 20000 satoshi (0.0002) to 50000 satoshi (0.0005 BTC) per kb, an increase of 150%. Why this change? Isn't this a little expensive?
2. The default unit was changed from BTC to mBTC.

[medUSA]

2 strange things in this release:
1. The default transaction fee was changed from 20000 satoshi (0.0002) to 50000 satoshi (0.0005 BTC) per kb
2. The default unit was changed from BTC to mBTC.

Yes, I noticed the change in default fee. It's a bit high to default at 0.0005btc. You can change the default fee in "Tools/Preference" anyway.