obviously you should take a backup of your seed and as @squatter said above you can simply use a tool to recover it.
but the important thing you need to know is that no matter what you have (seed or wallet file encrypted or not), Electrum is not using a secret way to do things. the code is open and it is clear how it is doing things. so it is easy to just take that part of the code (for example to get the part where it gets private keys from seed) out of the code. even if you don't understand the code you can simply pay someone who knows Python to do it for you. it is very simple.
besides a project won't just vanish from the face of the earth. specially when it is popular and is used by a lot of people. you can see MultiBit for example. it stopped being developed but the code still exists and there are lots of copies (forks) of it on GitHub. not to mention all the other wallets that started supporting the MultiBit wallets so that people can easily migrate from MultiBit to new wallets.
Topic: Best way to recover my Electrum wallet if the software doesn't exist anymore? (Read 131 times)
March 02, 2018, 11:37:27 PM
March 02, 2018, 04:10:18 PM
if you had that much, then you can probably afford hardware wallets (2 or 3) and split across each.
2 cold storage
1 hot storage
and keep backup seed in a grave, in the pillow, behind the sugar mills, may be get a tattoo, memorize it (i would not recommend this). You get the idea. be creative when you have millions
Edit: about hardware wallets. always reset them before using. just to be safe. never use a wallet if there is already generated seed on it.
when you power on the wallet for first time, it will ask you to create a new seed. visually inspect to make sure it has not been tamper with and you can even check nano S verification on it's site.
2 cold storage
1 hot storage
and keep backup seed in a grave, in the pillow, behind the sugar mills, may be get a tattoo, memorize it (i would not recommend this). You get the idea. be creative when you have millions
Edit: about hardware wallets. always reset them before using. just to be safe. never use a wallet if there is already generated seed on it.
when you power on the wallet for first time, it will ask you to create a new seed. visually inspect to make sure it has not been tamper with and you can even check nano S verification on it's site.
March 02, 2018, 04:06:40 PM
Please suggest me some way to recover my wallet if Electrum is eventually not available in the future.
Electrum is a deterministic (HD) wallet, and has been for several years now. When you create a new wallet, you are provided a 12-word seed. Write it down and keep it safe. If you ever need to, you can recover the wallet from the seed. An Electrum seed won't be compatible with all wallets, but you should be able to derive your keypairs using Ian Coleman's open source tool.
Even if they stop developing Electrum, old versions will still exist, so you can import your wallet and dump your keys.
More on HD wallets here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Deterministic_wallet
Imagine what would you do if you had a million USD in your wallet... 
Do you think it would be a good idea to store the public and private keys into some USB drive (or print them with their QR codes) and store it somewhere safe?
Do you think it would be a good idea to store the public and private keys into some USB drive (or print them with their QR codes) and store it somewhere safe?Yes, it's prudent to make multiple back-ups. I use several mediums as well:
-Encrypted wallet, backed up on PC, USB or other media
-Paper wallet
-HD wallet seed
March 02, 2018, 03:24:03 PM
Please suggest me some way to recover my wallet if Electrum is eventually not available in the future.
Imagine what would you do if you had a million USD in your wallet... Do you think it would be a good idea to store the public and private keys into some USB drive (or print them with their QR codes) and store it somewhere safe?
Imagine what would you do if you had a million USD in your wallet...
Do you think it would be a good idea to store the public and private keys into some USB drive (or print them with their QR codes) and store it somewhere safe?Jump to: