Electrum Private Key - page 2. | Bitcointalksearch.org

a_cat_named_joe

sr. member

Activity: 307

Merit: 250

Quote from: zebedee on June 19, 2015, 08:54:57 AM

Quote from: shorena on June 17, 2015, 06:23:40 AM

Quote from: ThomasV on June 15, 2015, 05:01:24 AM

Quote from: shorena on June 03, 2015, 07:30:34 AM

True, but in case of a fork electrum might only work for one of the possible bitcoin forks.

that's not true. The Electrum client will not be affected by the max block size change.

Maybe I was not clear. I was referring to the scenario where Bitcoin XT emerges as an alt different from Bitcoin, with an identical historical blockchain. In this case I would assume you (and others running Electrum servers) would have to decide which coin to follow.

Is this a wrong assumption?

It doesn't matter. All you need is your seed; your coins are on both forks.

If a server is following the wrong chain, switch to a different server. In the impossible situation everyone is following the wrong chain, export your private keys to another client.

However that scenario makes no sense, since your coins, from before the fork, are valid on both forks, so it really doesn't matter which fork your server is following, unless you're receiving coins more than 100 blocks after a fork.

People need to chill out, a fork isn't the end of the world some people want to make it seem.

ALERT - Claiming BCC using an Electrum wallet - only private keys might work

There has been a suggestion from a r/btc source (https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/6qiak7/bcc_clients_are_listed_here/) that Bitcoin Cash (BCC/BCH) wallets might not recognise Electrum seeds i.e. private keys need to be imported into Bitcoin Cash wallets. Here's the latest advice from Electrum, which acknowledges that either seeds, or private keys will have to be used:

"BCC wallets will require you to import your seed or your private keys,
which can be exported from Electrum. Doing so will expose all your
Bitcoin funds associated with that seed to the BCC wallet you decide
to use.

Therefore, *after* the BCC fork, but *before* you enter a seed or
private key in a BCC wallet, you should move all your funds to a new
Electrum wallet, with a new seed. You will still be able to use the
old seed or private key with BCC, because BCC has replay
protection. Wait until your funds are confirmed in your new Bitcoin
wallet, before you enter the old private key in a BCC wallet. This
will protect your BTC funds from rogue/untrusted software."

In the event that private keys have to be used to claim BCC/BCH in a Bitcoin Cash wallet, how exactly should one proceed?
I know how to use the export private keys function in Electrum to generate unencrypted .csv, or .json files showing addresses and their associated private keys.
Does simply copying and pasting those addresses and private keys into the import function of a Bitcoin Cash wallet do the trick?
Do you import your private keys with their corresponding addresses individually, or all together?

Step-by-step, how should this be done? Expert opinion please!

zebedee

donator

Activity: 668

Merit: 500

Quote from: shorena on June 17, 2015, 06:23:40 AM

Quote from: ThomasV on June 15, 2015, 05:01:24 AM

Quote from: shorena on June 03, 2015, 07:30:34 AM

True, but in case of a fork electrum might only work for one of the possible bitcoin forks.

that's not true. The Electrum client will not be affected by the max block size change.

Maybe I was not clear. I was referring to the scenario where Bitcoin XT emerges as an alt different from Bitcoin, with an identical historical blockchain. In this case I would assume you (and others running Electrum servers) would have to decide which coin to follow.

Is this a wrong assumption?

It doesn't matter. All you need is your seed; your coins are on both forks.

If a server is following the wrong chain, switch to a different server. In the impossible situation everyone is following the wrong chain, export your private keys to another client.

However that scenario makes no sense, since your coins, from before the fork, are valid on both forks, so it really doesn't matter which fork your server is following, unless you're receiving coins more than 100 blocks after a fork.

People need to chill out, a fork isn't the end of the world some people want to make it seem.

shorena

copper member

Activity: 1498

Merit: 1528

No I dont escrow anymore.

Quote from: ThomasV on June 15, 2015, 05:01:24 AM

Quote from: shorena on June 03, 2015, 07:30:34 AM

True, but in case of a fork electrum might only work for one of the possible bitcoin forks.

that's not true. The Electrum client will not be affected by the max block size change.

Maybe I was not clear. I was referring to the scenario where Bitcoin XT emerges as an alt different from Bitcoin, with an identical historical blockchain. In this case I would assume you (and others running Electrum servers) would have to decide which coin to follow.

Is this a wrong assumption?

ThomasV

legendary

Activity: 1896

Merit: 1353

Quote from: shorena on June 03, 2015, 07:30:34 AM

True, but in case of a fork electrum might only work for one of the possible bitcoin forks.

that's not true. The Electrum client will not be affected by the max block size change.

Cryptowatch.com

full member

Activity: 196

Merit: 103

Some brute CLI solutions:

Generate commands for moving all privkeys to another electrum wallet:

Code:

echo walletpassword | python electrum dumpprivkeys 2>/dev/null | grep -v WARNING | grep -v Exposing | grep -v "In particular" | grep \" |cut -d "\"" -f2 | xargs -L 1 echo python electrum importprivkey

Generate code for inserting all electrum wallet privkeys to bitcoind:

Code:

echo walletpassword | python electrum dumpprivkeys 2>/dev/null | grep -v WARNING | grep -v Exposing | grep -v "In particular" | grep \" |cut -d "\"" -f2 | xargs -L 1 echo bitcoin-cli importprivkey | awk '{print  false $0" false &&"}' | xargs | sed 's/.\{2\}$//'

Run commands from the electrum directory, and when done, simply copy the output and paste it in another terminal window. Please ensure, you're sitting in the relevant directory for electrum

Quickseller

copper member

Activity: 2926

Merit: 2348

Quote from: shorena on June 03, 2015, 07:30:34 AM

Quote from: Muhammed Zakir on June 03, 2015, 07:16:25 AM

You only need to backup mnemonic seed. If you backup it, you are safe.

True, but in case of a fork electrum might only work for one of the possible bitcoin forks.

With Electrum 1.9.8. you click Wallet -> Private Keys -> Export -> "enter password" -> OK -> "read warning" -> OK -> save

It will create an unencrypted(!) .csv file with all private keys and corresponding addresses.

Although it is possible that no version of electrum will work on the "accepted" fork in the event of a fork, the private keys that will get exported will not change depending on the time that you export them. In other words, you will incur the same output if you export the private keys today, tomorrow or 10 years from today (you will likely receive additional keys the later you export them because the chances are that you will use more addresses as time progresses, however this fact should be ignored for this argument). As a result it does not matter when you export the private keys, as if the keys are valid for the fork you wish to use, then they will always be valid regardless of when they are exported.

As you somewhat pointed out, holding an unencrypted version of your private keys is very dangerous, and many bad things can happen to them, and the risk of loss is significantly greater if you are storing an unencrypted version of your private keys somewhere (especially if you are storing them in some cloud storage service).

I would say the best practice would be to store you seed and/or backup of your wallet in a secure manner and then only export your private keys in the event that you absolutely need to.

btchris

hero member

Activity: 672

Merit: 504

a.k.a. gurnec on GitHub

If your wallet was generated by Electrum 2.x, an alternative to dealing with individual private keys would be export your one master private key ("xprv"), and import it into another wallet.

Unfortunately, you're limited in your other wallet options. The only one I'm aware of that this would work with is Mycelium for Android.

(How to export your xprv from Electrum: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/36839/electrum-2-0-non-bip39-32-standardisation-complicates-matters-immensely-why/36945#36945)

shorena

copper member

Activity: 1498

Merit: 1528

No I dont escrow anymore.

Quote from: Muhammed Zakir on June 03, 2015, 07:16:25 AM

You only need to backup mnemonic seed. If you backup it, you are safe.

True, but in case of a fork electrum might only work for one of the possible bitcoin forks[1].

With Electrum 1.9.8. you click Wallet -> Private Keys -> Export -> "enter password" -> OK -> "read warning" -> OK -> save

It will create an unencrypted(!) .csv file with all private keys and corresponding addresses.

[1] Add for clarity: Im referring to the possible split into two distinct coins Bitcoin and Bitcoin XT here, not a fork within the same coin.

Muhammed Zakir

hero member

Activity: 560

Merit: 509

I prefer Zakir over Muhammed when mentioning me!

You only need to backup mnemonic seed. If you backup it, you are safe.

sccrfreak9

newbie

Activity: 1

Merit: 0

Because of the up and coming fork I want to export my private keys so I can use them on both chains and not get messed about and lose money so what is the command for exporting private keys?

Topic: Electrum Private Key - page 2. (Read 6576 times)