Topic: "Wallet -> Seed" option greyed out (Read 214 times)

Curious why they don't support it.

Early versions of Electrum (before 2.0) used a bidirectional encoding between seed phrase and entropy. This type of encoding requires a fixed wordlist. This means that future versions of Electrum must ship with the exact same wordlist, in order to be able to read old seed phrases.

BIP39 was introduced two years after Electrum. BIP39 seeds include a checksum, in order to help users figure out typing errors. However, BIP39 suffers the same shortcomings as early Electrum seed phrases:

• A fixed wordlist is still required. Following our recommendation, BIP39 authors decided to derive keys and addresses in a way that does not depend on the wordlist. However, BIP39 still requires the wordlist in order to compute its checksum, which is plainly inconsistent, and defeats the purpose of our recommendation. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that BIP39 proposes to create one wordlist per language. This threatens the portability of BIP39 seed phrases.

• BIP39 seed phrases do not include a version number. This means that software should always know how to generate keys and addresses. BIP43 suggests that wallet software will try various existing derivation schemes within the BIP32 framework. This is extremely inefficient and rests on the assumption that future wallets will support all previously accepted derivation methods. If, in the future, a wallet developer decides not to implement a particular derivation method because it is deprecated, then the software will not be able to detect that the corresponding seed phrases are not supported, and it will return an empty wallet instead. This threatens users funds.

For these reasons, Electrum does not generate BIP39 seeds. Starting with version 2.0, Electrum uses the following Seed Version System, which addresses these issues.

Electrum 2.0 derives keys and addresses from a hash of the UTF8 normalized seed phrase with no dependency on a fixed wordlist. This means that the wordlist can differ between wallets while the seed remains portable, and that future wallet implementations will not need today’s wordlists in order to be able to decode the seeds created today. This reduces the cost of forward compatibility.

Below is the message displayed by electrum when importing a BIP39 seed phrase. That explains why electrum developers don't like BIP39 seed phrase and they use a different algorithm.

Curious why they don't support it.

Well, to be fair, Electrum doesn't generate BIP39 seed.

If you want to change that feature, you can try to convince the main developers by following the replies in the link in my first reply.

Why? One would think you could look at the phrase used to create the wallet. Not exactly user friendly.

Electrum uses a different code to derive BIP39 seed.

If it's just 12 words, do your best to remember it, at least during your travels.

In general this will work, but if uses passphrase, may get something different.

I have alts on the same seed that I'd like to access.

Interesting. That sounds like a rabbit hole, as I originally created the wallet from a BIP39 seed. Perhaps there is something different about BIP39 I don't understand. And, maybe, Electrum takes a different approach than other wallets like Exodus.

I suppose this is why my legacy Bitcoin UTXOs don't show up if I choose a Segwit wallet and visa versa.

I'm trying to access some alts with the same seed.

There's no way to see your BIP39 seed phrase from Electrum.
Unlike a native Electrum seed phrase which is saved in the wallet file under "keystore", BIP39's isn't saved there, just the derived extended private/public keys.
Without the actual seed phrase, it impossible to get it from the extended private key (xprv) that's derived from it.

The most probable reason is the developers' take on BIP39 that its seed phrase isn't enough as a backup since the user also has to take note of derivations path and script type.

Why tho?

Don't you already have seed words offline and written as a backup on piece of paper or metal?

In case if you don't have that than I would just send coins to newly generated address in wallet with new seed words that have proper backup.

Waiting for fees to go down would be a wise decision.

In general this will work, but if uses passphrase, may get something different.


https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/df842af0b6b48074a510155fbfd28df295c200d4/electrum/mnemonic.py

I'd like to get my phrase and import it into another wallet and am traveling ... away from my hand-written backup. Appreciate any help 

Anyways, get your master private key (actually "extended private key") from the console with getmasterprivate() command.
Then see if your other wallet supports importation of xprv keys. You might have to use convert_xkey(xkey="zprv.....",xtype="standard") if the other wallet only support "xprv".

I'd like to get my phrase and import it into another wallet and am traveling ... away from my hand-written backup. Appreciate any help  ;)