Guide: installing and using a bitcoin wallet (Electrum)

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Electrum is a light and simple wallet for Bitcoin. The first step electrum bitcoin qt manual the world electrum bitcoin qt manual bitcoins is to create a wallet or Bitcoin Wallet. The second one is an address similar to your IBAN bank account number. There are several types of Bitcoin wallets each with their own specifications and features. Creating a new wallet will electrum bitcoin qt manual take a few seconds. Main window of Electrum.

With a user interface simple and clear, Electrum electrum bitcoin qt manual a very good option to start in the world of Bitcoin. Electrum is a light client since the blockchain is not downloaded the database where all the transactions made in the Bitcoin network are stored. In order to operate it electrum bitcoin qt manual the information through a special servers that are connected to the network of Bitcoin.

These servers keep a copy of the blockchain and notify our Electrums every time a change occurs that affects any of our addresses. A wallet is a grouping of addresses. These are where our bitcoins are stored.

These wallets, in Electrum, are generated using a "bitcoin enhancement proposal" known as BIP BIP32 defines a system for generating the addresses of the purses from a seed or seed. A seed is a random sequence of 12 or 13 words, easy to point and protect, which allow you to electrum bitcoin qt manual restore a wallet and the directions it contains. Of course, each wallet has its own seed. SEED A seed, composed of 12 or 13 random words, serves to create a wallet for the first time If someone succeeds in getting our seed, they will have no problem in regenerating the wallet and moving the funds it contains.

Therefore, a seed should be stored in a safe place, on paper or on a USB stick, outside the computer in which we are operating which could be damaged, could be stolen This password is used to encrypt the seed on the hard disk and we will be asked every time we go to make a shipment of bitcoins.

Like all passwords, it is interesting that it contains uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and other characters such as! The first time we run Electrum we will not have any wallets available. The program will launch a wizard that will allow us to create a new wallet or import an existing one from a seed. It is solved by restarting the program. Electrum allows to operate with several wallets at the same time in a very simple way. Each time we open a wallet we will see a new window of the program, we should look at the title bar, which will always indicate the wallet with which you are working.

The "Receive" tab is cumbersome. From it we can create something like requests for payment. We must share the URL with the person who should make the payment. Let's go to the "Addresses" tab. In this tab we have all the addresses that belong to our electrum bitcoin qt manual. These addresses are grouped by the ones that are of type " Receiving " and by those that are of the type " Change ".

We will work with the former. An orderly way to receive our bitcoins is by using an address for each of our contacts or services, thus, it will be very easy to identify who has made a payment. In the "label" column of each address, by double clicking, we can establish a name or reference for each of them. Right-clicking on an address we get a drop-down menu, there we select "Copy address" so that it is copied to the clipboard. We will only have to share this address with our contact or service to make the payment.

We should not worry about our bitcoins being distributed among different directions, on the contrary, their management is totally transparent to us. This is the best method we can use, both anonymously and, above all, to have an orderly operation. Address Tab where we can see all our "Receiving" addresses. We just have to indicate the address where we want to send our bitcoins and the quantity. We can write a description to remind us in the future of the reason for payment.

It is recommended that you do not touch the "Commission" or, if it takes a little longer, set it to the minimum Within 25 blocks. In the "Contacts" tab we can establish a list of people or services with their addresses. Electrum bitcoin qt manual example of the "History" tab with some transfers that are in several states. Each line represents a transfer. With your date, description if we have indicated itthe amount moved and the final balance.

The amount is shown in red if it is an expense and in black if it is an income. Remember that in the world of bitcoin to consider electrum bitcoin qt manual transaction as electrum bitcoin qt manual it is necessary to wait a minimum of 6 confirmations. It is advisable not to spend money that we do not yet have at all, that is, if we have a transfer of 1 BTC, it is better not to spend that BTC until that transfer, at least, has 6 confirmations.

In case of carrying out a transaction of these characteristics it is possible that this one takes longer than usual to be confirmed or that, perhaps, never to do it. Electrum allows us to have the same wallet on more than one computer at a time. Although you have to consider some things to avoid problems. If the wallet is used at once by several electrum bitcoin qt manual, from several computers, and has intensive use, it can cause some synchronization problem.

And in some specific case, perhaps, an attempt of double expense? If we want, we can synchronize this data among several Electrums that are on several computers. Seed We have already said that we can restore a wallet from its seed. This will restore our "Receiving" and "Change" addresses, but not the addresses we have manually imported, the "Imported" addresses. Electrum bitcoin qt manual we have manually imported addresses, use one of the following methods:.

We must do this with each of electrum bitcoin qt manual wallets we want to make electrum bitcoin qt manual backup and every time we import a new address. We can access the directory with the Electrum user files details in point 8 and make a copy of the wallets directory. In that directory we have a file for each of electrum bitcoin qt manual wallets.

They are text files that occupy very little space. If we have a problem performing a normal transaction and the program gives us electrum bitcoin qt manual strange error ie, nothing is wrong address or other logical errors we can choose to restore the wallet again. An example of such errors would be "Invalid Lines Achieved: In English, this error throws the text "Invalid lines found". Before restoring the wallet we must take into account if we have imported directions manually.

If we do not have it, we can restore it from the seed. If you have imported addresses, you will need to either back up electrum bitcoin qt manual wallet file or restore from the seed and re-import the addresses manually from the private key. We talk about addresses and their corresponding private keys. Remember that these imported addresses are not recoverable via seed. In case of problems, you have to import them electrum bitcoin qt manual or recover them from a backup file.

Example of paper wallet or "Paper Wallet". It is interesting to know where Electrum saves the user files, mainly wallets. Especially if we have to do some operation to fix some wallet that gives us problems. OSX Go to the Finder. Linux Go to the user directory. Once we are inside the Electrum directory we will see that it contains a directory called "wallets". That's where our wallets are stored.

Each wallet will have its file and it will be called with the same name that appears in the Electrum itself. Mention, as a curiosity and to avoid confusion, that there are versions of Electrum modified to work with other criptocurrencys. It is not that Electrum works with more than one criptocurrency at a time, but there are different Electrums, each adapted to operate with a single coin. Elecco Litecoin and Faircoin Electrum. Electrum is a light and simple wallet for Bitcoin The first step in the world of bitcoins is to create a wallet or Bitcoin Wallet.

Introduction With a user interface simple and clear, Electrum is a very good option to start in the world of Bitcoin. Purses and Seeds A wallet is a grouping of addresses. Security Each wallet has a seed and can and should have a password. They are two different things. Creating and restoring wallets Electrum bitcoin qt manual first time we run Electrum we will not have any wallets available.

Each line represents an assistant window: Basic use Electrum allows to operate with several wallets at the same time in a very simple way. We recommend using another method. The "Submit" tab In the "Contacts" tab we can establish a list of people or services with their addresses. An example of the "History" tab with some transfers that are in several states Each line represents a transfer.

The icon on the left has several meanings: A tip or seen in green means that the transfer was completed successfully you have 6 or more confirmations A clock more or less in green indicates that the transfer still does not have the 6 confirmations Three gray nuts, with "Unconfirmed" or "Pending" date, means that the transfer does not yet have any confirmation An admiration symbol, a electrum bitcoin qt manual, indicates that the transfer has some problem still and electrum bitcoin qt manual, depending on the problem, can be completed.

At the date you can indicate more details. If you put "Unconfirmed parent" it means that we have made an exit transfer with a money that had electrum bitcoin qt manual yet fully entered the previous transfer, at the beginning, it still did not have 6 or no confirmation Remember that in the world of bitcoin to consider a transaction as irreversible it is necessary to wait a minimum of 6 confirmations. Shared Wallets Electrum allows us to have the same wallet on more than one computer at a time.

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Startup times are instant because it operates in conjunction with high-performance servers that handle the most complicated parts of the Bitcoin system. Not really; the Electrum client never sends private keys to the servers.

In addition, it verifies the information reported by servers, using a technique called Simple Payment Verification. Your wallet can be entirely recovered from its seed. The seed phrase created by Electrum has bits of entropy.

This means that it provides the same level of security as a Bitcoin private key of length bits. It is not possible to recover your password. However, you can restore your wallet from its seed phrase and choose a new password. If you lose both your password and your seed, there is no way to recover your money. This is why we ask you to save your seed phrase on paper. In general, the speed of confirmation depends on the fee you attach to your transaction; miners prioritize transactions that pay the highest fees.

This feature is enabled by default in recent versions of Electrum. When you freeze an address, the funds in that address will not be used for sending bitcoins. Wallet file encryption is activated by default since version 2. It is intended to protect your privacy, but also to prevent you from requesting bitcoins on a wallet that you do not control.

Yes, see Cold Storage. You should sweep them instead. If you want to import private keys and not sweep them, you need to create a special wallet that does not have a seed. Sweeping private keys means to send all the bitcoins they control to an existing address in your wallet. The private keys you sweep do not become a part of your wallet. Instead, all the bitcoins they control are sent to an address that has been deterministically generated from your wallet seed.

Enter the private keys in the appropriate field. That is the destination address and it will be from your existing electrum wallet. You can create a transaction with several outputs. In the GUI, type each address and amount on a line, separated by a comma. This might happen if you are trying to spend a large number of transaction outputs for example, if you have collected hundreds of donations from a Bitcoin faucet. When you send Bitcoins, Electrum looks for unspent coins that are in your wallet in order to create a new transaction.

Unspent coins can have different values, much like physical coins and bills. If this happens, you should consolidate your transaction inputs by sending smaller amounts of bitcoins to one of your wallet addresses; this would be the equivalent of exchanging a stack of nickels for a dollar bill.

The gap limit is the maximum number of consecutive unused addresses in your deterministic sequence of addresses. Electrum uses it in order to stop looking for addresses. Electrum will generate new addresses as you use them, until it hits the gap limit. If you need to pre-generate more addresses, you can do so by typing wallet. This command will generate one new address. Note that the address will be shown with a red background in the address tab to indicate that it is beyond the gap limit.

The red color will remain until the gap is filled. Addresses beyond the gap limit will not automatically be recovered from the seed. For example, if you wanted to generate 50 addresses, you could do this:. To upgrade Electrum, just install the most recent version. The way to do this will depend on your OS. Note that your wallet files are stored separately from the software, so you can safely remove the old version of the software if your OS does not do it for you.

For this reason, it is not recommended to downgrade Electrum to an older version once you have opened your wallet file with the new version. The older version will not always be able to read the new wallet file. Frequently Asked Questions How does Electrum work?

Does Electrum trust servers? What is the seed? How secure is the seed? I have forgotten my password. What can I do? My transaction has been unconfirmed for a long time. How is the wallet encrypted? Does Electrum support cold wallets? Can I import private keys from other Bitcoin clients? Can I sweep private keys from other Bitcoin clients? Where is my wallet file located? Can I do bulk payments with Electrum?

Can Electrum create and sign raw transactions? Electrum freezes when I try to send bitcoins. What is the gap limit? How can I pre-generate new addresses? How do I upgrade Electrum?

If you have made a transaction that is unconfirmed, you can: Wait for a long time. Eventually, your transaction will either be confirmed or cancelled. This might take several days.

Increase the transaction fee. A window will popup with the unsigned transaction. A CPFP is a new transaction that pays a high fee in order to compensate for the small fee of its parent transaction. It can be done by the recipient of the funds, or by the sender, if the transaction has a change output. The private keys are decrypted only briefly, when you need to sign a transaction; for this you need to enter your password.

In addition, your wallet file may be encrypted on disk. Note that the wallet information will remain unencrypted in the memory of your computer for the duration of your session. If a wallet is encrypted, then its password will be required in order to open it. Note that the password will not be kept in memory; Electrum does not need it in order to save the wallet on disk, because it uses asymmetric encryption ECIES. You will need to back up this wallet, because it cannot be recovered from a seed.

Amounts are in the current unit set in the client. The total is shown in the GUI. For example, if you wanted to generate 50 addresses, you could do this: Some Electrum upgrades will modify the format of your wallet files. The following issues should be considered when upgrading Electrum 1. Please allow it time to complete, and expect it to take a little longer than usual for Electrum to be ready.

The contents of your wallet file will be replaced with an Electrum 2 wallet. This means Electrum 1. This is expected behavior. Restart Electrum 2 after the upgrade is complete and your addresses will be available. Offline copies of Electrum will not show the addresses at all because it cannot synchronize with the network.

You can force an offline generation of a few addresses by typing the following into the Console: Read the Docs v: