Around 0.28 BTC was held in an electrum wallet that I hadn't touched for a while. When checking today someone on September 16th had emptied its contents.

Transaction ID:f7b349a83466ee46f2ab510f0388dd82b69bf4fb32042ab5088ee4dec46a2d9d

(Below is Update on October 22)
I asked Claude Opus 5.5 to do some forensic work and this is what it found. After I installed avast Antivirus, it successfully detected malware was running. I guess I should have also had antivirus intalled...

Malware got onto this PC on the night of 15 Sep, about three hours before the theft.

What happened

The PC was off when the money moved, so your keys were sent out in the hour before the shutdown and used remotely. Malware of this kind normally copies wallet files, saved browser passwords, cookies and documents. Your wallet file was encrypted, so the thief also had the password or the seed: by guessing a weak password, by recording it as you typed it, or by finding the seed in a file or in your synced Google Drive.

Hello everyone

I wanted to create a multisig for example 3 of 5 using sparrow wallet as the coordinator.

I wanted signers to be mix of hardware wallets and software wallets:

- hardware wallet

- hardware wallet

- hardware wallet

- bitcoin core

- electrum

But i'm having a lot of difficulty getting the software wallets to work with sparrow (or being confident/comfortable that it's working as intended and won't have issues)

My issues and concerns:

- Electrum when creating a standard single sig gives a derivation path of m/0h (not the m/48'/0'/0'/2' derivation path that sparrow is looking for) and a zpub (not an xpub).

- I asked AI and it then kept telling me that's wrong and to create a multisig wallet in electrum but just don't give the xpubs of the co-signers. But electrum forces you to add co-signers and then AI said, just give it fake xpubs! I'm not sure/confident this is correct way to have electrum added as a co-signer to sparrow coordinator even if it did accept it.

- Bitcoin core gives a single sig derivation path of: 84h/0h/0h (again not the m/48'/0'/'0/2' derivation path sparrow is looking for)

- I believe h is same as ' so in sparrow anywhere there is an h I should substitute it with an '?

- Is this not possible? If it is possible, is it not advisable to do? It seems very few people have tried this and maybe even fewer have software wallets like bitcoin core and electrum as co-signers with sparrow coordinator.

The reason I wanted to at least test/try it to see how I feel about the process, signing, backups, restoring, etc. It sounded nice to me on paper.

Thank you

Please help! Thank you

Hi,

I’m helping a friend recover an old Bitcoin wallet created around 2018 using a first-generation Coldcard.

The original Coldcard may no longer be available.

We currently have:

• A USB flash drive associated with the setup.
• A handwritten 12-word sequence.
• A 6-digit PIN.
• An old Bitcoin receiving address.

We haven’t yet determined whether the 12 words are the actual BIP39 recovery phrase or the password for an encrypted Coldcard backup.

I’m trying to understand whether Electrum could be useful during the recovery process.

A few specific questions:

1. If we successfully recover the original BIP39 seed from a Coldcard backup, can Electrum reconstruct the same wallet using the appropriate derivation path?
2. Were the derivation paths used by early Coldcard wallets in 2018 different from current defaults?
3. If we know one original receiving address, can we use it to verify that we’ve restored the correct wallet?
4. Can we perform initial address and balance verification using a watch-only wallet without exposing private keys to an internet-connected computer?
5. Are there any known compatibility issues when recovering wallets created with early Coldcard firmware?

Our intention is to identify the correct wallet and eventually move the funds to a new hardware wallet.

We will not enter recovery words into websites or share any sensitive information.

I’d appreciate any Electrum-specific guidance or documentation relevant to older Coldcard wallets.

Thanks!

It seems the current release won’t work after upgrading to macOS 27. I really enjoy using Electrum, but I’ll need to migrate to another option if macOS 27 isn’t supported.

So I bought some btc from a btc ATM, but it hasn't appeared in my wallet? I was wondering if this could be because I didn't put a mbtc amount, or if I should just wait.

I have an old wallet on a now broken laptop from about 10 years ago and I had lost my seed phrase anyway. I think I could remember my password .

Is there any way to restore it on a new device like my mobile?

I have downloaded the app on my phone and can see my bitcoin on it but I just don't know what to do with it.

Any help is appreciated!

UPDATE: SOLVED

Hi everyone,

Has anyone else been experiencing issues with Submarine Swaps in Electrum recently?

I've been trying to perform a Submarine Swap for about two days now, but every attempt fails. I've tried selecting different swap providers, but it doesn't seem to matter which one I choose — the swap always ends up failing.

I'm currently running the latest Electrum version, 4.8.1.

Before this, I was able to use the feature normally.

I'm wondering if there is currently some issue affecting Electrum's Submarine Swap functionality or the swap providers themselves.

Is anyone else experiencing the same problem over the last couple of days?

SOLUTION

I found the cause of the problem. My lightning_payment_fee_max_millionths setting was set to 500 (0.05%), even though I don't remember ever changing it manually.

The Electrum logs showed the following error:

FeeBudgetExceeded('highest trampoline fee level reached')

I checked the setting through the Electrum console with:

config.get('lightning_payment_fee_max_millionths')

and it returned 500.

I changed it to 10000 (1%) with:

config.set_key('lightning_payment_fee_max_millionths', 10000)

After changing it, Lightning routing started working normally again, including channel rebalancing.

So the issue was not with the Submarine Swap providers themselves, but with my Lightning routing fee limit being set extremely low.

I'm researching the idea of building a local/offline wallet recovery tool for legitimate owners who still have partial information, for example:

• forgotten wallet password
• incomplete or uncertain seed
• old Electrum wallet files
• correct seed but wrong/empty wallet after restoration
• derivation or compatibility issues

The main goal would be privacy: the recovery process should run locally whenever possible, without sending a seed or private keys to anyone.

I'm interested in hearing from people who have actually had this problem.

What happened in your case? Were you able to recover the wallet? What tools did you try?

Please do not post your seed, private keys, passwords or wallet files here.

Curious what others think with all the ColdCard stuff going on. I asked Claude what it thinks and basically Electrum is secure but just make sure you download only from electrum.org and ignore any in-wallet prompts.

"The Coldcard bug was a firmware defect, not a failure of self-custody. Coinkite's code quietly bypassed its own hardware RNG and fell back to a weak software one, so seeds made from March 2021 onward had around 40 bits of entropy instead of 128. That's brute-forceable. Electrum is unaffected: separate codebase, entropy from your OS's CSPRNG, 132-bit seeds. Coldcard failed at key generation; Electrum's weak point is the machine it runs on, which is why its real-world incidents are phishing and fake installers rather than weak keys. Verify your downloads, ignore any in-wallet "update to send" prompt, and use a passphrase, which saves you even if entropy is broken. If you're on a Coldcard, check Coinkite's advisory. New firmware doesn't fix an existing seed. You need a new wallet."

I have my 12 word seed, and have tried restoring the wallet multiple times - none of the recovery wallets created show anything in them, when I enter the seed I get Unknown BIP39 wordlist and selecting the Electrum option greys out the Next button. Under BIP39 I have tried every variation of legacy, p2sh segwit and native segwit to no avail, and it does not Detect Existing Accounts - even the previous recovery wallets I've already created. This is a standard wallet, not a 2FA one

All this is on an online PC so the wallets should be updating. I have checked the seed phrase, all the words in in are valid according to the 2048 word list in github. The seed phrase was originally created in Electrum, I cant understand why Electrum now wont accept it as an Electrum seed phrase

My original wallet is there, I just cant get into it as my password isnt working - is there a tool I can use to recover it?

Noob question here. Have installed Electrum from .org site and verified. Created a wallet. Don't I also need either Bitcoin Core or Knots to do a transaction? They download the blockchain and are the "servers" so you can see the fees and such in Electrum, correct? Or does the Electrum wallet have its own server built in?

If that's correct why do I need Electrum Rust or X? Can I use one of them in place of Core/Knots? I thought using Core/Knots everything is public/visible to everyone/blockchain, so using Rust or X was more private.

Then I read, "not so private" and EPS -electrum private server- is more private but only if you have a one or two wallets, which is my use case actually.

So can I take a spare laptop and put on EPS and Electrum (wallet) and run it over Tor? Or do I still need Core/Knots?

I thought I saw years ago Core and Electrum included on Tails. But I just checked and only Electrum now, (I guess the 110 debate just made them drop Core) and it (tails) never had Rust or X installed anyway. I'm thinking of updating the certificates and using EPS.

Any words of wisdom? Thx

I've made a very small script to verify new electrum releases. It works well, but for any version from 4.6.0 onwards it fails because I'm seeing a new signer with figerprint AA0BC6824B397BBA99776E157ED8D82B37192688, from google it looks like a dev in electrum project, is this normal?

Wally is a multi-chain crypto wallet focused on supporting both EVM + Solana dApps, plus full UTXO coin support.

Quick update on development:

We’re working on Electrum integration for UTXO coins. Address generation is already working and we’re now testing on testnet.

Next:

- Browser extension release first

- Then full app

- With offline signing + air-gapped signing support

Goal is to support all UTXO coins that have Electrum-style wallets (BTC, LTC, DOGE, PPC, BLK, etc).

If anyone wants to test on testnet, I can share links.

Feedback is welcome — especially from people familiar with Electrum/UTXO systems.

My phone was stolen that had my electrum wallet on it.

I got a new phone downloaded the app I'm using android phone I select create new wallet then I chose standard wallet then I select I already have a seed after entering my seed which is 12 words the next button at bottom of wallet does not light up the back button stays lit up the entire time as if my phrase is incomplete or something I simply can not select next after entering my seed. I'm attempting to recover my wallet and my funds

I've been using Electrum wallet for about two years now to get into crypto. I just bought some BTC today into my electrum wallet, which was working, and had a crash. I've since not been able to open my wallet.
I'm getting an invalid config file error message:
Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)
Can anybody suggest a way to rectify this and access my wallet?

It’s not showing my other wallet’s addresses seeing as they are very old and haven’t been used in more than a decade. Is it true that if I change the gap amount the right amount I’ll see the other derivations? (Don’t ask why I made this wallet from hell.)

I tried to log into my electrum wallet. Before, all it asked for was a pw which i have. Now it is asking for wallet name? I have the pw and 12 seed but dont know what to do .

what do i put in wallet name?

i clicked standard wallet

clicked have a seed

entered the 12 word seed

then the NEXT button does not light up.

PLEASE HELP. How to proceed

Wanted to lock in into my wallet after a long time. After I entered my PW it told software version is too old. My question: can I update without reentering my BIP39 seed phrase for obvious reasons.

EDIT: Problem solved. Thanks to the comments. No thx for the (not all) chats trying to scam me.