Electrum
Electrum is a lightweight Bitcoin client, based on a client-server protocol. It was released on november 5, 2011.
Main features:
- Encrypted wallet
- Deterministic key generation. If you lose your wallet, you can recover it from its passphrase.
- No blockchain download; the client requests that information from a server
- Private keys are not shared with the server.
- Firewall friendly: The client does not need to open a port, it simply polls the server for updates.
- No single point of failure: The server code is open source, anyone can run a server.
- Python. Very compact code, easy to contribute.
Brain Wallet
Electrum uses a type 2 deterministic key generation algorithm. This means that all the keys are derived from a seed.
Electrum makes it easy to memorize its seed, because it uses a mnemonic code.
Example:
- hexadecimal: 8a44dfd6ad4f687b5e3c80563c327027
- mnemonic: "shade weave eternity kept true tangle new talk clay warmth fish match"
Export and import addresses
You can export your private keys using the 'addresses' command:
$ ./electrum addresses -ak Password: 1LGoehbyeX4QBEPK1a6dhyaoMQZfqg5LKX:5JBSttEGhjEcPidSovW66Rin2EZ6LEHZ2qx8Pu2RqqNaDTBVWaF 1KcsBJa2cCxVkGJfSsg5bUeXN7Y5uLa8mP:5KiP4uiNT6KG8jnXbainCM8rDWRrgxt3PAyut4FFpDoCo1Rh6VM 1PXsn7LVXTccGhJPTUL8r2EGB4fF9kvex3:5Kj8mvBJReyk8xEBMx5cTnciQCxto5JmudiTPkqwMcd61Kf1Jqc 1KteSFTAphyByLTtUfFiVQ9s7fMVmx7c2h:5JeZ3FTbWcksLt3PKydd5U9p952UQRHwv3LoxzCA9LZ7V2bku5p 1GE5ZChAobeTEPLHDCDDKTSg3XvLkcQFjS:5JwtGEygTwF2nouhRVzW3w5DWZd1sCgxLtnd1v51wjkbUrp5sqH 12YNehfAoYTiwjTXULwaZqTCauu2D61fq6:5Jvcq19ePCXKcVun4n7US99CsrEByUK2kgxXBA3rBVBqYZjhfwD [change]
The option -a means: 'list all addresses' The option -k means: display the private keys
You can also import addresses into an electrum wallet, with the 'import' command:
$ ./electrum import 1LGoehbyeX4QBEPK1a6dhyaoMQZfqg5LKX:5JBSttEGhjEcPidSovW66Rin2EZ6LEHZ2qx8Pu2RqqNaDTBVWaF keypair imported
Note that imported keys do not belong to the deterministic sequence of your wallet; if you import keys in a wallet, you must backup it up!
Screenshot
Security
links
- homepage: http://ecdsa.org/electrum
- source code: https://gitorious.org/electrum
- download: git clone git://gitorious.org/electrum/electrum.git