Can I use Electrum seed as a paper wallet?

Question

Based on what I've read so far I'm pretty sure that what I want to do should work, but I'd like to get some confirmation to make sure I won't be causing myself issues by screwing something up if I'm wrong.

This is what I'd to do: 1. setup an Electrum wallet in offline mode 2. write down the seed on paper 3. send the coins I want to secure from my normal wallet to one of the generated addresses 4. delete the newly setup Electrum wallet from the hard drive 5. Voila, I should be left with a paper wallet, right? With the wallet deleted from the hard drive, the only access point to the coins is through that paper with the seed written down. And whenever I want to use them, I just open Electrum, type in the seed and it'll grant me full access.

Is my thinking correct? I want to be sure I'm not missing something silly that would result in my finding out that I can't actually access the coins further down the line...

Answer 1

You should create your wallet from a pc that will never connect to the internet again if you want to secure your bitcoins 99.99%

If you don't have another PC, use Ubuntu Live CD/USB.

1. Boot from Ubuntu live cd/usb.
2. Install Electram, Bitcoin core, or any tools that enable you to generate wallet and create transactions.
3. Generate your wallet.
4. Write the seed (or private keys) on a paper.
5. Re-boot your pc.

But, in this way, you need to install Electram each time you need to sign a transaction.

Answer 2

Yes, you can create a paper wallet like that. Electrum's wallet recovery from the seed let's you recreate that same wallet later in time and as often as you wish to, even in parallel on different machines.

If you set a password for your wallet, that password will not be used to recreate your wallet. This means that you don't have to remember your password (if you set one) but it also means that your wallet won't be protected by it while on paper. If someone gets hold of your seed, they can restore your wallet no matter whether they know your password or not.

Answer 3

DON'T USE THE EXACT EXAMPLE BELOW FOR SECURITY REASONS.

Information synthesized below should be performed on an offline computer. Address below is an example of an address of where to deposit funds. Used source code from Monero's Electrum capabilities to write a short C++ program below called inverse_mnemonics, bitcoin-explorer, and the sed command below:

256-bit hexadecimal Private Key from 25 Electrum words:

% echo "civilian dapper fully enforce tedious deodorant lava cigar shuffled wobbly when juicy hubcaps onto thwart obliged ajar trendy safety exhale cactus pheasants upright jazz onto" | ./inverse_mnemonics

5356ac2233e3ea59af8e1c9ff3c3ce7c9f67053d128b7dd75ff6cedd8682ef86

Compressed WIF Private Key:

% echo "civilian dapper fully enforce tedious deodorant lava cigar shuffled wobbly when juicy hubcaps onto thwart obliged ajar trendy safety exhale cactus pheasants upright jazz onto" | ./inverse_mnemonics | sed 's/$/01/' | bx base58check-encode -v 128

Kz1i9EK6MTd6T9PUeYwDMj2x4Rr5N8vcVWUTTG8JLK3bScGZeyGm

Associated Public Address to deposit funds:

% echo "civilian dapper fully enforce tedious deodorant lava cigar shuffled wobbly when juicy hubcaps onto thwart obliged ajar trendy safety exhale cactus pheasants upright jazz onto" | ./inverse_mnemonics | bx ec-to-public | bx ec-to-address -v 0

186EdXhyoa7EC1X33nLhQNebbreYLrccVB

It is worth noting that https://xmr.llcoins.net/ has a JavaScript that can confirm portions of the results above offline, and may be additionally applied to create an encrypted Electrum seed words in case someone has unauthorized access to your paper wallet. This is a countermeasure that behaves analogously to a portion of the BIP 38 Standard, but instead uses Electrum technology.