Electrum 1.x · BTC

Recover a Electrum 1.x wallet.

Electrum 1.x is the original version of the popular lightweight Bitcoin wallet, with a password-encrypted seed.

Why people get locked out

For a forgotten Electrum password when you still have the wallet file.

Can we recover it?

Yes. Electrum 1.x is one of the formats that reduces to a check-only extract, so the fleet can test passwords against it safely — finding the password never exposes a key that holds funds. GPU-friendly. You pay 15% only if we recover it, and nothing if we don't.

Under the hood

The Electrum 1.x extract, in detail.

Exactly what the fleet receives for this format — and why finding the password still can't move the funds.

Anatomy of the extract

What leaves your machine — and what never does

For a Electrum 1.x wallet, this is the entire check-only extract the fleet receives. It can test a password, but it can never be turned back into a key that spends.

GPU electrum1:
in the extract
  • half of the encrypted seed
  • the initialization vector (IV)
stays on your device
  • the other half of the encrypted seed — never sent
  • your addresses and balances
how a guess is checked

A correct password decrypts the half-seed to valid, expected structure. Half a seed cannot be reassembled into a working wallet.

example extract
illustrative · synthetic
electrum1:<iv-hex>:<half-seed-hex>

Illustrative and synthetic — placeholder bytes. Only half the encrypted seed is ever present.

on the wire

Half the encrypted seed plus the IV — deliberately incomplete, so it can never reconstruct the full seed.

password math (KDF)
Double SHA-256

The key is derived by hashing the password with SHA-256 twice; the seed is then encrypted with AES-256-CBC.

how a guess is recognized
padding / structure check

A correct password decrypts the half-seed to valid, expected structure. Half a seed cannot be reassembled into a working wallet.

extract format
electrum1:

An open, published format. The agent checks every job matches it before running — so a real wallet can't be disguised as an extract.

See the full security model, or how a recovery works end to end.