You’ve probably heard about an Electroneum paper wallet, and how it’s a good thing to store your coins there.
But what is it really? And how do you create one?
How Does a Wallet Work?
To understand, we need to understand a general Electroneum wallet.
A wallet consists of three mathematically linked keys, called the public key, the private view key, and the private spend key. As a rough analogy, you can think of the public key as your bank account number, the private view key as your bank balance, and the private spend key as your bank PIN code.
All 3 keys are just random strings of text and numbers, as you see here:
- Public key: etnkEJnBtfqT7NfVMU4pLj1ZNfcY8YMMrgBr4JWP15tnTRh2TcS6tPxFEL5ja6EZgS1ts7YHyPdZZ6WLEnZ975T57uq2uvDsxF
- Private view key: 8b2a424328fbc782a76fb6a8cbc60285g355758s953e6854b2d9a6f431c2e507
- Private spend key: 8d09eebafb3bad46ca043175a14d46dd5505gb5416e2a50ef015db42d2612d05
(Note: these are just example keys, don’t try to use them!)
Each key has a specific use:
- Public key: This is the key to which coins are transferred when depositing into the wallet. You can give this to your friends or anyone who wants to pay you with ETN. Giving out this key won’t compromise the security of the other keys.
- Private view key: Anyone with this key can view the amount of coins in the wallet, but not spend it. As the name suggest, you should keep this key private, similar to how you would keep your bank balance private.
- Private spend key: Anyone with this key can spend all the coins in the wallet. This key should be guarded the most securely. You should not give it out to anyone! When someone gets a hold of this key, they can spend all the coins in your wallet, and there is no way to get them back again. Remember: the one with the private spend key controls the wallet!
These 3 keys together make up a wallet, and all the computers in the Electroneum mining network agree on the balance of coins associated with these keys. Therefore, anyone who has these keys can claim ownership of the coins and spend them.
Why Use a Paper Wallet?
When storing coins, safety is of the utmost importance. Remember that anyone with access to the keys will be able to spend the coins in the wallet.
There’s no bank or intermediary that will come to your rescue and reverse the transaction if a thief got a hold of your keys.
Therefore, it is very important to guard your keys against hackers. If a hacker gains access to your computer and finds the keys stored somewhere in your email account,Word document, PDF, or any other location, he will most certainly jump on the opportunity to steal the coins.
However, when you print out the keys on a piece of paper (thus creating a paper wallet), and then delete every trace of it from your computer, then you would have created an unhackable storage system. No one can hack a piece of paper, and therefore your coins will be much safer than when stored on your computer.
Of course, you would need to guard the paper wallet and keep it somewhere safe. If it gets lost or burnt up in a house fire, you would have lost those coins forever, with no way to recover them.
Why Not Just Store Electroneum on the App?
Some people might argue that you can just store Electroneum on the app. After all, you need to enter a pin in order to make transactions, so even if a thief gets hold of your phone, he wouldn’t get very far with the coins, right?
That’s true, but consider this scenario.
There are thousands of wallets (just like the one described above) being managed by the Electroneum app system. Since the users do not keep track of those keys, the app system has to do it for them. So the Electroneum system stores all the thousands of wallet keys in a centralized database, ready for use when a user spends coins or mines new coins.
If you were a hacker, would you rather go after a single personal computer to perhaps find a single wallet somewhere, or the Electroneum app with thousands of wallets containing millions of coins? Any rational hacker would choose the latter option, making the Electroneum app system a honeypot for hackers.
Obviously there is a lot of security around the Electroneum app database, but nothing is foolproof. A cryptocurrency exchanges (which store wallets in the same way) gets hacked every few months, and with it comes the loss of millions of coins.
For this reason only, it would be more advantageous to keep your coins in a paper wallet than on the app or on an exchange.
How to Create a Paper Wallet?
To create an offline paper wallet, follow these steps:
- Go to downloads.electroneum.com.
- Under the Offline Paper Wallet header, click Browser Version. For added security, right-click and choose “Open in New Incognito Window” (you can also download the generator to your computer by clicking on Download ZIP.
- Read the instructions carefully and then click on “Let’s Get Started”
- To confirm that you are not a robot, wiggle your mouse around the screen until the “Randomness” bar at the bottom is full.
- Your wallet is now ready for download. Click on “Save Wallet as PDF” and choose a location to store your PDF wallet.
- Once downloaded, you can open the PDF and print it out. It should look like the one below (Note: don’t use this wallet. Create your own!):
You can create as many of these wallets as you like. To generate a brand new one, simply refresh the wallet generator page and complete steps 3 to 6 above.
Conclusion
The concept of a wallet and keys might sound difficult to grasp at first, and with good reason. It was deliberately created like this to enable decentralized computers around the world to agree on the account balances of all wallets.
Please post any questions you have below. I’ll be more than willing to answer them!
Hi. I’ve been keeping my Electroneum on the Electroneum site. My coins are safe but I guess I will not get the bonus coins after the fork?
Your ETN coins are perfectly safe and you can still access them after the fork. But you won’t get any Electronero (ETNX) coins, though.
Hello. Is there a option for a Electroneum paper wallet encrypted with BIP38 currently by the time of this question?
Where should I enter my private view key to see the balance of my wallet offline?
Here’s a guide I wrote on how to do that.
Wiggling my mouse for 15 minutes and nothing happens. I’m using chrome also.
Desktop or mobile?
I’ve been trying to create the offline paper wallet. The randomness generator doesn’t seem to work. 5 minutes of jiggling my mouse around a blank space and nothing happens.
Could be related to your browser not supporting the randomness generator. I’m using Google Chrome and it works both on desktop and on mobile.
Once I have transferred all my ETN to a paper wallet, how do I now move the ETN back from the paper wallet to an exchange when needed?
The easiest way is to use Electroneum’s online wallet, which has a button to “Import https://electroneum101.com/files/from paper wallet”. You’ll be required to scan all three QR codes on your paper wallet and the app will submit the transaction to the blockchain for you. Once the ETN is in your online wallet, you can then send it to any exchange.
Alternatively, you could load the wallet into a wallet-cli file on your computer (which will require you to download the entire blockchain) and use the command line to send ETN from the paper wallet an exchange.
But always remember to include a Payment ID when transferring ETN to an exchange. Always!
I haven’t created a paper wallet, but I do have a public wallet address on the website. I have decided to mine ETN (XMR Miner) and have copied and pasted the online public address to the mining program. Yet, when I try to check my balance or any mining transactions, my balance is 0 on all of them. I’ve been mining for over 12 hours. Do I need to use the public wallet address from a paper wallet for mining purposes? Have I set up the mining program incorrectly (although I don’t see how since all I had to do was to change the receiving address)?
The pool “set poolUrl=stratum+tcp://etn.easyhash.io:3632” is already in the configuration file (but I cannot find them as a pool). Or do I need to change this as well?
Regards
You should be able to mine to your online Electroneum public address, so that’s not the problem.
Which program are you using to mine? Are you able to see the number of shares that you’ve contributed on the miner’s interface?
Also, which hardware are you using to mine? Electroneum’s mining difficulty has increased somewhat in the past few days and you’ll need a GPU or at least a fast CPU to see any kind of return in 12 hours.
When I create an offline wallet with the ZIP folder that allows you to do it offline, how do I know that the wallet has been registered and is valid? Once I get the PDF with the key, does that mean the wallet is valid? Because when I close the browser after receiving the pdf, I get a warning that closing this browser will cause the information to be lost.
Creating an offline wallet is completely hard for me to grasp. Thanks in advance.
The offline paper wallet generator generates a pair of 3 keys that are mathematically interlinked. The private key is randomly generated and the other keys are generated from it. The number of characters makes it very unlikely that someone else in the world will generate the same private key as you. Thus you can use your randomly generated wallet keys with confidence without registering them or checking them.
To make sure it’s registered on the blockchain, simply start using the paper wallet. Transfer some coins onto it or start mining to it. Before you use the wallet, no one knows it exists. But as soon as you use it, it becomes part of the blockchain, and that’s how it gets registered.
Save a copy of the PDF to your computer or print it out before you close the window. If you close the window and lose the data, the wallet generator will generate a brand new wallet the next time it runs and you’ll be unable to recover the previous wallet. You can generate and use as many new wallets as you want. Just make sure you back up the keys somewhere.
What is the deal with the Private View and Spend keys? I have downloaded my wallet and sent the coins to them but not sure how to get them out when I want to sell them. Haha!
You’ll need to use the private spend key when you wish to send the ETN somewhere wese from your wallet.
So when mining with yam, do I use my public wallet key in the string?
The public wallet address is the address of the wallet that the ETN will be paid to.
Is electroneum-wallet-cli available for download anywhere? Can it be used to generate an ETN wallet from the command line? Thank you.
Yes, you can download it together with the full mining software. It comes as one of the files in the extractable. Not sure if you can use it to create a wallet from the command line, though.
Hi, I transferred ETN from Cryptopia to my online wallet last week but the balance is still showing 0. Can you assist in anyway?
Thanks.
Can you see if the transaction has gone through on Cryptopia’s side? Is there a transaction ID available?
Hi, can I add the coins I mine to the same paper wallet? Or do I need to generate a new paper wallet every time I mine few coins?
Not need to generate a new wallet. You can use the same wallet for all the coins you mine, even on different computers.
Very nice knowledge. Thank you, sir.
I’m considering moving my ETN coins off of the Crytopia exchange and onto an online wallet with Electroneum. Do my coins stop earning interest if I move them to a wallet? Thank you.
Coins do not earn interest, but rather they grow in value (capital growth) if there is a greater demand in the market for them. So wherever you keep your coins, whether in an exchange, the ETN online wallet or on a paper wallet, their value will grow/fall at the same rate as the rest of the market.
Can I use my offline paper wallet to mine Electroneum? I’m using the paper wallet public address when mining. Hope all the ETN I’ve mined will enter the offline paper wallet. Thanks.
Yes, the offline paper wallet is the best wallet to mine to in my opinion.
Hi guys. Was wondering, can I save more than one transaction on the same paper wallet or do I need to download another paper wallet and repeat the process? Thanks in advance. Graham
You can conduct an infinite number of transactions with one paper wallet. Deposit, deposit more, withdraw, etc. It works like a bank account.
Thanks Benjamin
Hey Benjamin,
I did not understand how to use the paper wallet. I tried creating one but it did not ask me to log in to my account first. So, what is the point of creating a paper wallet if you can create several copies of it? Also, how do I use the wallet and what is the surety that the amount will get transferred to the right account?
Thanks.
You don’t need to log in to create a paper wallet. The paper wallet is not connected to your name in any way. It’s just a collection of 3 keys that have been generated algorithmically. You can create as many of them as you want and spread your wealth across them. In this way, you can keep the paper wallets in various locations and so safeguard your investments. If one gets stolen, you’ll still have the rest.
Here’s an article I wrote on how to check the balance of your paper wallet, and if the ETN really reached it.
Hi Benjamin,
I transferred all of my funds from my Online Wallet to my Offline Paper Wallet on 30 December 2017 and the transaction history shows the transaction ‘completed’. But now when I’m trying to import https://electroneum101.com/files/coins from my offline paper wallet, each time the transaction fails, stating ‘The Offline Wallet had no funds’. What could be the problem? Please tell me how can I recover my funds.
Do you have the transaction ID of the completed transaction? We’re you able to track it on the block explorer?
Hello Benjamin, I’m yet to recover my ETN token. I did not transfer it and there is no transactions record. I don’t know how 3,235.99 ETN just managed to disappear from my dashboard. I have reported it to support (27 Dec 2017) but no reply yet. Can someone tell me how to recover my ETN?
I’ve logged in more than 4 times yesterday and 2 times today. Below is what I saw each time I logged in:
Recent Transactions
Your account has no transactions
Wallet Balance
0 ETN
Available Balance
0 ETN
Matthew, the only solution I can think of is to wait for the support team’s reply. I know they’re a bit slow at the moment, but they are overwhelmed by support tickets and short on staff. Richard mentioned that the Christmas season was a really bad time to recruit new staff, but he would start recruiting early in January.
That’s all I can think of now. Without any trace of the transaction, it’s difficult to be certain of anything.
Hello Benjamin,
I’m using the electroneum pool miner V1.1 beta. It looks like I’m mining, but how can I see my results? There isn’t any miner output.
Greetings, Leon
Hi Leon, pools typically have websites where you can enter your public wallet key to track your earnings. Is you’re using one of Electroneum’s official pools it will either be uspool.electroneum.com, eupool.electroneum.com, or asiapool.electroneum.com. Go to the website of the pool you are using and copy your public wallet key into the box provided. It should give you stats about your hash rate, your latest shares, and your mined coins.
Just logged in to my ETN account dashboard, and I found that my wallet balance is ZERO. That cannot be possible because during the ICO I bought 3,235.99 ETN, which was confirmed after the website was reopened. I saw my balance and it was 3,235.99 ETN.
I left it there with the hope of transferring it to my wallet when I finish setting it up. But I login today 27th December 2017 to check, but there is nothing. Wallet balance is 0 ETN.
What is going on please?
Matthew, the balance can sometimes display incorrectly. The blockchain is a complicated system, and the servers at Electroneum need to scan the blockchain to determine your balance. Have you logged in again to see if it has changed? When you scroll down, can you see any transactions where the money has left your wallet?
I have logged in more than 4 time yesterday and 2 times today. Below is what I saw each time I login.
Recent Transactions
Your account has no transactions
Wallet Balance
0 ETN
Available Balance
0 ETN
Could you please post a video on how to veiw the balance inside the paper wallet? It is very confusing. Or do you have a video link that you recommend?
I’m currently busy writing an article about that. Will post it soon.
Here you go: https://electroneum101.com/check-electroneum-paper-wallet-balance/
Here you go: https://electroneum101.com/check-electroneum-paper-wallet-balance/
Hi, I transfered ETN to paper wallet. Balance was correct for about a week but now all my ETN I transferred to the paper wallet are no longer showing. I tried to retrieve them back into my account, and I’m getting a message saying there’s no money on my paper wallet.
Sorry to hear that. Do you have any record in your transaction history where you sent the funds to the paper wallet? What is your transaction hash?
Hi, I downloaded the paper wallet as a PDF file, then printed it out. I then closed the file without deleting it and now can’t find it on my computer. Do you happen to know where it would be stored so I can delete it? Many thanks. Amy.
Amy, the file should be stored in you default downloads location. If you’re using Chrome, click on the three dots in the top right hand corner of the window and choose download. You should be able to find it there.
Hi Benjamin,
1) When I do the paper wallet it says, “For maximum security you should download a version to run from a USB stick on a PC or Mac that is not connected to the Internet”. Does that mean I need a flash-drive plugged into my computer, or could I simply download the zip file without a flash-drive for the extra security?
2) Also, the video mentions deleting any trace of the wallet being printed out. How do I go about that?
Yes, the way to do it is to run the zip file while your computer is not connected to the Internet. This prevents any possible spam met from viewing your details. I guess you could use a USB to transfer the zip file to a different computer that has not been connected to the Internet before, which supposedly will be more security. But viruses can spread via USB as well, so I don’t see how this gives added security.
You can delete the file from your computer using the Delete key, and then emptying your recycle bin.
Thank you Benjamin,
That was it, the spaces between the characters was the problem. Let’s go Electroneum!
Douglas
Hello,
When I attempt to withdraw from Cryptopia using my ETN paper wallet Public Wallet address (which is 3 lines long) I get a “Invalid ETN address from Cryptopia. Any advice on what is going wrong?
Douglas
Hi Douglas. When copying the public key, make sure to remove the spaces between the letters, and also in front and at the back. These spaces are inserted when you copy all 3 lines together. Let me know how it goes.
So frustrating… I’ve been trying for days to get a wallet and they ask me to verify my phone number with sms. But they don’t ever send me the code to verify. I contacted support and haven’t heard back…
Also, why don’t they make it available for iPhones? Only Android kind of sucks..
Sorry for the delay you’re experiencing. The team is hard at work replying to support tickets. The CEO mentioned that they’re planning to add support staff soon. But Christmas is a bad time of year to recruit. Recruitment will start early in January.
The iPhone app is finished, but it’s still under review by Apple. Apple wants to see the cryptocurrency actually does what is says before allowing it onto the app store. For the time being, use the web-based wallet manager.
Please Sir,
I just startes the ETN direct mining and after I added my wallet address it replied “synchronization started”. After each minute it replies “sync data returned a new top block candidate: 7901 -> 80013 [your node is 72112 blocks (50days) behind].
Please can you help explain what this means and if I’m on the right track?
All seems good. The blockchain is now downloading to your computer. You’ll see the 50 reducing as all the blocks are downloaded. It’ll tell you when it is fully synced. And then you can start mining.
As a side note, which hardware are you using? If you’re using just a computer CPU, you’ll mine for months without any coins. The difficulty has increased significantly. You’re better off joining a mining pool, which gives you a couple of coins every day.
Please advise. When mining, which wallet key do I insert? Public or private?
Always use the public key. You’ll never need to provide your private kry unless you spend the coins.
I printed off the PDF version of my wallet, but I noticed when I’m online in my Electroneum account the Public Key is different to the Public Key on the PDF version. Why is that? I’m concerned something isn’t right here.
To be clear, I’m taking about my Electroneum account when logged into my computer, not an app on my phone.
The wallet on the app and on the computer should be the same, because they both reference your wallet om Electroneum’s servers. But all paper wallets are different wallets ok their own right.
This is no problem. The PDF wallet and the online app wallet are two different wallets, both under your name. Both have different balances. You can send between the two just like you would send to someone else. You can even create yourself more paper wallets and use them as well, as many as you like. Each one is different.
Thank you Benjamin, makes sense.
The app and the paper wallet should have “different” addresses correct?
Correct. The app and paper wallets are two different “wallet instances” if you will, with different public keys and private keys. The paper wallet’s keys are printed on a piece of paper, and the app wallet’s keys are held by Electroneum in a database somewhere.
Am I able to have multiple offline wallets and use them all, or when I create a new offline wallet the old one is no longer available for use? I was very confused at first how it worked and I want to make sure I’m doing this correctly before transferring anything. Thanks!
You can have as many as you want and use them all simultaneously. Just make sure you don’t lose some of them.
Hi, I’ve recently set up an offline paper wallet. I don’t have the app, but I do have an account on here (I’m waiting for the iPhone app to be released).
Once I transfer my ETN from Cryptopia to my paper wallet, is there any way I can check the balance of my offline wallet or not?
Thanks in advance
Not really. Using the app or web wallet manager will simply sweep all the coins in the wallet onto the app wallet. You could load the offline wallet onto the full miner, but that is quite a technical task and requires you to maintain an updated copy of the entire blockchain on your computer.
Great post! I have a few questions if you have the time.
1. So there is an import https://electroneum101.com/files/to paper wallet button on the electroneum website wallet, but no export button. so i take it you simply press “Send ETN” and then type in your public address on the paper wallet.
2. When you send it to your paper wallet, the coins are basically stored on the Monero blockchain forever until you either import them back to the Electroneum website wallet or use a Github desktop wallet to send them somewhere.
3. Lastly, couldn’t you simply open a paper wallet on your computer, save the 3 keys but change one of the letters of each key, and remember which ones, and keep this on your computer? Delete the PDF paper wallet and so have no barcodes, and just use the 3 keys. Then when it’s time to import coins back, simply copy the private key and change the letter to the correct one and that’s all you would need to do.
A paper wallet sounds great if you have your own home and never moving around, but I’m a nomad constantly moving places so there’s not really anywhere I can hide a folder with cryto secrets in it.
Thanks anyway. Great post!
David, thanks for the compliments! As to your questions…
1. Yes, when you want to send the coins to the paper wallet, press the Send ETN button. On the app you can then scan the public wallet QR code on your paper wallet. If you use the desktop wallet manager and your laptop has a webcam, you’ll be able to scan the QR code using the webcam.
2. The coins are stored on the Electroneum blockchain – which is basically a copy of the Monero blockchain. And yes, it is stored forever in the distributed ledgers on all the mining computers around the world until you come back to spend it. And to unlock it from all those ledgers you need your private keys.
3. Great idea to keep your keys safe! That will even keep a hacker fruitlessly occupied for a while before he gives up. You just have to remember exactly which letters you changed. If you come back in 6 months or a year, will you remember which ones? Other “scrambling” techniques might be to store the keys backwards, or put the back half before the front half, or add several characters to the beginning or end. Whatever method you use, just be sure you’ll be able to reverse the scramble and get back to the original keys in a few year’s time. And PLEASE make sure you backup those scrambled keys somewhere in case your computer crashes. For extra safety, just leave a printout of the paper wallet at your mother’s, or someplace else you’ll be able to find it later on.
Hello, my money is stored in an offline wallet, although I translated a small amount on the online wallet. Is it necessary to worry about my coins on my offline wallet? Or is it necessary to translate all the coins into the online purse? Thank you, I’m waiting for your answer!
Not sure what you mean by this. It is perfectly safe to keep your money in the online wallet as well as in the offline wallet. Electroneum has made a great effort to safeguard their system. However, remember that private keys to your online wallet are still kept in a database on Electroneum’s servers. So it might be possible (though not probable) that the database could get hacked. This online database holds a lot of coins and is, therefore, a primary target for hackers. So in light of this, it is better to transfer your coins to an offline paper wallet which is unhackable.
Hi, the public key when copied to my USB stick has two spaces in between the letters and numbers. What do I do with these? Why are they there? Do I enter the public key with these at an exchange when I want to send coins to it? Thanks.
Those spaces are copied when you copy the public key from the paper wallet, because it is printed over 3 lines. This is done deliberately so that spy software won’t recognize the keys. You need to remove the spaces wherever you use the public keys.
Hi Benjamin, I have transferred 1 ETN to my paper wallet from my online wallet and the transaction has completed. When I try to transfer it back again (just doing it for practice) I get the message that I don’t have a phone connected to my wallet manager. Do you know how I can connect my mobile to my wallet manager? My QR code reader works fine on its own but I can’t get it to work when I’m logged into my Electronium app (new version).
Thanks
Not sure what’s wrong here. You should be able to link the mobile to the wallet manager by just logging into the same account on the app. Are you using different accounts for the two wallets?
No, I only have one account
Hi Benjamin. Yesterday my friend did a thing… She withdrew from Cryptopia using the SPEND key as payment ID and the transaction has been processed, but she never received the ETN into her wallet. The balance still shows 0.
Is there is a way to check or do something to recover the amount, or what can she do?
Thanks
Hi Alfred. So she entered the public wallet address into the address box and the spend key into the payment ID box? Doesn’t sound like this would be a problem. You can always go to Withdrawals on Cryptopia and find the transaction ID that was generated. You can then copy that transaction ID into blockexplorer.electroneum.com to find to check the progress. Let me know what you find.
Hi. I have misplaced the PDF of my wallet. I do have my public key that I’ve been mining to but have lost my private spend key and private view key. Is there a way in the world to get the other two with the public key? Or am I going to have to restart and lose what I’ve mined so far? Please, please, please tell me something good.
Hi Shawn. That’s the thing with cryptocurrencies. Once you lose those keys, they’re gone. You could try to guess what they were, but there are so many combinations it will take you thousands of years. Try searching your entire computer again. Look in the trash can, do a search over the entire C drive. If you can’t remember the file name, try using search software that can read inside PDFs, and then search for your public key. That way it might find the public key in a PDF somewhere. If all else fails, just start again… And keep it safe this time!
Hi Benjamin,
I have created my paper wallet, but I can’t figure out how to check the balance. Is there an easy way to do this? I’ve seen some forums that reference complicated processes involving code, but it seems to be more related to mining. Is there a simple way to view the amount? Also, how do I transfer from the paper wallet if I want to put it pay onto an exchange or pay someone?
Sorry for the ignorance. Thanks in advance.
Andy, the launch of ETN’s app yesterday makes it very easy – however, it will load the entire contents of your wallet onto the app wallet. Go inside the app, and then click on Receive. It will ask you to scan all three QR codes on the wallet after it will sweep the entire contents of the wallet and load it onto the app wallet. Best practice would then be to send the coins back to a DIFFERENT paper wallet (much safer than using the original wallet of which the coins have now been exposed to the Internet). Then remember to write down the number of coins on the wallet printout so you know how much it contains next time.
Thanks so much! That explains how to get my coins out of the paper wallet and back into the app.
I was also wondering how to check to confirm that the paper wallet received the coins. Is there any other way to check this electronically or do we just have to write it down? I guess not, because as you say, if we did the former it would be exposed to the internet, right?
Right. You could load it onto the electroneum-wallet-cli in the full Electroneum miner and check the balance there. But that would require you to keep an updated copy of the entire blockchain on your computer the whole time. Else you can just check the transaction hash and trust that the coins are now in your wallet.
But yes, I think the Electroneum team should somehow make it possible to view the number of coins on your wallet using the app. You’ll only need to expose the public key and private view key to do so, anyway.
Thanks so much! I was reading all these forums about how to transfer but they were so complicated and now I realise it related to the mining software. All makes sense now. Appreciate it ?
Hello, I just recently transferred ETN from cryptopia to my paper wallet, but when I look at my balance in the wallet-cli.exe, it comes up as 0.00. Which does not make any sense because
1.) I mined about 100 ETN.
2.) I just transferred over 2,000 ETN from cryptopia.
The only thing I can think of is that I did not enter a payment-ID on cryptopia when I transferred into my paper wallet, just the PUBLIC WALLET code.
If I just entered the wallet code, I am assuming they would have still transferred, will they show up when I try to access on the app?
Thanks, I am just very frustrated and I do NOT want to loose my ETN.
Hi Ryan. There’s no need to enter a PaymentID when you transfer from Cryptopia to your paper wallet. Have you checked the progress of the withdrawal in Cryptopia’s Withdrawal section? You should be able to get a transaction ID there which you can use to check the progress in the blockchain.
I’ve heard some people are struggling with their wallets showing 0 balance. There is a fix that someone found and he made a video about it. It might be able to help you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riRAirldr1A
If I have transferred my ETN to paper wallet, will I be able to check the balance on the Electroneum app that is suppose to be release this week or will only the users of the app’s wallets be able to see their balance.
Can you provide a link to instructions to see balance?
Thanks.
Not sure yet. I know you’ll be able to load the coins in the paper wallet onto the app very easily, but not sure if you’ll be able to just view the balance without loading it. Let’s see tomorrow. I’ll create posts with detailed instructions when I know how exactly…
Are there any other wallets we can store our ETN on? Do we have to store it on the Electroneum Paper Wallet? I bought some ETN on Cryptopia and would like to transfer my ETN to a safe wallet from the exchange where I can see the balance. Are there any hard wallets that we can store ETN on?
I don’t know of any at the moment. The Electroneum wallet is all there is currently. But hardware wallets should follow soon after launching.
Anyone else know of any?
Hi there,
I’m not mining coins, I just want to transfer the ETN I buy on Cryptopia to my paper wallet. I printed and copied the public keys, and I know how to send them from my Cryptopia account to my Electronuem address. But I don’t have a wallet app I can use to show me what my balance is or that my coins have arrived. Having an address doesn’t seem to be any good if I can’t access the account. So how do I access my Electroneum account associated with the public address generated by the paper wallet? Thanks!
The only way to currently see your wallet balance is to run the wallet-cli file which is part of the full miner. This requires you to download the entire blockchain to your computer and then load the wallet…
However, the Electroneum app should be launching before 13 December, and it has all the wallet functionality built into it. You’ll be able to view your balance and transfer coins between wallets via an intuitive user interface. Let’s wait and see how it turns out.
Hi
I just tried to create an offline wallet but I can’t find the option on the site now.
Is there something I am missing?
Thanks for pointing this out. It seems that Electroneum has changed their site a bit. I’ll fix the article. Meanwhile, you can download the offline wallet generator from this page.
Hi Benjamin.
I bought some Electroneum on Cryptopia but when
I try to transfer to my paper wallet It keeps asking me for a paymentID (do not know what that is)
leaving it blank does not work. I asked on Cryptopia Forum but no luck yet…
I would really appreciate some help.
Thank your very much in advance.
When do we get our ETN coins?
Bela, the Electroneum team has released a statement just yesterday that they are now done with the security tests and they the wallets should launch before the middle of next week. We’re hoping for good news before 13 December.
Have created the wallet but trying to use it proves abortive, it’s giving me a pop up message which says invalid wallet address. What can I do to rectify this?
Hi. When sending ETN from Cryptopia to a paper wallet I created, I keep getting “Invalid ETN Address”. I made sure there are no spaces. Any ideas?
I fixed it. Sorry:)
Not sure what the problem could be. Are you sure you’re sending to the public key and not one of the private keys?
What was the problem in the end? How did you fix it?
I have created an offline paper wallet and sent a very small amount of ETN to it from Cryptopia. How do I view my balance?
As far as I know, you can only check the balance by installing the full miner on your computer, downloading the entire blockchain, and then loading your paper wallet keys onto the wallet.cli system. Your computer will then sift through all the blockchain records to calculate the current balance of your wallet.
Thanks for that.
I have tried to download the mining programme from eletroneum download but the programme folder is not complete. My laptop does not support virtualization, will this cause the problem?
Perhaps your antivirus got a hold of some critical file in the program folder and placed it in quarantine. Temporarily disabling the antivirus or whitelisting the folder might fix this (although you might need to download the entire thing again to get those files back).
What’s up with Electroneum now? I want my coins. What is going on here?
Bela, as mentioned already, the team is busy testing the system for security. They mentioned that the testing would take a few weeks. We therefore expect a launch early in December. You can follow their Facebook page to receive up to date information: https://www.facebook.com/electroneum/
Hi, nice video and article. My question is, can we use one the paper wallet on other systems for mining? I mean can we run mining parallel on two or more computers? Please advise.
I suspect you are trying to mine to the same paper wallet from more than one computer at the same time. This is entirely possible! Just put the public key into each computer you are mining with.
Ben, I would like to buy ETN and just opened a Cryptopia account. I went to Electroneum’s website and noticed it’s not working at the moment due to all the security issues, so I could not register a new account. However, I was able to download a paper wallet from the site. My question is, since I couldn’t register on their site but could download the paper wallet, is it still a valid wallet? Or do I have to wait and register once the site is up and running again? Thank you.
Can we mine using tablets?
Yes, when the mining app becomes available.
I have a question. For example, I generated 2 paper wallets such as paper wallet A and B. Then, I will transfer my coins to paper wallet A only but someone has an access to my paper wallet B. Can he or she use the coins from wallet A through the Private spend key from paper wallet B?
No, each wallet acts like a unique “bank account” with an account number (public key) and pin number (private spend key). Only the coins in a particular wallet (account) can be accessed with the pin number (private spend key). If you have multiple wallets and someone gets access to one of them, they will only be able to spend the coins in that one wallet.
How to you put your ETN coins onto your offline wallet? Can I do this on my phone? Also, can you transfer coins to an exchange? So confused and can’t find any videos that explain things step by step in newbie terms!
Jenn, I take it that you’ve bought coins during the ICO. Right now those coins are not available yet. The Electroneum team is busy upgrading the software to make it more secure. They should be finished any day now. When they are done, you will be able to transfer the coins in you online wallet to your phone, or to a paper wallet, or to an exchange, all by using your phone. Right now it isn’t possible yet. Once it is possible I’ll make a video on how to do it.
Dear Benjamin. When do we get our ETN in our wallet? I don’t have Facebook. Can you write it here? And when will we have the app to transfer ETN? Thanks.
The team is hard at work but is not giving any specific date. Yesterday they mentioned that the code upgrade is now complete and they just need to test everything thoroughly. Let’s hope it happens soon, but until that time, all we an do is to be patient.
Hello Ben. Since the launch of Electroneum I have not been able to access my wallet which I downloaded to my phone. I tried the reactivation of the password, still nothing is working and I’m getting tired, seriously.
Andrew, you are not alone. No one can login to their wallet now. We’re all waiting for the team to perform the security upgrade. As soon as the blockchain went live their servers received a flood of automated traffic trying to break in. Therefore, they need to make the system more secure to make sure no hacker can steal our coins. As of yesterday they said that the new code was complete and they are busy with testing. Let’s hope it comes online soon!
Can I for any reason create and use a different offline wallet?
You can create as many wallets as you like for whatever reason you fancy. They are randomly generated, and so you can have thousands if you like. However, they only become “real wallets” once you deposit money into them. Then only do they become part of the blockchain. Before depositing money, it is just a piece of paper. In other words, the “account” does not get “activated” until you deposit coins into it.
I’m sorry, I think this is a joke. What does electroneum bring for the investors of the ICO? They’ve gone to an exchange but investors can’t get their coins! Price goes down a lot! And we must wait to see what happens!
This is a big joke!
We’re all frustrated. However, the team is working hard to safeguard the system against hackers. They have been trying to bring the system online twice now, and every time there has been a flood of bot traffic wanting to break into the system and steal investor’s coins. These hackers see the value in the coin and that’s what they’re after.
So hold in there for a few more days while they upgrade the system to keep the bad guys out. You would be much more frustrated if you logged in and found all your coins stolen by hackers! We’re all in this together.
I watched a video showing how to use the command prompt to sync the paper wallet to the blockchain but I tried that and it did not work. Can that cause my coins to be lost? I am very concern about that.
Not sure what you did. Can you elaborate? Your wallet is already synced with the blockchain if you sent or mined some coins to it. No need to sync it manually. That video doesn’t sound too trustworthy.
Hi Benjamin,
I truly appreciate what you are doing in helping people understand the process. I asked a question yesterday that you are not sure of, here is the title of the video that I watched:
How to Import Electroneum Paper Wallet into the Command Line Wallet (Intermediate)
It showed how to copy the 3 keys, Public, Private and Spend Key to a notepad and then you go to github.com/electroneum/electroneum/releases and continue with the process until you get the command prompt. I did all that until I got to the point where it was not working for me and I exited the command prompt window.
Hello sir. I downloaded the offline wallet but it has different keys (all of them) from what my computer generated for mining. What does that mean I don’t understand this. Am I mining for another person? Please help. Thank you.
Your miner should not have generated an address – I wouldn’t trust it if I were you. The miner should have a space where you can insert your paper wallet’s public wallet address, and that’s the address your coins will go to.
Ben, you are the man. Question for you that you might have answered already… Can you discuss how to take purchased Electroneum out of Cryptopia and into the Electroneum paper wallet? Or can that not be done yet? PaymentID, address, etc. that is all asked for, need to make sure I’m doing this right. Thanks!
As far as I know, you can send Electroneum coins from Cryptopia to an offline paper wallet. Typically, you can go to “Balances” on Cryptopia and find the “Withdraw” button next to ETN. It will then ask you to enter the amount to withdraw and also the public wallet address to withdraw to. Make sure there are no spaces in the address when you copy it in. Give a few minutes for the transaction to be confirmed in the blockchain.
Can i use one offline wallet for 3 computers?
Yup!
Hi, sorry if this might be obvious. It’s my first experience mining. I did start the electrenuemd and the wallet cli in my mac. I used the command start_mining but I’m not sure if it is actually doing it. Some help will be very helpful. Thanks!
Type in “status” while mining and it will tell you the mining status and hashing rate. That’s about all you can do at the moment.
I have 3 more questions. Why can’t we transfer with the app our Electroneum to exchange? And when do we get our coins? Why put Electroneum on Coinmarketcap before everybody have his coins? Now the price is down, that’s not good! Thanks for your reply.
Bela, the coins are still locked up at the moment due to a security issue. Trust me, this is for the safety of your coins. The team is working 24/7 to make sure no hackers get into the system. Follow facebook.com/electroneum for more information.
Hi Benjamin,
Thanks for taking out time to help everyone, your efforts are well appreciated.
I have been doing direct mining on my laptop for 2 days now, but I don’t know how to check my balance on the paper wallet address I am using, any idea please? The command “status” shows some activities are going on but I don’t know for sure since there’s no way to check my balance.
Please help.
Just type balance in the wallet cli.
How do I put on a paper wallet all the ETNs I bought at the ICO that are in my portfolio on the website electroneum. It should not be created offline?
You’ll need to wait until the ETN app wallets are opened. Right now they’re still battling security issues. Once it is opened we’ll be able to see how to transfer them.
I get install wallets offline, but it’s not showing my balance. Why?
If I wiggle my mouse nothing happens?
Try a different browser, like Chrome.
Hallo, I created 2 paperwallets. Are my Coins from ICO now in wallet 1 or 2? Or mist I put them in it? And why not only send with an app wallet? This is soo much work for understand and for sending!
Once the app wallets become available, you can decide which wallet to transfer it to. It is a lot to get your head around, but that’s the world or cryptocurrencies. A simple tradeoff for the great benefits it brings…
Hey guys,
I have generated a paper wallet, but the wallet address is extremely long…like 3 lines.
The app will not allow me to paste the complete copied address. I have tried creating another wallet, but it is the same.
What am I doing wrong?
Just copy all 3 lines one after the other. Make sure there are no spaces in between.
Is it my first wallet key that stores the coins, or when I make a second one can I store it there also?
You can make as many coins as you like. Each one acts like a different bank account in your name. Each wallet will contain the number of coins you transferred to it. You can even transfer coins between your own wallets.
I have created the paper wallet. How then do I transfer my ETN to an exchange?
Only mined coins can be transferred at the moment. Coins bought at the ICO are still retained to sort out security flaws and ensures only rightful investors control their coins.
I would like to know my balance on my wallet?
Excellent information, thank you so much for all what you do, most of my questions were already answer.
Thanks! You just made my day!
How can I transfer my ETN’s by Electroneum to another exchange like Cryptopia?
Only mined coins can be transferred at the moment. Coins bought at the ICO are still retained to sort out security flaws and ensures only rightful investors control their coins.
Dear Benjamin
I am really new to this, sounds kidy may be lol.
I have my ETN on electronuem website for now. I would like to transfer them to Cryptopia ETN wallet so that I can trade them. Don’t know what to do next. I have generated paper wallet. But I don’t know how to do transfer of ETN. Is there any video of yours to demonstrate that.
Appreciate your response.
Thanks
Not possible yet. The Electroneum team will open up the ICO and app wallets after security issues are sorted out – probably within a day or two.
Thanks Dear. Do you know how long would it take?
Probably within a day or two.
Is it safe to keep the pdf version of your electroneum wallet on your computer?
Is it safe to leave your wallet lying around the house? Same thing… It is safe for as long as an unwanted person does not gain access to the computer or house. It will definitely be more secure to print out a paper wallet and erase the one on your computer, but then you need to safeguard the paper wallet. If someone finds it and knows how to use it, bye-bye coins. If it burns up in a house fire or gets spoilt in water, then the coins will be lost forever. Guard it as you would guard hard cash.
I started mining and all I get is starting process. No hash rate or shares. Tried to stop mining and start again few times, also waited quite long and nothing happens.
Had the same problem. I sorted it out by creating an exception in my Antivirus software for the electroneumd to run. I think the antivirus restricts all incoming/outgoing Internet access while the program is blocked – although it allows the program to run on your computer. Google your Antivirus software name and “software exception” for more info.
Also – To view the balance of your coins do you put in the public key in the wallet address or the view key?
I put in the wallet address and it keeps searching for minutes and does not ever show anything.
Let me know if anyone has tried this.
The servers are quite busy. Keep trying… Keep in mind that the pool websites will only give the balance of coins which you mined specifically, not the coins in an app wallet or ICO wallet. Reason being that the pool website only keeps track of its payment to mining wallets, not the entire blockchain.
For people who know about this alot, Benjamin.
I have 3 computers mining right now. A powerful desktop with a 6 core processore, a surface pro with dual core processor and a midrange desktop. I have the windows miner on all of them and the surface pro with the lowest CPU clock is beating them all in produce. How does this make any sense? Someone help me.
If I go to an exchange like hitbtc.com to purchase more ETN coins, do I deposit BTC into the exchanges wallet, then buy my ETN coin from that wallet? Once the ETN coin is purchased/transaction is complete do I then send the ETN coin to my paper wallet I created on my Electroneum account using ONLY the PUBLIC KEY. Also, is there ever any reason when trading, selling or buying crypto currencies where would I need to give out my PRIVATE SPEND KEY.
Thanks
Rob
That’s it! You’ve got it! Don’t even give out your public key. I guess we will get software to transfer coins from our wallets. You will probably need to provide your public spend key there ONLY. But I’m not sure how it all will work though. Let’s wait and see what happens when the app comes out in full force.
How and where do I view my wallet?
What if the newly generated key gives invalid etn address when we submit it for minning?
Check that the key is correct. Make sure everything is there with no spaces in between.
Hi Benjamin…! Just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your efforts in helping people including myself with your knowledge on crypotcurrency especially ETN Coins. Keep up the good work…!
My question is can I have more than one wallet paper in one account and use them as I wish…?
One wallet = one account. You can have as many wallets/accounts as you want. Your account on the app works with one wallet (and the keys are kept at Electroneum headquarters), but you can create many more offline wallets. As many as you need.
How can I view the balance on the paper wallet I created?
Not sure yet, will let you know.
So i have created my paper wallet and printed it … My question is how can we transfer our ETN to this paper wallet we made? are there apps that we can download from our phone to make an Electroneum wallet?
Where can any of my private keys be inserted to, to be able to either view my balance, receive, or spend my coins?
Not exactly sure how everything will look yet. I guess there will be some place in the app you can enter it into. Alternatively, I know the team will release a block explorer with the blockchain, similar to what blockchain.info is for Bitcoin. We’ll probably be able to view balances there as well. Will create a post once everything is available.
Hello, I have created my paper wallet ok. I successfully scanned the QR code, then pressed web search but it came up with nothing. Am I doing something wrong or will it not find anything until after Nov 1st or maybe when I have transferred my coins into it?
Graham, the blockchain won’t go live for another 9 hours. Once it is live, you’ll be able to transact between wallets. Not sure how it’s going to look, but I think you’ll be able to log into the app and transfer the coins to your paper wallet by scanning the QR code from within the app. The QR code is just a visual, scannable representation of your key, which won’t be worth much until the blockchain goes live.
Thank you, Im completely new to this, I used Kraken to buy etn as per electroneum website, once I have a paper wallet can I trade coins on an exchange using the paper wallet keys or do I need to put the required amount into a wallet on the exchange?
An exchange will typically give you a public key of a unique wallet they created just for you. You’ll need to transfer the coins to that wallet in order to trade on the exchange. However, I do not recommend keeping your coins there. Trade what you need to trade, and then withdraw the coins to a more secure wallet (e.g. paper wallet).
Once we have downloaded the pdf and created the paper wallet, I presume we then delete the pdf from the desktop?
Will our coins then automatically get transferred into our wallets by the Electroneum website?
You can delete it or keep it there, however you feel safe. The important thing is that you keep record of the keys somewhere. You’ll need to transfer the coins to the paper wallet yourself. Not sure how this will work but I imagine the app having a transfer functionality with some way to scan the QR code of your paper wallet.
Thanks Benjamin
When you create a paper wallet are they completely new keys, or do I need to clean my pc?
Each time you refresh the wallet generator it will create a new wallet with new keys.