We’re Bitcoin SV. We’re Bitcoin. The other Bitcoins that are still around, are odd opportunistic airdrops.

One forked by clacking on some Segwit thing, and claiming their blocks not only had a size on disk, but also a weight 😕 Another colluded with exchanges to take over the Bitcoin Cash brand, to add some opcodes and change the block ordering, and.. well there’s some non-Bitcoiny things in their future.

But Bitcoin SV remains as the clear descendant of Satoshi’s original project. The one that maintains the original vision of a stable protocol. Yes, you’ve heard this all before, but what does it have to do with ElectrumSV?

A stable protocol and ElectrumSV

It’s not enough to be a stable protocol that developers can build applications on, we need to keep the gate open for the people that haven’t arrived yet. This means that if they need to access their Bitcoin SV, but already haven’t, we should try and keep it easy for them to do so. If they need to split their Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin SV, we should try and keep it easy for them to do so.

This is the unspoken and less exciting part of our roadmap. To try and retain the ability for users of Bitcoin Cash ABC pre-fork who have not accessed, or split, their Bitcoin SV, to do so. To try and retain the ability for users of Bitcoin Core pre-fork who have not accessed, or split, their Bitcoin SV, to do so.

Hardware wallets

My fellow developer Kyuupichan and I were not that impressed with hardware wallet vendors. We were loosely entertaining just gutting all that code, at least the ones for the hardware wallets we don’t actually use ourselves, when we started the project. But we can’t, we need to retain it because people have coins locked up in hardware wallets and they should be able to continue to access them. Or to pull that old hardware wallet out of the closet, or long term cold storage wherever it might be.

Bitcoin Core & Bitcoin Cash ABC wallets

With the ElectrumSV code-base, we inherited the existing systems of the original Bitcoin Core wallet we are based on. This includes a wallet migration system. It should be possible to open most historical Electrum wallets, whether from Electrum for Bitcoin Core, or from Electron Cash for Bitcoin Cash ABC.

Seed words & Mnemonic phrases

When people want to access their coins from other wallets, they often use ElectrumSV to do so. We have a wallet creation process that allows a user to specify the derivation path for their wallet, and to customise the way their words/phrase is handled.

Do you want to help?

You don’t need to be a programmer to help, you just need to be an ElectrumSV user. Or better yet a pre-fork Bitcoin Cash user, or a pre-fork Bitcoin Core user. If we’re doing a release of ElectrumSV, you can download the pre-release versions and try out the things you have used Electrum for historically.

Load in old keys you’ve long since drained, ones that existed before Bitcoin Cash. Seed words, mnemonic phrases, private keys, private key files, and so on.

Load in copies of your old pre-Bitcoin Cash Electrum wallet files you no longer use. Not the originals, mind you, as they will be updated and overwritten by the process. If you retain the originals, then you can test again for us later.

And so on. You can help us keep the gate open to other users who haven’t arrived yet. The more the merrier! Maybe they forgot about their keys, maybe they tied their horse to the wrong cart. It doesn’t matter. A professional business palatable Bitcoin, is one that is reliable and accessible and usable as possible.