How to generate 24 words mnemonic seeds with Electrum

Usually, when we create a new wallet with Electrum, we obtain a 12 words seed and there is no way to customize it. We can only extend it with an optional passphrase.

But there is a way to create longer mnemonic seeds using Electrum's derivation algorithm, without the need to generate BIP39 mnemonic seeds with other tools.

We simply need to use our terminal. In AnuBitux we will use the following command:

./Tools/Wallets/electrum-4.3.1-x86_64.AppImage --offline make_seed --nbits=256

This command forces Electrum to generate a mnemonic seed using 256 bits of entropy and gives us a phrase that we can import through Elecrtum's user interface.

Now we can start our Electrum wallet with its user interface and create a new wallet importing this mnemonic seed.

As we can see, the mnemonic seed is valid. If not so, the "Next" button would not be active and we would not be able to complete the wallet creation process.

If we try to examine the mnemonic seed with Ian Coleman's BIP39 tool, we will see that it is not valid since it was not derived from a BIP39 wordlist and does not respect the BIP39 checksum.

So we have a confirmation that this command gives us the ability to generate 24 words mnemonic seeds with Electrum.

This article was updated on 15 May 2024