Towo Labs: single ETH private keys will have bad compatibility with several wallets

[PunishmentOfLuxury]

@Kakoyla brought my attention to this tweet:

It seems that many upcoming FLR wallets will only support import of keys via 12 or 24 word recovery phrases.

I have only single ETH private keys generated by MEW. Should I be concerned? I've never used Metamask - don't have a clue about that.

[Seoulite]

Wish I could help but I don’t know about this stuff. Hopefully someone will chime in.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, PunishmentOfLuxury said:

@Kakoyla brought my attention to this tweet:

It seems that many upcoming FLR wallets will only support import of keys via 12 or 24 word recovery phrases.

I have only single ETH private keys generated by MEW. Should I be concerned? I've never used Metamask - don't have a clue about that.

You can easily import your MEW accounts into MetaMask. It’s been a while since I did it, so I don’t remember the exact steps and I’m on my mobile right now, but trust me you can do it. I was able to import two ETH addresses associated with a single private key into MetaMask.

[PunishmentOfLuxury]

8 minutes ago, Ripley said:

You can easily import your MEW accounts into MetaMask. It’s been a while since I did it, so I don’t remember the exact steps and I’m on my mobile right now, but trust me you can do it. I was able to import two ETH addresses associated with a single private key into MetaMask.

Supposing I do import my single private key to Metamask, can I then reveal/generate a 12 word recovery phrase for the same FLR address so that I can transition to a less clunky, idiot-proof wallet?

[BillyOckham]

36 minutes ago, PunishmentOfLuxury said:

Supposing I do import my single private key to Metamask, can I then reveal/generate a 12 word recovery phrase for the same FLR address so that I can transition to a less clunky, idiot-proof wallet?

If you used MEW to create the address then you have the option to write down your 24 word (maybe 12??) mnemonic.

That is all you need to import into a Flare wallet when the time comes.

EDIT:  Or at least that is my understanding...  I haven’t looked at any Flare wallets yet.

Edited June 8, 2021 by BillyOckham

[brianwalden]

Does this basically mean that if worse comes to worst you won't be able to import your address into Bifrost but will have to get a new address and send your FLR there?

[PunishmentOfLuxury]

3 hours ago, BillyOckham said:

If you used MEW to create the address then you have the option to write down your 24 word (maybe 12??) mnemonic.

That is all you need to import into a Flare wallet when the time comes.

EDIT:  Or at least that is my understanding...  I haven’t looked at any Flare wallets yet.

That will probably work if you recorded the mnemonic when you first created the MEW wallet. I have just checked with both the online and offline versions of MEW and I see no way to transition from single private key or JSON file to a 12/24 word mnemonic whilst retaining the same FLR/ETH address.

UPDATE: It seems you cannot go back to MEW (or any other wallet presumably) and access the MEW-created wallet using a Metamask-generated seed phrase after importing the MEW private key. I tried it and the MM interface gave me several wallet addresses to interact with, none of them being my wallet!

Also, Metmask help says:

Quote

Imported Accounts are accounts you import using a private key string or a private key JSON file. These accounts will not appear automatically when you restore your MetaMask account with your Seed Phrase / Secret Recovery Phrase. The data associated with your Metamask Seed Phrase / Secret Recovery Phrase cannot be added or extended to the imported account.

Therefore, it is important that you keep the information you use to access Imported Accounts separately and safe to ensure the recovery of these accounts in the future( similar to how you should keep your Seed Phrase / Secret Recovery Phrase backed up offline).

EDIT: The seed phrase is only for the MM account you created when you installed the extension the first time. Any accounts imported with private keys/JSON will not be restored by the seed phrase. Thus the MM seed phrase is useless for restoring your originally created MEW account.

See here: Recovery seed phrase only restores original "account"/wallet

We have to hope that some user-friendly wallets will accept private keys or UTC/JSON files.

Edited June 8, 2021 by PunishmentOfLuxury

[BillyOckham]

1 hour ago, PunishmentOfLuxury said:

You can't get back into the account using the seed phrase/mnemonic, only with the UTC/JSON or private key, so what use is the seed phrase created by MM?

I don’t understand what you mean by “can’t get back in”.  In my case I created the MEW wallet and got an ETH address.  I then recorded the 12 words and deleted the MEW wallet application.   Then I re-installed the wallet application, imported the words and viola the same address.  That’s the address I gave Flare in the XRPL message key.

I must admit I know nothing about the Etherium address scheme and therefore much of your information went over my head.  I  do know that it seems more convoluted and fraught than the XRP scheme.  
 

I assume that the 12 words I have will be fine into the Flare wallet but I haven’t done that yet since I don’t want to use a browser extension (which I think metamask is). 

[PunishmentOfLuxury]

21 minutes ago, BillyOckham said:

I don’t understand what you mean by “can’t get back in”.  In my case I created the MEW wallet and got an ETH address.  I then recorded the 12 words and deleted the MEW wallet application.   Then I re-installed the wallet application, imported the words and viola the same address.  That’s the address I gave Flare in the XRPL message key.

I must admit I know nothing about the Etherium address scheme and therefore much of your information went over my head.  I  do know that it seems more convoluted and fraught than the XRP scheme.  
 

I assume that the 12 words I have will be fine into the Flare wallet but I haven’t done that yet since I don’t want to use a browser extension (which I think metamask is). 

The difference is I was using a seed phrase generated from Metmask after importing my MEW private key there, not a seed phrase generated by MEW.

Edited June 8, 2021 by PunishmentOfLuxury

[BillyOckham]

21 minutes ago, PunishmentOfLuxury said:

The difference is I was using a seed phrase generated from Metmask after importing my MEW private key there, not a seed phrase generated by MEW.

Ah I see.  Yeah I can see that wouldn’t work.  Cool.  So...  you rang me...  are we ok?  Should you or I change anything?

[PunishmentOfLuxury]

24 minutes ago, BillyOckham said:

Ah I see.  Yeah I can see that wouldn’t work.  Cool.  So...  you rang me...  are we ok?  Should you or I change anything?

You're in the clear; you should be able to import your seed phrase into any of the wallets coming out in future.

I will not have that flexibility because I only have the private keys. Metamask will have to do, or hopefully more-user-friendly wallets will allow private key import. I could go back to square one and reset my message key, but that's quite a task considering the number of wallets I have.

[Flintstone]

1 hour ago, PunishmentOfLuxury said:

You're in the clear; you should be able to import your seed phrase into any of the wallets coming out in future.

I will not have that flexibility because I only have the private keys. Metamask will have to do, or hopefully more-user-friendly wallets will allow private key import. I could go back to square one and reset my message key, but that's quite a task considering the number of wallets I have.

I think the MEW phone app generates a seed phrase, so that’s another option if you need one.

[PunishmentOfLuxury]

6 minutes ago, Flintstone said:

I think the MEW phone app generates a seed phrase, so that’s another option if you need one.

Yes, but you can't get there from a private key:

 

[Flintstone]

9 minutes ago, PunishmentOfLuxury said:

Yes, but you can't get there from a private key:

 

Just suggesting an alternative seed wallet to MetaMask while waiting for Bifrost. 👍

[brianwalden]

9 hours ago, PunishmentOfLuxury said:

That will probably work if you recorded the mnemonic when you first created the MEW wallet. I have just checked with both the online and offline versions of MEW and I see no way to transition from single private key or JSON file to a 12/24 word mnemonic whilst retaining the same FLR/ETH address.

UPDATE: It seems you cannot go back to MEW (or any other wallet presumably) and access the MEW-created wallet using a Metamask-generated seed phrase after importing the MEW private key. I tried it and the MM interface gave me several wallet addresses to interact with, none of them being my wallet!

Also, Metmask help says:

EDIT: The seed phrase is only for the MM account you created when you installed the extension the first time. Any accounts imported with private keys/JSON will not be restored by the seed phrase. Thus the MM seed phrase is useless for restoring your originally created MEW account.

See here: Recovery seed phrase only restores original "account"/wallet

We have to hope that some user-friendly wallets will accept private keys or UTC/JSON files.

But as long as you can use your account in MetaMask you can still use MetaMask to connect to Flare. I assume MEW can too, but I've never used it. So you should be able to create a new address in a Bifrost (or whatever you prefer) wallet and send your airdrop there each month.