Feature request: Wallet->Information should show HD path

[Talkless]

Currently (3.1.3 in Debian Sid), Wallet->Information does not display BIP32 HD derivation path.

User might have multiple Electrum wallets (HD accounts) using same master seed generated in hardware device (like Ledger Nano S), named BIP84_short_term_spending for m/84'/0'/0', or legacy_hodl for m/44'/0'/3, etc, etc, but there's now way to know which path was used for previously created Electrum wallet, so re-creating that wallet in another computer (or application) is difficult (if HW wallet device is available, but Electrum wallet files are not), as user has to guess, manually document, or remember these paths used for creating that HW-based wallet.

If BIP32 derivation path would be available in Electrum GUI, and if user would know in advance that it will need to "recreate" wallet in another computer (or another application), he could just check HD path in Wallet->Information before proceeding.

[Talkless]

I guess I could have named wallet files accordingly to paths, but, well, now it's too late :) . Again, this is manual documentation which maybe could be avoided.

[ecdsa]

this is a design choice; electrum does not know about your wallet derivation path, it does not keep that information.

[Talkless]

I see. I guess I'll try to recall paths and rename wallet files accordingly.

[Talkless]

@ecdsa maybe possibility for the user to add arbitrary note inside a wallet file would be reasonable?

[Talkless]

@ecdsa Sorry for off-topic, but how does then HW wallet knows which private key to use for signing, if software wallet cannot provide derivation path?

[SomberNight]

It's stored in the keystore, and persisted in the wallet file for hw wallets.

electrum/electrum/base_wizard.py

Lines 353 to 360 in 55b5825

	d = {
	'type': 'hardware',
	'hw_type': name,
	'derivation': derivation,
	'xpub': xpub,
	'label': device_info.label,
	}
	k = hardware_keystore(d)

We might as well do it for generic bip39 seeds too.

[Talkless]

and persisted in the wallet file

I am lost now. @ecdsa said Electrum does not keep that.

[SomberNight]

Yes, and I just said it does for hardware wallets. I had to check myself to be sure :P
It's hard to keep track..
For software bip39 seeds, it is not kept. We might as well keep it for those too I think.

[Talkless]

OK so my feature requests still holds, at least for HW wallets :) .

[SomberNight]

Note: in Qt console:
for non-multisig, or first cosigner in case of multisig:

wallet.keystore.derivation

multisig:

[k.derivation for k in wallet.get_keystores()]

(these will raise AttributeError for non-hw wallet keystores)

[SomberNight]

Looks like to fully cover PSBT usecases we will optionally have full bip32 paths for any kind of bip32-based wallet, in which case we might as well (and will probably need to) show it in the UI.

related:
#5715
#5955

[SomberNight]

For newly created wallets (and exisiting hw-keystore wallets), the derivation path is stored but is not atm exposed to the user. In console: wallet.keystore.get_derivation_prefix()

[fresheneesz]

I want to just add my opinion here that since derivation paths are kind of really important to be able to correctly restore from your seed, the derivation path should be shown alongside your seed and users should be instructed to record it as well. That is, unless we are aiming to have some mechanism to automatically search numerous standard derivation paths so users don't have to write it down.

[Stadicus]

+1 to show derivation path in Wallet Information dialog. When creating a multisig wallet with hardware wallets, I need to record the derivation path as crucial information during setup for a proper backup of the overall multisig setup. Otherwise the derivation path is no longer accessible using regular UI options (not counting #4700 (comment))