Bitcoin-only wallet

Electrum Wallet Encrypted Mnemonic — Hashcat Mode 27700

TL;DR — Electrum (popular Bitcoin-only wallet) encrypts its seed mnemonic using AES + PBKDF2-SHA512. Mode 27700 covers Electrum 2.x through 4.x. Recovery feasibility depends on password complexity; recovery is feasible for typical user passwords.

Electrum's seed format

Electrum uses its own seed encoding (different from BIP39 — 'Electrum 2.0 seeds'). The seed is encrypted with AES-256-CBC using a key derived via PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA512 from the user password.

The wallet file is a JSON containing the encrypted seed plus metadata. Tools like electrum2john extract the hash for Hashcat.

Recovery realism

PBKDF2-SHA512 iteration count is moderate. Per-password GPU throughput is similar to other PBKDF2-SHA512 wallets — feasible for typical passwords, infeasible for strong random.

Old Electrum wallets from 2013-2018 era frequently have human-chosen passwords that are recoverable.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I import recovered Electrum seed elsewhere?

Electrum's own seed format is best imported back into Electrum. BIP39 seeds (alternative Electrum mode) work in any BIP39 wallet.

Is the wallet file's hash format documented?

Yes — Hashcat documentation describes mode 27700 hash format. electrum2john tool produces it from .wallet files.

Related references

m11300Long-iteration KDF m26600Browser-extension vault Reference: layer 2

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