Restore a Ravencoin wallet from a seed phrase.
If you have the 12 or 24 words, you have the wallet. This page walks through restoring on a fresh install and the edge cases that trip people up.
Restore from a seed.
- 01
Install a clean copy of the wallet
Use the latest build from the official download page. Do not restore into an old or modified copy of the software. - 02
Choose 'Restore wallet'
On first launch select 'I already have a seed' and paste or type the words in the original order. - 03
Confirm the derivation
Accept the suggested derivation path unless you know you used a custom one. Custom paths fail silently — addresses just look 'wrong'. - 04
Set a new password
The restored wallet file is freshly encrypted with whatever password you set now. - 05
Wait for the scan
The wallet rescans the chain for addresses derived from your seed. Balances and history reappear when the scan completes.
How Ravencoin wallet recovery actually works.
Recovery is deterministic: the same seed always produces the same addresses, on any compatible client, on any machine, forever. The hard parts are not the cryptography — they are knowing which derivation path was used, what kind of seed you have, and what to do when something looks 'wrong' after restore.
Install Electrum RVN on any machine, choose "Restore wallet" on first launch, and type the 12 or 24 words in the original order. The wallet re-derives every address from the seed and rescans the chain — balances and history return when the scan completes.
The seed phrase is the only thing you actually need. The password, the encrypted wallet file, the install location, even the previous machine — all replaceable. The seed is not. If you have it, the wallet is recoverable on any compatible client; if you do not, no support team and no developer can help you.
12-word vs 24-word seeds
Electrum RVN itself generates 12-word BIP-39 seeds for software wallets. Hardware devices (Ledger, Trezor) generate 24-word BIP-39 seeds. Both restore through the same flow — just type whatever you have. A 24-word seed restored as a software wallet behaves the same as a 24-word seed paired with the original hardware device: the addresses match, the balance matches, and the assets match.
- 12 words — standard Electrum RVN software wallet.
- 24 words — standard Ledger / Trezor hardware seed.
- Both are BIP-39 and restore through the same screen.
- Order matters; case does not.
- Extra spaces or punctuation between words are stripped automatically.
By far the most common cause is a derivation-path mismatch. Different wallets and different historical Electrum RVN versions used slightly different paths; the addresses derived from your seed at one path are not the addresses derived at another, even though both are valid Ravencoin addresses. Try the alternate Ravencoin paths the wallet offers, or — if you still have the original software — restore there first to confirm the seed itself is correct.
For Ledger and Trezor, the cleanest path is to restore the 24-word seed onto a replacement device using its built-in "Restore from recovery phrase" flow, then re-pair with Electrum RVN exactly as if it were the original device. The wallet recognises the device, derives the same addresses, and picks up the existing balance and history. If you used a Trezor passphrase, you'll need to enter the same passphrase to reach the same wallet — forgetting the passphrase makes that wallet unrecoverable even with the seed.
Forgot the password, still have the seed
Restore from the seed into a new wallet file and set a fresh password. The old encrypted wallet file can be deleted — it holds no funds independently of the seed. Then, before doing anything else, write down the new password somewhere durable so the next "forgot password" event doesn't push you into a full restore again. If you do not still have the seed, the password is the only path in, and a forgotten password with no seed backup is functionally identical to lost funds.
Ravencoin assets live at the same addresses your RVN does, so restoring the seed restores the assets too. After the chain rescan completes, open the Assets tab to confirm asset balances. If RVN is present but assets are missing, give the scan more time — asset history can take a few additional passes to fully populate. If you only ever held assets and never any RVN, the same rule applies: the seed restores everything, regardless of which type of output is sitting at the addresses. From there you can install Electrum RVN on a fresh machine and have full access in minutes.
The recovery flow is short and worth rehearsing once before you ever need it for real. Install the wallet on the new machine using the seed and export guide and launch the wallet. Choose "Restore wallet" on the first-run screen, type the seed phrase in the original order, and confirm. The wallet derives every address from the seed, queries servers for transaction history, and rebuilds the balance. The whole process — from blank machine to functioning wallet — typically takes under fifteen minutes on a broadband connection.
- Install a verified copy of Electrum RVN before typing the seed anywhere.
- Choose 'Restore wallet', not 'Create new wallet'.
- Type the seed in the original word order; the wallet validates the words against the BIP-39 wordlist.
- Wait for the chain rescan to complete before assuming a balance is wrong.
- Set a new password once recovery completes; the old password is gone with the old machine.
When the seed appears not to work
Most "the seed doesn't work" reports turn out to be one of three things: a typo on a single word, the words entered in the wrong order, or recovery into a wallet that uses a different derivation path than the one that originally created the seed. Re-check each word against a BIP-39 wordlist (recovery will fail if even one word is wrong or mis-spelled). If the words are right and the order is right, try the alternate Ravencoin derivation paths the wallet offers, or restore using the original software you created the wallet with. The seed itself almost never "stops working" — derivation parameters around it can.
Once a year, on a machine you can wipe afterwards, type the seed into a fresh install and confirm the balance matches what you expect. This is the single most effective backup test there is — if the rehearsal succeeds, the seed and the backup are both genuinely working, and you've also rehearsed the procedure for your future self (or an executor) under calm conditions instead of emergency ones. If the rehearsal fails, you've discovered the problem while you still have access to fix it.
Frequently asked
Continue with Electrum RVN
- Ravencoin seed backup — how to store and rotate seeds
- Electrum wallet security — broader security context
- Electrum RVN download — reinstall the wallet to restore
Run your own Ravencoin wallet.
Open-source, lightweight, and built for the desktop user who wants real control over keys and assets. Download the wallet directly from our download page — signed installers for every operating system.