Migrating to Ethereum-based SolarCoin: the Technical Guide
SolarCoin started as an idea and a Litecoin fork in 2014. The blockchain ecosystem has improved drastically since then, but the existing SolarCoin wallet software has been left behind. It’s time for a change.
We’re excited to announce that we are migrating to the Energy Web Chain, an Ethereum-based chain built by the Energy Web Foundation that uses Proof Of Authority, a consensus algorithm that uses considerably less energy and carbon than the Ethereum proof-of-work mainnet. The Energy Web Foundation is taking steps to make the blockchain carbon neutral.
A snapshot of the SolarCoin blockchain was taken on April 15, 2021 at block 3,977,777. The SolarCoin balances are being migrated over to the new Energy Web Chain Blockchain with most being available to be picked up by April 18, 2021.
The contract on the Energy Web Chain is 0x26E4991a72728b1a9B1044345e5bF9293E0A1434.
The rest of this guide will focus on the how-to of migrating your existing SolarCoin tokens (hereafter referred to as SolarCoin Classic or SCC) and setting up a new wallet. The FAQ provides answers to more general questions, or the SolarCoin Community Slack is always available as a resource.
Warning: SolarCoin will never ask for your passphrase, recovery mnemonic, or private keys. You should keep these secure and never share them with untrusted parties.
Steps to migrate
Each step will be described in detail below, this list gives an overview of what’s involved:
- Export your private keys from your SolarCoin Classic wallet
- Convert your SCC private keys to the Ethereum format
- Download an Ethereum wallet
- Import your private keys to your wallet
- Connect your wallet to the Energy Web Chain — many users will already have their SolarCoins migrated automatically
- If necessary, export your public key and file a support ticket
1. Exporting your private keys
As always, your private keys are the only link to controlling your SolarCoins — treat them as you would a password. If anyone else gains access to your keys, they have full access to your funds. Never give your private keys to anyone, for any reason, and never enter them into a website.
Get all wallet addresses that have funds — they will be on the Receive tab in the SCC wallet.
Open the console.
Enter walletpassphrase <your password> <time to keep unlocked>
If you encounter an error like this one,
enter walletlock before the walletpassphrase command.
Enter dumpprivkey <wallet address> to export the private key for the address. Repeat the command for each address with funds.
The exported text is your private key.
2. Converting your private keys
The keys are exported in a format that Bitcoin wallets use, called WIF . To import it into an Ethereum wallet, they must be converted.
To make this easier, the SolarCoin Foundation has created an offline utility to convert them and also derive your existing wallet address for confirmation. If you choose to use another method for converting your private keys, make sure you know the risks.
An OSX, Windows, and Linux version are available at on GitHub. The source is also available in the repository and can be run with Node.
Run the appropriate program for your operating system, in this case slr-key-convert-macos <your exported private key>
Confirm that the “old SLR address” matches your SCC wallet address.
3. Download an Ethereum wallet and import your private keys
You may use any Ethereum wallet you like, with the caveat that it must support importing a private key. For this guide, the steps will use Metamask.
Download and install Metamask from http://metamask.io
Once installed, open the application by clicking the icon in the browser and select ‘Import’
and your account address in Metamask should match the generated one from slr-key-convert
4. Connect to the Energy Web Chain
Above your wallet address is a button showing which network your Metamask wallet is currently connected to. Click it to open the menu.
Select ‘Custom RPC’ and add the information for the Energy Web Chain.
Energy Web Chain Main network
The EWC official site has directions, but they are also replicated here.
You can add “EnergyWeb RPC” or something similar as the name, https://rpc.energyweb.org/ as the RPC URL, enter the chainID of the Energy Web Chain: “246”, as a Symbol put “EWT”. Also add the URL of the Energy Web Chain blockexplorer: https://explorer.energyweb.org/. Now click on save to connect.
Your MetaMask should be connected to the Energy Web Chain now.
To add SLR to your list of assets, click ‘Add Token’
and paste in the contract address for SLR. The decimals and token name should populate automatically.
Volta test network contract address: 0x94512DA6dA903606B15d4AfbE12333c1F7F65BeC
EWC main network: 0x26E4991a72728b1a9B1044345e5bF9293E0A1434
then click ‘Next’, then ‘Add Tokens’.
If you see your balance, you’re done! Most users of the official SolarCoin Wallet were able to be migrated automatically. Some users of third-party wallets like Coinomi were not, and will need to provide their public keys in order to move their tokens from SolarCoin Classic to the new Ethereum-based chain.
