thanks for the detailed explanation HCP
with regard to security of the private key, do you know if there is any way to get the compressed WIF key from the source wallet rather than through a third party site like bitaddress?
To be honest, I'm not even sure you need to worry about converting from "uncompressed" to "compressed" or not... but you can simply export the private keys in Exodus itself and it SHOULD give you the correct key... otherwise, Exodus is broken and should be fixed...
In Windows you use "Ctrl+Shift+D" to show the hidden "developer" menu... then: "Exodus" -> "Developer" -> "Assets" -> "Bitcoin" -> "Export Private Keys"
When I tried it just now, it gave me the address, derivation path and compressed key:
15bE423j7eWmFKED3ECqqADNMiY3H4cSq2,m/0/0,0,Kx5d2ztErw7KMp7cci5M279xsai1FneM8DG5X4MkTjd4Y7vKUHjB