Electrum Review

Electrum Overview

Electrum is one of the popular bitcoin wallets established in 2011. Electrum uses blockchain indices which doesn’t require users to download ever-expanding and large files on their computer. It is one of the oldest crypto wallets and is very easy to use.

What is an Electrum Wallet?

Electrum wallet is one of the most popular wallets compatible with various operating systems like Windows, Mac, and Linux. Electrum was created by a German Computer Scientist to be more efficient and light in weight.  With time, many developments in Electrum were done to make it more efficient and reliable. The main focus of Electrum is Bitcoin. 

Electrum Summary:
Official Websiteelectrum.org
Name of the WalletElectrum Bitcoin Wallet
Wallet Type Hot
Coins accepted Bitcoin
Supported Hardware Yes
Charges Transaction fees depends on the speed of the transaction
Hot StorageHot StorageaYes
Mobile Application Yes (Android)
Customer SupportTutorials and FAQ support

Features of Electrum

  1. Electrum gives the full control of the private keys to the users, as they can store the keys in their computers. These private keys can be exported offline so that the client doesn’t remain dependent on Electrum. 

  2. Secret recovery phase is provided to the users to recover the funds in case their computer stops working.

  3. Electrum offers multisig wallet and split the permission to spend the bitcoins.

  4. The servers of Electrum are decentralized and redundant, thus not experiencing any downtime. It is an open source and the professionals have screened the QR code.

  5. The users of Electrum do not need to download the entire blockchain. 

  6. SVM (Simple verification method) is used while making transactions. Electrum offers cold storage and private keys are stored in the offline wallet, but it still is called a hot wallet.

  7. It supports the integration with other popular hardware wallets like TREZER, Ledger Nano S, and Keepkey.

Services Offered by Electrum

  1. Electrum can be downloaded and used on the desktop and is compatible with almost all the window operating systems. Electrum is also available for Android-based smartphones. Electrum offers the same features in the mobile version as it offers on computers.

  2. Electrum is easy to use and can be integrated with other popular hard wallets. With Electrum users do not have to download the entire blockchain.

  3. Electrum uses servers to collect the information and hence saves lots of memory. Electrum wallet is end-to-end protected and is encrypted which makes it hard for hackers to steal it.

  4. It is developed using Python and has easy and short codes. The network verifies and signs the transactions offline and Electrum imports and exports the private keys.

Is Electrum Trustworthy?

According to many reviews on Electrum, it is not the most secure platform being a hot wallet, it offers user-friendly solutions for sending and receiving Bitcoin payments frequently.  Electrum is the best choice for all types of transactions, if the users use cryptos to send online payments.

Pros and Cons of Electrum

Pros / Cons
  • Most popular wallet
  • Easy-to-use
  • Provides integration with other hardwallets
  • Offers many security and privacy features
  • Supports Bitcoin only
  • Not suitable for beginners

Creating an Account with Electrum

The process of downloading and installing Electrum is easy and can be done in a few minutes. The installation wizard of Electrum guides the user with the steps for signing up in Electrum. This makes the sign up for non-technical users easy.

Electrum coin

The Steps Involved to Get Started with Electrum are

  1. Download Electrum from the official website: https://electrum.org/#home. You can download it on all the operating systems including Windows, MAC, Linux, and Android.

  2. Once the download is complete, click install. The installation wizard will complete the setup. Users will get the options for 2-factor Authentication wallet, standard wallet, multisig wallet to choose.

  3. Mutlisig and 2 FA wallets might need extra steps to be completed.

  4. In the next step, the user will be asked to either create a new seed or restore the existing one. The users will also be offered to set their hard wallet.

  5. If the user created a new seed, he will be shown 12- word recovery speed. The user is required to note this number for future references.

  6. After storing the reference seed, the user will be asked to create a strong password.

  7. Now the user is good to go.

Restoring Electrum Wallet

Users will need their seed phase for restoring the Electrum Wallet.
You can follow the below steps:

  1. Download Electrum and install it on the system.
  2. Run the .exe file
  3. Put the wallet name
  4. Select the “Standard wallet”
  5. Select “already have the seed”
  6. Put the seed phase
  7. Then encrypt the new wallet with password if you need to
  8. Then the Electrum will automatically import the wallet and Bitcoin

Getting Bitcoin Cash from Electrum Wallet

One of the best ways of getting Bitcoin cash is to import the private keys from the electrum wallet to an Electron cash wallet. 
Electron Cash supports Bitcoin cash and can be used to access any Bitcoin that the user has. 

Drive

Why Electrum is a Public key

Electrum Public key is acquired from the wallet key and is used to generate wallet addresses. This key can be used to decrypt the message which can be decrypted with only private keys. Electrum Public key is a backend feature. 

Adding Cryptocurrencies into Electrum Wallet:

When the user receives any bitcoin payment, he can transfer those bitcoins in their Electrum wallet. This will be done by locating the Bitcoin receiving address via the receive tab on the Electrum wallet.

Buying Bitcoin on Electrum

Electrum is a simple and easy-to-use wallet that is designed to store the Bitcoin and buying or selling of cryptocurrencies is not supported. Users can buy cryptocurrencies from any exchange and can transfer them into Electrum wallet.  

Sending Payments on Electrum Wallet

Users need to click on the “send” tab to make any payment through Electrum Wallet. Users need to type their BTC address on the “Pay to” field or can copy the address from the clipboard and press send. They will be asked to enter the created password. The receiving wallet address is referred to as the Bitcoin address of the user. 

Coins Supported by Electrum

Electrum supports the storage of Bitcoin even though there are several cryptocurrencies available in the market. Since the Electrum was created, it only focuses on Bitcoin and provides a highly secure and efficient BTC wallet.  Electrum offers extensive BTC storage and also increases the transaction speed. 

Electrum Pricing and Fees

Electrum can be downloaded from its official website for free. The Electrum Android mobile application is also free and is available on PlayStore. The user is charged when the user sends bitcoin which is calculated with the amount of bitcoin sent. These commissions may go upto 0.7 sat/byte. If the transaction is not quick this fee can be lowered to 0.1 sat/byte. 

How are the Transaction Fees Calculated in Ethereum?

For calculating the transaction fees, Electrum calculates the average of all the transaction fees paid recently on the blockchain network and analyzes the time taken for transactions to be included in the blockchain.  
Electrum uses this historic data to make a fair anticipation of what fee size is needed with the transaction. 

Customer Support of Electrum

The wallet offers a well dedicated support team. Electrum also offers users various tutorials and FAQs that are available on the BitcoinTalk Forum. The platform also offers a support page that has articles, blogs, and tutorials for the reference. Users can also refer to Electrum Twitter page for any official announcements. 

How to Get an Electrum Address?

It is a very simple process. You‘ll have to open the wallet and then click on receive. Then select “request.” A bitcoin address will appear on the right.

Request a Specific Amount

Users can specify the amount of bitcoin while generating the address and add meta-data like description of the transaction and expiry date of the transaction. After you click “receive”, the Bitcoin address will appear on the right hand side. Users can simply copy and paste on the clipboard.
You can also generate a QR code that has all the information and expiry date of the transaction within it. 
Users can send any amount of Bitcoins to these  addresses so the users need to be cautious. Users should have their seed phase backed up in redundant locations before using Electrum.

Platforms Supported by Electrum

Electrum is compatible with Windows, MacOS, and Linux operating systems and now is supported by Android devices also. Electrum accepts Bitcoins irrespective of its origin. Users can receive Bitcoins from persons, organisations or businesses as long as it is broadcasted on blockchain.   

Backup with Electrum

Backing up the Electrum wallet is very simple. As advised earlier to note down the seed phase while creating an Electrum account.  This seed phase is the backup for Electrum wallet.
These keys should be kept in cold storage like never used USB. If the user forgets the seed phase he/she can access it by “wallet” and then  “seed.” 
If the user has put password encryption on the wallet, he will need to enter that password. 

Alternatives

Electrum out numbers most of the wallets in terms of features. Electrum is a hot wallet which is connected to the internet. This makes it less secure than a cold wallet by default. But the users can integrate their Electrum wallet with other hard wallets like TREZOR adding an extra coat of security. Electrum doesn’t offer wasabi wallets unless the Tor server is used by the user.  Electrum can reveal the IP address of the user to the SPV server. Whereas in Wasabi all the transactions are connected to the Tor server by default.  

Electrum Final Thoughts

To conclude, Electrum is a safe and convenient bitcoin wallet. Electrum is widely used by many experienced users as a lot of the power is put in the hands of the operator. 

Check Electrum reviews on other platforms:

Electrum Review – Quora
Electrum Review – Forex Peace Army

FAQs

Yes, it is one of the safest wallets that offers many security and privacy features.

The passwords are protected with strong security, which makes Electrum hard to hack. 

Yes, Electrum is available for Android based devices and can be downloaded from Google PlayStore.

Electrum supports only Bitcoin.

Electrum can be integrated with hard wallets like TREZER, Ledger Nano S, and Keepkey.

Yes, it can be used and also users can create a single transaction with several outputs. 

SVM or Simple Verification Method is used while making transactions.

Electrum offers a Secret Recovery Phase which is provided to the user in such cases. 

Yes, users can export their private keys offline and use them with other Bitcoin clients.

Blockchain indices means it doesn’t require users to download ever-expanding and large files on their computer

The wallet file is created when the user runs the application for the first time and is located in the /wallet folder. 

Electrum is compatible with Windows, MacOS, and Linux operating systems and now is supported by Android devices also.

You can follow the below steps:

  1. Download Electrum and install it on the system.
  2. Run the .exe file 
  3. Put the wallet name
  4. Select the “Standard wallet”
  5. Select “already have the seed”
  6. Put the seed phase
  7. Then encrypt the new wallet with password if you need to
  8. Then the Electrum will automatically import the wallet and Bitcoin

Yes. Users can create and sign raw transactions from the user interface using a form.

Electrum allows you to integrate other hard wallets with electrum. But if you want to open a different wallet, it will open the last opened wallet by default. You can follow the below step to open different wallet:

  1. Click on File Menu,  choose open or file then choose recently opened.
  2. Click on choose to open the file navigation window and choose a different wallet file. 
  3. You can also create a new wallet by simply changing the name in the wallet field.