Electrum Wallet Review: Features and How-to-Use Guide

This Electrum review is going to show you all the security and anonymity features that benefit the users of this wallet. It is considered one of the oldest and most secure wallets when it comes to storing Bitcoin. At the end of the article, you’re going to find a full Electrum guide to lead you step by step through the installation of the wallet and how to use it.

01.Electrum Features & Fees

Let me start with the basics – Electrum is a single coin wallet, supporting only Bitcoin. It’s one of the most preferred platforms to send and receive BTCs, because of the fast and easy setup process. It’s considered an anonymous wallet with privacy features, which makes it a tasty bite for users. Its HD characteristic allows people to easy backup and restore their wallet, thanks to the generating seed. 

As a light node, Electrum is requesting information from full nodes. Here I observe the SPV (Simple payment verification) confirmation. This one verifies that your transactions are added in the blockchain.

If I have to be honest, when I initially installed Electrum, it was a bit hard for me to work with the interface. It might not be the most user-friendly on the market but once you get used to it, you’ll forget the struggles in the beginning. I would like to sum now everything I’m planning to show you with the following sections, so you can have an exact idea how am I going to proceed:

Operating System Compatibility

As explained earlier, Electrum is supporting only the BTC coin, so basically there isn’t much to say about the coin support. I would like to talk you about the operating systems. It’s supporting all the Desktop editions – Windows, Linux and Mac. You simply download and set up the Electrum desktop wallet on your personal PC. Another thing to mention here is that there’s also an Android mobile app, which you can download from your app store and install on your smartphone without any minimum requirements. In a word, all the OS, supporting the python3 coding language are compatible with Electrum. Anyway, I’ll commit my resume on the most popular ones:

Transaction Fees

With Electrum, the software sets transaction fees automatically, but you can still change them depending on the urgency of your transactions or in other words, how fast you need them to go through. When you want to send coins using that wallet, use the slider for adjusting the fee. This software option shows you roughly after how many blocks your transaction will go through. The fees you need to pay are estimated according to the ones used in the last blocks.

The tricky part about manually adjusting the fees in your wallet is connected to the time each transaction will be processed by the miners. In case the fee you put is too small, there is a chance your transaction never to go through. Well, don’t worry, if it doesn’t pass you will receive the coins back. However, it may take days and even weeks, so it’s advisable not to temper with the fees too much. Nonetheless, Electrum charges fees for sending BTC. Usually you need to pay 0.2 mBTC. This rate varies, and you can end up paying 0.1 mBTC or lower.

Create an Address

After you’re ready with the installation process and start the wallet for the first time you will be presented with several choices regarding the new address you’re about to make. Here is the setup process in steps:  

Wasn’t so hard, right? You have now completed the setting up phase. Finalize it by creating a strong password, which the program will require when you create new wallet to protect your keys. When all that is done, just proceed exploring all that the wallet provides.

Send and Receive Assets

In order to send BTC, you must go to the “Send” menu, write down the Address of the receiver (or scan a QR code if available). Below you can write a text description, then you put in the amount you want to send and regulate the fee which will affect how soon the receiver will get his BTC.

When you want to receive BTC send your Receiving Address to the person that will send you coins or let him scan your QR code.

Ledger Integration

Have you thought of combining a cold and a hot wallet? Maybe using the offline one to store your coins and the online wallet to operate with them? Well, I can’t wait to tell you about the Ledger-Electrum cooperation. If you buy a Ledger hardware wallet then you can easily set up the Electrum software and use them both. There are several simple steps to follow for the purpose of using the device’s safety and the desktop wallet usability all at once. Check the guide below, if you’re a Windows user:

Step 1: Download and install the Electrum wallet from their official website.

Step 2: When configuring in the installation wizard, choose the ‘Standard wallet’ option.

Step 3: Now connect your Ledger wallet to the PC, enter the PIN and pick the BTC app.

Step 4: Select the ‘Use a hardware device’ function from the list.

Step 5: When the PC initialize the Ledger device, you’ll be asked to enter your ‘Account number’, where you can type simply a zero.

Your device will sync with the software and you can continue using the Electrum wallet. What about Linux users? There are some additional commands to fulfill during the setup process like libraries, if needed. Here they are:

• apt-get install libusb-1.0-0-dev

• apt-get install libudev-dev

• ln -s /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libudev.so.1 /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libudev.so

• pip install btchip-python

For the purpose of signing a transaction, you have to validate it on your Ledger device to get it broadcasted in the network. Now, I would like to present you the full list of security and privacy features, so keep reading.

Possible Issues and How to Avoid Them

Let me start by saying, that the setup is fairly hard for a newbie to manage single-handedly. To avoid any inaccuracies along the process it’s advisable to use this guide. Another frequent setback about Electrum is the freezing software. This happens when you try to execute a large number of transactions at the same time. It is advisable to send smaller amounts of BTC to one of your addresses (desired wallets) for verification. Talking about other wallets makes me think of the import of private keys from other BTC wallets. Well, the last version of Electrum doesn’t provide such an option. Basically, you can’t import your private keys in a wallet with a seed. What you can do here is to swap them. Last but not least one advice, make sure you have your password and seed safe. In case of losing or forgetting them, your Electrum account is unreachable.

Troubleshooting Support

Electrum is really active in supporting every user. The users have created a fast responding community reachable at Bitcointalk. One small clarification here, for the forum with questions and support you will have to register. Nothing too complicated. Reddit is one more community forum for such purposes. In case you don’t want to go too deep into the thematic, the common issues are approached in this is official help documentation.

Scams and Attacks

Electrum had a moment of vulnerability in 2016. It was software related bug in the the source code. The wallet’s developers team informed that the weakness affects versions 2.6 to 3.0.4 on every platform. It also affects the wallet’s clones like Electron Cash. This vulnerability in the code was fixed in early 2018.

Electrum on Social Media

In the world of crypto, laying hands on every new piece of information is essential. This way you will be able to react on time in case of threat or useful advantage. The team behind Electrum knows that and stays active on several social channels: