

Unless you expect to receive money in the future to the addresses corresponding to your private keys it is better to sweep them. Sweeping them means that all the funds in the private keys are sent to your existing deterministic Electrum wallet. Importing your private keys requires you to create a new electrum wallet just for your private keys Sweeping your private keys into Electrumīefore you import your private keys consider whether sweeping them might be better.Restoring your standard wallet from seed.Restoring your MultibitHD or BRD Wallet in Electrum.Importing your private keys into Electrum.How to use the Electrum label sync plugin.How to switch to a different Electrum server.How to spend specific UTXOs in Electrum.How to spend from an offline paper wallet using Electrum.How to recover access to the bitcoins in your 2fa wallet.How to install Electrum on a Debian or Ubuntu live CD.How to do a manual Child Pays For Parent transaction.Creating a watch-only version of your 2fa wallet.Creating a P2SH Segwit Wallet with Electrum.Creating a Cold Storage wallet in Electrum.In fact, the UI is one of the biggest drawbacks of Electrum, especially when compared to something like the Exodus wallet (opens in new tab). Wasabi, on the other hand, routes all connections via Tor by default.Īlso, while both wallets offer Coin Control, it’s more intuitively implemented in Wasabi than it is in Electrum. Unless you use it with a Tor server, Electrum will reveal your IP address to the SPV server. The good thing, though, is that Electrum can be integrated with all popular hardware wallets for an extra layer of security.īeing a thin client, Electrum is also not as private as the Wasabi wallet (opens in new tab). However, it does have certain shortcomings.įor starters, Electrum is a hot wallet (opens in new tab) that’s connected to the Internet, which makes it inherently less secure than a cold wallet (opens in new tab) or a hardware wallet like the Ledger Nano or Trezor (opens in new tab). (Image credit: Electrum Wallet) AlternativesĮlectrum outscores most of its peers in terms of the number of functions it offers. The project broadcasts announcements on its Twitter channel and dispenses help via r/Electrum subreddit. The documentation also deals with niche use cases such as routing transactions through a Tor network (opens in new tab), or setting up a watchtower for your lightning wallet. Some advanced functions - such as configuring multisig wallets, signing transactions, and getting hardware wallets to work on Linux - get their own sections. The official documentation begins with an FAQ, which does a nice job of running through some of the wallet’s interesting features.

The website points to two distinct resources one is the official documentation, while the other is an unofficial resource that hosts about two dozen easy-to-follow and well-illustrated guides.

In fact, we’d advise anyone interested in using Electrum (opens in new tab), irrespective of their experience with cryptocurrencies, to spend some time going through its extensive documentation to familiarize themselves with its peculiarities.

However, not all of it is immediately apparent. You can then right-click on any of them to get the option to spend them.įor a thin wallet, Electrum packs quite a lot of functionality. You’ll have to enable the Coins tab from under the view menu to view all the individual UTXOs or unspent transaction outputs. However, you have to enable it first from the Tools menu.Įlectrum also has coin control features, but these too are hidden by default. One of Electrum's most interesting features is the ability to send payments to multiple addresses at the same time, which helps save on transaction fees. The tab also has a slider that you can use to specify the fee for the transaction. Again, you can optionally add a description for the transaction to help you identify it later. To send Bitcoin, switch to the Send tab and enter the address of the wallet you want to send to, either manually or by scanning its QR code. Electrum will also automatically convert the Bitcoin amount into fiat currency. Optionally you can add a description to the transaction and an expiry date for the request. The Receive tab gives you the option to generate a new address, along with a QR code, either of which you can then pass on to the sender. There are separate tabs for sending and receiving Bitcoin, and another to view past transactions. Once you’ve set up the wallet to your liking, the process of transferring funds isn’t all that complicated. (Image credit: Electrum Wallet) Transferring funds
