Software:Electrum Bitcoin Wallet

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Electrum Bitcoin Wallet
Zclassic electrum wallet.jpg
Original author(s)Electrum Technologies GmbH
Initial release2011
Repositorygithub.com/spesmilo/electrum
Written inPython
Operating systemLinux, Windows, macOS, Android
TypeCryptocurrency wallet
LicenseMIT License
Websiteelectrum.org

Electrum is a free cryptocurrency wallet for Bitcoin and Lightning Network. It's available for Windows, Linux (pre-installed on Tails OS), macOS and Android. Electrum is written in Python and uses the Qt widget toolkit for the user interface. Electrum is a lightweight client: it does not download the entire blockchain and instead uses simplified payment verification. Transactions are sent to public servers.[1]

In addition to Bitcoin, Electrum in modified versions are also used for altcoins:


Features

  • Encrypted wallet: the file that contains bitcoin private keys is protected with a password, and never leaves the user's computer.
  • Deterministic key generation: If you lose your wallet file, you can recover it from its seed (12 words, BIP39). This protects a user from own mistakes.
  • Instant on: by default the client does not download the blockchain, but synchronizes that wallet information from a server. This saves a lot of time and storage space.
  • Transactions are signed locally: the private keys aren't shared with the server. A user don't have to trust the server with own money.
  • Cold storage: Keeping private keys offline is supported. Has a watch-only mode for online use.
  • Multi-signature: Dividing the power to spend coins between multiple wallets is supported.
  • Hardware wallet integration: Many leading hardware wallets can interface with Electrum, including Coldcard, Trezor and Ledger.
  • Redundancy: A users are not tied to a particular server, and the server does not need to know them. One server going down doesn't cause user downtimes.
  • No single point of failure: The server code is open source, anyone can run a server. Private keys can be exported and imported into other wallets.
  • Firewall friendly: The client does not need to open a port, it simply polls the server for updates.
  • Free software: MIT License. Anyone can audit the code.
  • Written in Python. The code is short, and easy to review.
  • SegWit support: Electrum not only supports Legacy Bitcoin addresses, but also SegWit and its variations.
  • Add-ons: third-party plugins are supported, e.g. Two Factor Authentication and Virtual Keyboard.
  • Support for Bitcoin URIs, signed URIs and Bitcoin aliases

Screenshot of main window

A transaction overview in the Electrum Bitcoin Wallet

Security

Although wallet files are encrypted with PBKDF2, private keys are encrypted with AES256 with the user's password. This could allow an attacker with access to the encrypted data to decrypt the private keys using a dictionary attack or a brute force attack.[2]

Electrumx

Electrumx[3] is a full-node and provides the decentralized Electrum server to the users of the Electrum light wallets. It also is used for NameCoin. ElectrumX is able to serve thousands of clients at once, it is suited to be an always-on server that contributes to bitcoin

Electrum Personal Server

In contrast to Electrumx, the Electrum Personal Server[4] is only aimed at using by a user. Instead of storing the whole Blockchain, it only pursues its own transactions. This allows it to be much more efficient with resources, it does not need any extra data files and is compatible with Bitcoin Core's pruning feature. Electrum Personal Server is the best way to combine Electrum's feature-richness (hardware wallet integration, multi-signature, seed phrase, etc) with a full node's strong security and privacy.

References

  1. ↑ Zhang, Yiyin (May 2023). "SoK: Anonymity of Lightweight Clients in Cryptocurrency Systems". 2023 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC): 1–18. doi:10.1109/ICBC56567.2023.10174913. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10174913. 
  2. ↑ Holmes, Arran; Buchanan, William J. (2023-03-01). "A framework for live host-based Bitcoin wallet forensics and triage". Forensic Science International: Digital Investigation 44: 301486. doi:10.1016/j.fsidi.2022.301486. ISSN 2666-2817. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666281722001676. 
  3. ↑ https://github.com/spesmilo/electrumx
  4. ↑ https://github.com/chris-belcher/electrum-personal-serve

External links



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