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Electrum Wallet Review 2026
Our Electrum wallet review highlights how this is one of the oldest, best-known Bitcoin wallets on the market, allowing users to control their own private keys and gain access to a variety of advanced features. It is estimated that Electrum is responsible for around 10% of all transactions on the Bitcoin network, so they clearly know what they’re doing. We cover all of the must-haves and features of this respected wallet, so you know if it’s the right fit for you.
- Two-factor authentication available for transactions
- Hardware wallets can be used with this wallet
- Default wallet included in the Tails operating system for privacy-focused users
- Bitcoin support only
Meet Our Reviewing Team
Is Electrum Wallet Good for Beginners?
One big reason to do an Electrum wallet review is to help those new to buying Bitcoin decide if it’s something they can use comfortably. Fortunately, users can take full control over their funds through an easy to understand interface.
While you can’t purchase cryptocurrency from within the app, that’s actually a security advantage, as it gives you full custody of your bitcoin. This makes it a solid option for new users to control their private keys, after purchasing Bitcoin on an exchange and sending it their wallet.
Although some users are disappointed by the lack of altcoin support, this setup simplifies the user experience and avoids complexity. The support of hardware wallets and multi-signature addresses also makes it easy for users to make sure that their funds will remain secure, and the integration of the Lightning Network facilitates faster and cheaper transactions.
Best Features
The best features of the Electrum wallet revolve around advanced Bitcoin functionality, security features, and the ability to perform on-chain transactions at a cheaper fee.
Electrum is also extremely useful for those who wish to gain better privacy at the network level. Tails is generally regarded at the best operating system for retaining online anonymity, and Electrum is the default Bitcoin wallet included in that particular distribution of Linux. However, Electrum does not include any method of mixing coins by default, which is the ability to make transactions more anonymous, enabling greater privacy. Thus, there could be some improvements when it comes to tracking user payments via the blockchain.
Lastly, the ability to use a hardware wallet with the Electrum wallet lets users keep funds as secure as possible.
What Cryptocurrencies are Supported?
Electrum only works with Bitcoin. However, the wallet software supports various altcoins such as Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold. These alternative forms of the Electrum software go by different names.
Security
Electrum has a wide variety of security options for its users. In terms of keeping your private keys safe, there are a few different setups that can be used. When creating a new wallet, you get to choose from a wallet with two factor authentication, standard wallet, multi-signature wallet, and hardware wallet.
Two Factor authentication gives you an added layer of security. With each transaction made, a two-factor authentication code from another device must be supplied in order for that payment to be sent.
Hardware devices are another option. Devices from Ledger and TREZOR, which are the two most well-known brands in the hardware wallet industry, will work with Electrum. Coldcard devices from Coinkite are also compatible.
It should be noted that old versions of Electrum had a security vulnerability that allowed malicious Electrum servers to trick users into downloading malware that allowed hackers to steal user funds. The attack was enabled because Electrum servers were able to send arbitrary text along with error messages related to transactions. Attackers were able to use this vulnerability to send fake requests for users to update their Electrum software. The download links sent to users were for malicious software. For this reason, it is important to always have the latest version of electrum when using the wallet and investigate any suspicious requests.
It should also be remembered that Electrum is not full node Bitcoin software, which means miners and server operators are somewhat trusted to provide correct information about transactions.
Supported Operating Systems
Electrum is available on Mac, Linux, and Windows desktop environments. Notably, the Electrum wallet software is included in the privacy and anonymity-focused operating system Tails by default.
In terms of mobile operating systems, Electrum is currently only available on Android devices.
Potential Dealbreakers
In spite of how well respected and functional it is, there are some potential dealbreakers for this wallet.
If you use a variety of cryptocurrencies, then you’ll need to find another wallet. Jaxx Liberty and Exodus are other greats options for altcoin users because they offer a wide variety of different cryptocurrency integrations.
If you’re a die hard Bitcoin maximalist who wants to reach the highest level of trustless-ness possible, then the fact that Electrum is not a full node will be an issue. If you want to be able to completely verify the entire history of the blockchain on your own, then you’re probably better off going with Bitcoin Core. Having said that, it is possible to use Electrum in a trustless manner by pointing the wallet to your own backend server.
It’s also not yet possible to use the Lightning Network via Electrum, but support for this layer-two Bitcoin payments technology is expected soon.
Electrum Frequently Asked Questions
SPV is a way for lightweight Bitcoin clients to verify that a particular transaction was included in a block without downloading the entire block. Electrum uses this feature to limit the amount of resources required by a user’s computer to run the wallet software.
A large number of Electrum users were hacked in the past due to a security issue created by server error message handling in past versions of the software. To be clear, users were not hacked directly due to a vulnerability in Electrum. Instead, hackers used the ability to send error messages to Electrum users from Electrum servers that told them to download malicious software that let to the theft of funds.
This vulnerability has been patched in more recent versions of the Electrum wallet software.
Despite the above-described security issue from the past, Electrum is viewed as a safe Bitcoin storage option, especially if advanced tools like multi-signature addresses, two-factor authentication, or hardware wallets are used. These sorts of tools make it so hackers either need to gain physical access to a piece of hardware or compromise multiple devices in order to steal funds.
Two-factor authentication is provided by TrustedCoin. When creating a new wallet in Electrum, users have the option to enable this feature. This will create a 2-of-3 multi-signature wallet where two keys are held by the user and one is held by TrustedCoin.
Every time the user attempts to make a transaction, TrustedCoin will need to sign off on it. TrustedCoin will only sign a transaction if the user inputs a two-factor authentication code from an app on their smartphone such as Google Authenticator.
To start using Electrum in Tails, you just need to go into your internet applications and choose the Electrum Bitcoin wallet.
It should be noted that using Electrum via Tails does not make your Bitcoin activity anonymous. It is still trivial to track transactions directly on the blockchain due to a lack of mixing capabilities in Electrum.
