How safe is Electrum wallet?

[bibonix]

I installed Electrum and created a wallet there. All I know is the seed generated. I don't know private keys from the Bitcoin addresses it manages for me. And I don't see an option to get them from there. So, the question is how safe this system is? Won't I lose my bitcoins one day?

[1714842926]

1714842926

[TryNinja]

I installed Electrum and created a wallet there. All I know is the seed generated. I don't know private keys from the Bitcoin addresses it manages for me. And I don't see an option to get them from there. So, the question is how safe this system is? Won't I lose my bitcoins one day?

Tools -> View Addresses -> Right-click an address -> Private Key; done. You have it.

And why would you lose your Bitcoins one day simply because your wallet is "managing" them for you? The seed is - in simple words - just a key that tells the software which addresses to generate for you (so it can regenerate them anytime if you need to restore your wallet).

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

Tools -> View Addresses -> Right-click an address -> Private Key; done. You have it.

And to obtain private keys of all the address, one need to follow this:

Wallet -> Private keys -> Export
You will be seeing all private keys. You can copy them or export them.

OP,
The wallet you created using Electrum is a HD wallet. You have a seed (12 words or more) and this seed binds all your addresses however every address has it's own individual private key.

Talking about safety?
Do not share the seed with anyone.
Do not lose the seed
Do not share any of the private key with anyone.
Do not store the seed in your computer or in a device where hacker can have the chance to access your device and can steal the stored file.
Always use the Electrum client that was downloaded from their official website.
Always verify the Electrum clinet before installing it.

There are so many ways to keep your wallet safe but just use the common sense. You will be good.

[akram143]

I installed Electrum and created a wallet there. All I know is the seed generated. I don't know private keys from the Bitcoin addresses it manages for me. And I don't see an option to get them from there. So, the question is how safe this system is? Won't I lose my bitcoins one day?

It is one of the safe wallet but not 100% because electrum faced vulnerability on it couple of time as far as I remember and many lost their funds due to it.

The best way to avoid this is keep your electrum upto date.

[Pmalek]

It is one of the safe wallet but not 100% because electrum faced vulnerability on it couple of time as far as I remember and many lost their funds due to it.

Users lost funds because they downloaded fake Electrum wallets from phishing sites. They downloaded and used them without verifying the signatures. Multiple mistakes had to be made for the funds to be stolen.

@OP
You will be OK as long as you follow the advice given to you by Pamoldar and if you have common sense not to use the computer where you have Electrum installed for anything unsafe.   

[bob123]

Generally, each desktop wallet can only be as secure as your computer is.
If your computer is infected with malware, your coins are at risk.

Regarding safety, if you have a backup of your mnemonic code (12 words), you are fine.
You don't need to save any private keys. All private keys can be derived from the mnemonic code. Just make sure to store it in a secure place. Be careful, anyone with access to the mnemonic code can recreate your wallet.

Additionally, make sure to download updates only from https://electrum.org. And always verify the signature before installing it. This takes less than 2 minutes and makes sure you are using the original electrum wallet. There are several guides available on the internet, as well as on electrum.org.

[leowonderful]

I've never really had problems with Electrum, and it can be a safe wallet if you don't go around clicking every link on the internet or downloading random files that could potentially be infected (just use common sense), but if you're just trying to keep coins there for a short to medium period of time, Electrum's good enough. Always ensure you're on the latest version of Electrum before using the wallet. If you're trying to store coins for longer periods of time, consider using a hardware wallet or potentially a paper wallet.

[BitMaxz]

Based on my experienced Electrum wallet is safe but it depends on how you protect your wallet. Just like the above said 12 words seed phrase is enough as back up where you can retrieve your wallet back when your PC is broken or deleted the wallet accidentally.

Additional to the above posts always follow their twitter account from here https://twitter.com/electrumwallet?lang=en
To always get the latest updated news about this wallet because recently there are many Electrum users affected with a phishing attack.
Better read this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5095856.0

So that you are aware of how and what will you do if your wallet is under attack with phishing.

If you want to protect your wallet I suggest you try Electrum cold wallet or offline wallet where your PC never connected to the internet and make a watch-only wallet to other devices to monitor your balance and create unsign transaction.
This is the safest way to protect your wallet from many viruses and malware from the internet.

[sowns]

Electrum is very reliable, especially since you own the priv keys. It is vulnerable to hacking attempts though. Whatever you do, just ignore the Electrum 4.0 update message that you might get. There is no 4.0v.

[bitmover]

Tools -> View Addresses -> Right-click an address -> Private Key; done. You have it.

And to obtain private keys of all the address, one need to follow this:

Wallet -> Private keys -> Export
You will be seeing all private keys. You can copy them or export them.

I think that you shouldn't do this at all. It is a great feature, no doubt , but you are compromising your safety when you see your privatekeys in your computer.

You should note down your seed in a piece of paper and forget about those Private keys forever.
The seed should be used only when you need to recover your funds because you can't access your wallet anymore (lost device for example)


Additionally, electrum is safe as long as you always download/update it from electrum.org website, there is no other.

[Lucius]

Electrum desktop / mobile wallet is safe, but only if user of such wallet knows what he's doing. Even the safest things in wrong hands can cause damage and bad consequences, and when it comes to crypto wallets in most cases there is no fix.

First thing before anyone is download Electrum or any similar wallet is is to allow a safe environment for such wallet, which means virus / malware free device, and despite the fact that some still claim that such software is easy to trick, in my 5+ crypto years I was never a victim of any virus / malware on which I can thank the excellent protection I use all the time.

Second thing is to learn what is Electrum and how it works, so for start take some time and read Electrum Documentation. Now when you get some basic basic knowledge it is important to visit only official Electrum site and best way to do that is to type this in your browser address tab www.electrum.org. After you choose files for your OS move to next step.

The third thing is verifying of downloaded Electrum files by using Gpg4win signature utility Kleopatra (for Windows), and this link with all others is available on Electrum download page.

If these rules are followed, Electrum is pretty safe wallet for daily use, but what is always emphasized is fact that if someone is have more then few hundred dollars worth of crypto, it is smart to keep them in hardware or paper wallet.

[NeuroticFish]

As already said, Electrum is as safe as your computer is, and the private keys are at hand.
If you want safety, the best is cold storage, as said:

If you want to protect your wallet I suggest you try Electrum cold wallet or offline wallet where your PC never connected to the internet and make a watch-only wallet to other devices to monitor your balance and create unsign transaction.
This is the safest way to protect your wallet from many viruses and malware from the internet.

What I want to add is that nowadays simply a Tails USB stick that never goes online is already a pretty simple to use cold storage.
And if you transact often and want convenience, Electrum can work nicely with a hardware wallet too. That's how I use it. Just be warned, hardware wallets are not the ultimate security either, make sure you keep there only what you transact rather often, the rest can stay offline, the longer the better.

[Juggy777]

I installed Electrum and created a wallet there. All I know is the seed generated. I don't know private keys from the Bitcoin addresses it manages for me. And I don't see an option to get them from there. So, the question is how safe this system is? Won't I lose my bitcoins one day?

@bibonix Electrum wallet is safe and secured to use, but if you share your seed with others or download a hacked version then the wallet cannot protect you. There’re some tips I can share since I’m using Electrum wallet:

1) I would strongly suggest you to use Electrum mobile app, and not the desktop version as the recent hacks were targeted towards users who were using the desktop version.

2) Never update the wallet if a notification pops up inside it saying you need to update it, always go to their official site, or the play store and then update it.

3) Do not conduct any transactions on public wifi, those are unsecured and your wallet can be hacked.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/electrum-faces-another-fake-wallet-attack-users-reported-to-lose-millions-of-dollars

[akram143]

I installed Electrum and created a wallet there. All I know is the seed generated. I don't know private keys from the Bitcoin addresses it manages for me. And I don't see an option to get them from there. So, the question is how safe this system is? Won't I lose my bitcoins one day?

@bibonix Electrum wallet is safe and secured to use, but if you share your seed with others or download a hacked version then the wallet cannot protect you. There’re some tips I can share since I’m using Electrum wallet:

1) I would strongly suggest you to use Electrum mobile app, and not the desktop version as the recent hacks were targeted towards users who were using the desktop version.

2) Never update the wallet if a notification pops up inside it saying you need to update it, always go to their official site, or the play store and then update it.

3) Do not conduct any transactions on public wifi, those are unsecured and your wallet can be hacked.

Source: https://cointelegraph.com/news/electrum-faces-another-fake-wallet-attack-users-reported-to-lose-millions-of-dollars

Electrum mobile app is not much friendlier to use and there are lot of complications will be faced by the new user but as far as safety its good app but we don't have to forget that malware on mobiles also can steal our money so people need to be careful while entering their seeds for the first time.

[Velkro]

I installed Electrum and created a wallet there. All I know is the seed generated. I don't know private keys from the Bitcoin addresses it manages for me.

You can export them, but remember you need software to recover private keys/public addresses from seed and in future software will change and it will be more problematic to recover keys from old seeds securely.
Most basic form of controling your funds are private keys, from private key you have full control and from private key you can create your public address.

[tranthidung]

Lots of useful posts above, I would like to add one important thing for OP.
Safety of your funds depends upon two main components:
- Quality and security of wallet you use to store your coins.
- Your personal method use to protect your seeds and your devices
- Quality and security of wallet you use to store your coins:
It is true that you never should choose bad-quality wallets to use, because they can crash, and it will become a nightmare if you already send bitcoin to that wallet, but have not yet backup seeds.
The high quality wallets means they are the most favorite aims to attack by hackers and bad guys who are always figure out ways to abuse bugs of wallets ans steal wallet users' funds. Don't worry about that because high quality wallets have strong team behind, who always upgrade their wallets and response fastly to any kind of attacks.

- Your personal method use to protect your seeds and your devices
As people mentioned in above posts, this is the way you backup your seeds and how you make and store seeds' backup are very important. You have to find out your best ways to do it to secure your seeds' backup, and guarentee that you can use those backups when you want to recover your wallets.

Secure your devices to make sure that in the meantime when wallets' developers fix their issues, you won't be abused by attackers. Addtionally, to make sure that your won't do stupid things when upgrade your wallets by downloading fake wallets that contain malwares, ie.

Secure your wallets has another important points that you should prepare what your family members have to do to get your funds in worst case when you pass away suddenly, like that:

Apart from the risks from your proposal: why would you give your family access to your Bitcoins? If it's meant for the "hit by a bus scenario", there might be another option. I've been thinking about this for a while now, but haven't actually used it:
1. Print a normal paper wallet.
2. Sign a transaction to send funds from your cold storage to the normal paper wallet, but add a Locktime so it's only valid from a block far far in the future. Say 1 million block count or even more (but not so far none of your family members will still be alive). Or while you're at it: create a few versions (1 million blocks, 1.5 million, 2 million) and print them on different sheets of paper.
3. Print the transaction and store it with the paper wallet.
4. If you're still alive a couple of months before the first transaction becomes valid: burn it, the next one becomes your new fail safe.
If your family ever needs it, all they have to do is wait a few years, broadcast the transaction, and the paper wallet becomes valuable.

[Pmalek]

It is vulnerable to hacking attempts though. Whatever you do, just ignore the Electrum 4.0 update message that you might get. There is no 4.0v.

Electrum was vulnerable to phishing messages being sent by fraudulent individuals. This is no longer the case since the 3.3.4 version.
Whoever is using older versions than 3.3.3 should donwload the newest version from the official site to even avoid the possibility to receive such a message.

[Kakmakr]

Electrum wallet had a few exploits where people injected supposed software upgrade links to phishing sites that captured people's passwords and where the legit servers were DoSS'ed, forcing people to use rogue servers. When this happens, people on the forum quickly report this and the developers path the exploits or puts warnings on their website and you upgrade the software to path the loopholes. 

I will never dump a lot of coins into wallets like this, because it is not a service that is meant for long-term storage of loads of coins. It is a nice wallet to use, if you buy something online once in a while and you want quick access to some coins. 

[Malvika_sitlani]

Electrum wallet is a very trusted software wallet.Its platform is very easy to hold coins securely.For this the wallet sign up is very easy and convinient to use. Its payment method is very easy which verify your transactions in some seconds also you don't have to download the whole blockchain.
Electrum wallet you can use on windows, mac os and linux operating system.You ca store your private key offline in a hardware wallet used in coexistence with electrum.

[BrewMaster]

I will never dump a lot of coins into wallets like this, because it is not a service that is meant for long-term storage of loads of coins. It is a nice wallet to use, if you buy something online once in a while and you want quick access to some coins. 

electrum is not a service, it is more like a user friendly interface that allows you to communicate with the bitcoin network and only download what you need instead of everything.
and if you are to think that way and reject any wallet software that had bugs then you should not even use bitcoin because every single software that has ever been written for bitcoin had and still has bugs in them!

[hd49728]

Electrum is a good wallet because users have controls on their seeds, and they also can modify some options  with coin control features to set transaction fees manually. Besides that, if someone is careful, and want to replace their transaction in case their first  attempt to move their coins fail due to low fees. They can do that with Enable Replace by fees option.
https://hackernoon.com/holy-cow-i-sent-a-bitcoin-transaction-with-too-low-fees-are-my-coins-lost-forever-7a865e2e45ba
Bitcoin Transaction Fees - Everything in one

[The Cryptovator]

I installed Electrum and created a wallet there. All I know is the seed generated. I don't know private keys from the Bitcoin addresses it manages for me. And I don't see an option to get them from there. So, the question is how safe this system is? Won't I lose my bitcoins one day?

If you have save your seed & export your all private key then you are safe almost. But you should keep safe your data on multiple places. Because in case if lost your saved data then there is risk of lose your fund as well. Another most important thing is during update of your electrum wallet. Few days back we have seen multiple case that hacker successfully hacked few wallet by malware. During update they got control of wallet and in a result hackers moved fund into their address. That's why you should always be careful during update your wallet. It should redirect original website.

[Solenith0420]

  So, the question is how safe this system is? Won't I lose my bitcoins one day?

Electrum is one of the oldest btc wallet it is attributes rich but it is not user friendly. If you are just a beginner and newbie like me I suggest you to avoid electrum, but if you’re familiar with the basic terms then this is the excellent selection for you to use. The characteristics of Electrum is on being fast, safe and private. The wallet is a lite wallet, meaning it does not download the blockchain, so there are no delays on system and it’s always up-to-date.

[hatshepsut93]

Electrum is one of the oldest btc wallet it is attributes rich but it is not user friendly. If you are just a beginner and newbie like me I suggest you to avoid electrum, but if you’re familiar with the basic terms then this is the excellent selection for you to use.

How is Electrum not user friendly? It's much more user friendly compared to Core, because it has mnemonic seeds, ability to create signed transactions in GUI, easy coin control, and so on. It's all really easy and intuitive, Electrum is a good wallet for beginners, if I were to recommend a wallet to a newbie, I'd recommend Electrum.

The characteristics of Electrum is on being fast, safe and private.  

Not true, Electrum is not private, since it relies on servers, and those servers can monitor your transactions. If you want privacy, run your own private Electrum server or just use Bitcoin Core.

[evgenia_volkova]

I would request you to go through the thread shared below it has a detailed information on electrum and other wallet.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1631151.msg16405643#msg16405643

[bob123]

How is Electrum not user friendly?

Electrum can be quite confusing for first-time users.
Especially the receive-tab and the payment request can be irritating. Same for the units being displayed (i believe mBTC is still the standard?).

All of those nice features it offers (coin control, RBF, fee control, unit to be displayed) takes some time to get used to. At least for beginners who didn't use any other wallet at all.


Don't get me wrong, i agree with you. I would also recommend electrum to newbies. But mainly because it is a great wallet with a lot of functionality, not because it is extremely intuitive (which it isn't IMO).

[izanagi narukami]

IMO, electrum is better than online wallet.
Of course, you need to update the electrum every time.

But in general view is it safe ?
As long as it's operated in internet, nowhere is totally safe but you can try to prevent it happening

[hd49728]

IMO, electrum is better than online wallet.
Of course, you need to update the electrum every time.

But in general view is it safe ?
As long as it's operated in internet, nowhere is totally safe but you can try to prevent it happening

Electrum gives users control on their seeds, and they can choose Legacy or Segwit wallets to use.
Users of Electrum wallet must check official update announcement and update version on their website, and must remember that never download update version from any other channels, from social media with Electrum word in name because there are so many phishing Electrum sites around us.

To be safe, there is another thing to remember: Back up wallet in several locations and ways; and check that backup is good and can be used to recover your fund later, before upgrading wallet.

[nc50lc]

But in general view is it safe ?
As long as it's operated in internet, nowhere is totally safe but you can try to prevent it happening

You can make one that doesn't directly connect to the internet.
Keep your keys offline by setting-up a standard wallet in a cold-storage device that holds the keys for signing and an online watch-only wallet using the offline's "master public key" for receiving/making transactions.

The SEED/Private keys are offline so there's no easy way to hack your wallet.
And even if you updated the online wallet with a fake version, your keys won't be compromised as it doesn't contain any private keys.

[jseverson]

You can make one that doesn't directly connect to the internet.
Keep your keys offline by setting-up a standard wallet in a cold-storage device that holds the keys for signing and an online watch-only wallet using the offline's "master public key" for receiving/making transactions.

As an addendum, here's a guide on how to set that up:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4573616.0

If you don't have an extra computer that you can use for this, you can very easily use any extra flash drives you have lying around -- you only have to install a persistent copy of Linux that you can safely boot on any computer, or even persistent Tails. Just make sure you verify your initial download using the guide in electrum.org, and that you keep your seed in a safe place.

[Deborah Christine]

I installed Electrum and created a wallet there. All I know is the seed generated. I don't know private keys from the Bitcoin addresses it manages for me. And I don't see an option to get them from there. So, the question is how safe this system is? Won't I lose my bitcoins one day?

Electrum is a wallet software and this provides more security than online wallet. Although it's not the safest wallet, compared to hardware wallet. But it is safe because electrum has lots of extra security features. Such as seed phrase, the encrypted wallet file containing private key is protected with a password and also two-factor authentication. This also adds extra security to the wallet.

[Sancho18]

I like electrum, it is a simple, powerful and convenient tool. In combination with the hardware wallet, the electrum provides excellent reliability and flexibility in controlling the outputs and the size of fee. I can recommend that all beginners use it; of the many alternatives, electrum is one of the best. My choice is electrum portable + ledger nano s, and I sleep well.

[Dabs]

If you have the expertise to run your own Electrum server (ElectrumX I think), and you only use that to connect your desktop and mobile Electrum wallets, that might increase the safety factor a little bit. It's already safe as is, just be careful when you get any odd looking error messages, they can be spoofed by malicious servers.

[Artemis3]

I installed Electrum and created a wallet there. All I know is the seed generated. I don't know private keys from the Bitcoin addresses it manages for me. And I don't see an option to get them from there. So, the question is how safe this system is? Won't I lose my bitcoins one day?

You can format that computer and your wallet remains safe as long as you keep those seed words safe. Thats how safe Electrum is. In fact, it is much safer than the actual privatekey, which is a practice long abandoned due to higher risks.

The seed words serve to recover the private key anywhere. They are the most vital thing to protect, you can forget the wallet password and it doesn't matter, but this does. In fact you don't even need a backup, as long as you keep these words safe.

There is a method to obtain the privatekey, but it is intentionally hidden away, you should not be touching the privatekey directly ever. And, it would be wise to always handle wallets using a secure OS, such as Linux. If you are paranoid, you can boot a Live DVD/usbstick from a computer without internet (or hard drive) to handle the wallet creation.