How safe is Electrum wallet?

[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.