Why is Electrum so popular among holders of Bitcoin?

[I_Anime]

        My country ban on cryptocurrency transactions from our local bank has made us embark on P2P which Binance is well known for. I had this belief that because binance was a big firm keeping my crypto there was safer, I guess FTX hit my confidence in exchanges really hard. So have been planning on moving my coins. Since trading is for the strong am planning on going full HODL.
          Read some topic on the forum and found electrum as the most stated Bitcoin wallet. So since I was thinking on moving my Bitcoin from Binance to a decentralized wallet, I had to read up on Electrum. The review I found on trust pilot was 3.3/5 and the app was 3.4/5. As a person that place my minimum review to be 4.0/5 wanted to understand despite it's rating why Electrum is so popular.
          Also stumbled on a wallet called Trezor which was praised and tagged as an hardware wallet. I know what hardware's are, but just can't wrap my head over a wallet that's physical since most have come across are softwares.

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[FatFork]

One of the main reasons why the Electrum wallet is so popular is its strong security features. It's an open-source software that supports hardware wallets, multi-signature, and private key encryption, which makes it a popular choice among users who prioritize security. Moreover, Electrum is one of the oldest lightweight Bitcoin wallets, so you don't need to run your own Bitcoin node or download the entire blockchain, which makes it convenient and user-friendly.

And as for hardware wallets, almost all of them require accompanying software. This software is typically provided by the manufacturer of the hardware wallet and is designed to work seamlessly with the device. However, it can also be third-party software, such as Electrum. Electrum supports a variety of hardware wallets, including Trezor, Ledger, KeepKey, and others. This means that you can use Electrum to manage your hardware wallet, providing an extra layer of security, as the private keys are stored on the hardware wallet, which is not connected to the internet. The Electrum software serves only as an interface between the user and the hardware wallet.

[DaveF]

Electrum was one of the earlier, perhaps earliest light wallets. So it also has that going for it's popularity. The old school bitcoin users have been using it for over a decade so it just has that kind of traction.
Yes there are a lot of other ones out there, but inertia is a big thing. How many people start using something and even if something better comes along, they keep with what they know.
Perhaps not even bothering to look at other wallets that are out there.

-Dave

[mendace]

I think there is some confusion in your speech.  In the meantime, we must begin to make some distinctions between what a wallet is and what an exchange is.  A wallet is simply the safest way to store your bitcoins, you can compare it exactly to the wallet where you put your banknotes, no one can have control over how much you put in and how much you take out (unless you lose it or get it stolen) while a exchange you can compare it to a bank, you have an account but those bitcoins / dollars are not completely yours.

Now the distinction between hardware wallet in this case the trezor and software wallet or electrum, it is normal that the former is more secure because in addition to being a custodial wallet you must also be able to sign the transaction with the device while electrum does not need any material device.  The fact that it is so popular is simple because it was one of the first to be developed, it is open source and basically it works well.

[Cricktor]

I use Electrum as a lightweight wallet which connects to my own node and Electrum server. Electrum offers me what I expect from a decent wallet software: full control over fees, coin control, multi-sig, works with the hardware wallets that I'm interested in or own, works with cold storage setups, open-source, actively maintained and years of good reputation.

A more recent and very interesting other example is the Sparrow wallet, but I don't want to derail this thread any further with that.

[ABCbits]

Why is Electrum so popular among holders of Bitcoin?

The main reasons probably are Electrum has been around more than 10 years and actively developed with support on multiple computer and smartphone OS. Some user might like Electrum for lack of annoying feature (such as built-in exchange) or has truly useful feature (such as multi-sig wallet and watch-only wallet).

Read some topic on the forum and found electrum as the most stated Bitcoin wallet. So since I was thinking on moving my Bitcoin from Binance to a decentralized wallet, I had to read up on Electrum. The review I found on trust pilot was 3.3/5 and the app was 3.4/5. As a person that place my minimum review to be 4.0/5 wanted to understand despite it's rating why Electrum is so popular.

I briefly checked electrum.org on Trustpilot the review[1] and read review which has 1-4 stars[2]. There are few things which makes rating/review isn't really helpful,
1. There are only total 15 reviews[1].
2. Few review are either irrelevant or advertise their own service[3-4].
3. Someone expect tech/customer support[5]. While i understand their frustration, lack of tech/customer support unfortunately is common on open source software.
4. Someone wrongly assume 12 recovery words can be brute forced by super computer[6].

So i hope next time you actually read the review and not only rely on rating.


[1] https://www.trustpilot.com/review/electrum.org
[2] https://www.trustpilot.com/review/electrum.org?stars=1&stars=2&stars=3&stars=4
[3] https://www.trustpilot.com/reviews/5d46b8b7f01869069cc80e07
[4] https://www.trustpilot.com/reviews/6192886f4e475d8cc62e3946
[5] https://www.trustpilot.com/reviews/624f89382b3c3c43cfcc4ccb
[6] https://www.trustpilot.com/reviews/603ffb56f85d75057818f561

[logfiles]

          Read some topic on the forum and found electrum as the most stated Bitcoin wallet. So since I was thinking on moving my Bitcoin from Binance to a decentralized wallet, I had to read up on Electrum. The review I found on trust pilot was 3.3/5 and the app was 3.4/5. As a person that place my minimum review to be 4.0/5 wanted to understand despite it's rating why Electrum is so popular.

Head over the trustpilot page and read the reviews instead of just basing on numbers that could totally be inaccurate. Some people can erroneously leave feedback. For example you find someone leaving a positive review but the star the out is just 1 instead of maybe 5.

Another thing about trustpilot reviews is they can easily be manipulated and I suggest you take the reviews from that site with a small pinch of salt.

[pooya87]

on P2P which Binance is well known for.

Binance is only known for centralization and nothing else. Every service they offer (under any name like DEX, wallet, etc.) is completely centralized and there really is nothing P2P there.

Why is Electrum so popular among holders of Bitcoin?

It is old.
It is 100% open source.
It is popular which makes it reviewed and more trustworthy.
I have looked the code myself (not exactly a full review but enough to trust it).
It supports deterministic builds (ie. reproducible binaries).
It is easy to use and is user friendly.
It offers almost all the features that you want from a wallet.

[Yamane_Keto]

I see that Sparrow wallet (user interface is much better than Electrum) is starting to take part of the share of Electrum, and therefore, in a few years, Electrum may not be the best wallet for desktop.
Search Google for sparrow wallet vs electrum and you will find that some people seem to prefer it.

As for the reason for its popularity, it is the continuous development and ease of use with many features, but not on all OS platforms. For example, for Android devices, Electrum wallet is far from perfect, so there are better wallets that are recommended.

[NotATether]

Why is Electrum so popular among holders of Bitcoin?

It is old.
It is 100% open source.
It is popular which makes it reviewed and more trustworthy.
I have looked the code myself (not exactly a full review but enough to trust it).
It supports deterministic builds (ie. reproducible binaries).
It is easy to use and is user friendly.
It offers almost all the features that you want from a wallet.

Everyone's heard of it, in other words. And its light enough to not consume your system resources excessively.

[Newones]

I use Electrum as a lightweight wallet which connects to my own node and Electrum server. Electrum offers me what I expect from a decent wallet software: full control over fees, coin control, multi-sig, works with the hardware wallets that I'm interested in or own, works with cold storage setups, open-source, actively maintained and years of good reputation.

A more recent and very interesting other example is the Sparrow wallet, but I don't want to derail this thread any further with that.

Good to know that. May I ask you whats the benefit of running your own node?

[SeriouslyGiveaway]

My country ban on cryptocurrency transactions from our local bank has made us embark on P2P which Binance is well known for. I had this belief that because binance was a big firm keeping my crypto there was safer, I guess FTX hit my confidence in exchanges really hard.

Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts

Using exchange wallets, online accounts to store your bitcoins is bad as it is risky. FTX collapse is one example. Binance and other exchanges might collapse in future too. They are not different from fiat banks which are collapsing latest months.

Read some topic on the forum and found electrum as the most stated Bitcoin wallet.

Because Electrum wallet is light and requires very little storage space.

It is a SPV wallet. SPV ~ Simplified Payment Verification.

Electrum wallet software is available for many OS, Windows, MacOS, Linux, Python, Android. You can have single signature wallet, multi signature wallet, cold storage wallet with Electrum. You can connect your hardware wallets to Electrum too.
https://electrum.org/#download
[GUIDE] How to Safely Download and Verify Electrum

[pooya87]

I use Electrum as a lightweight wallet which connects to my own node and Electrum server.

Good to know that. May I ask you whats the benefit of running your own node?

When you run an SPV client like Electrum it has to connect to a full node (in case of Electrum, an Electrum node/server) and then send that node a list of addresses to fetch the history and also each time you want to send a transaction you have to send it to those servers.
This means the server you connect to sees all your activities and your IP address so it can create a link between your addresses, your IP, etc.

When you run your own Electrum server and connect to that instead, you solve the privacy problem I mentioned above since you are connecting to your own server and it is a full node so it is connected to other full nodes and is relaying transactions like any other node so nobody can create the link between your addresses or your transaction and your IP address.