Electrum 4.6.0 released (beta)

[cygan]

another new version of electrum has been released today.
what was announced by Electrum at the end of march and posted by me here has now become reality... this is the first version to feature submarine swaps over nostr!
you can find all the another features and bugfixes in the 4.6.0 beta-version under the following link: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/RELEASE-NOTES

download link: https://download.electrum.org/4.6.0b1/

[NeuroticFish]

another new version of electrum has been released today.
what was announced by Electrum at the end of march and posted by me here has now become reality... this is the first version to feature submarine swaps over nostr!
you can find all the another features and bugfixes in the 4.6.0 beta-version under the following link: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/RELEASE-NOTES

download link: https://download.electrum.org/4.6.0b1/

And, interestingly, (since anybody can become submarine swap provider) a new "independent" submarine swap provider already popped up!

[BitMaxz]

It looks interesting. I don't know how this new feature works, but I read some post on X about this. According to some posts, anyone can be a submarine swap provider. However, I can't still understand this feature. They said using this feature doesn't require opening a channel to send your BTC into a lightning invoice if you don't have lightning funds and you only have BTC on-chain. When paying through Lightning without opening a channel, you can send BTC to pay a Lightning invoice through the 3rd-party submarine swap provider.

It looks like a bridge or cross-chain?

It's still in beta test, and I hope to see some more good news about this because it seems it can help avoid higher TX fees.

[nc50lc]

And, interestingly, (since anybody can become submarine swap provider) a new "independent" submarine swap provider already popped up!

Now there are 3, I just checked right now and the new one has lower fee.


Out of curiosity and for the sake of testing, I tried it:
Aside from the bothersome "Initiating swap..." window that blocked access to the wallet on one of my failed swap and its non-refunded pre-paid mining fee via lightning;
One of the swap server worked flawlessly in my test transaction (mainnet).
The "Claim transaction" can't be checked on blockexplorer (since it's a local transaction) until its input is confirmed.




(I'm not vouching for any of the providers though, use at your own risk)

[pooya87]

It is fantastic to see they keep improving the LN related features in Electrum wallet but at the same time it is disappointing to see the bulk of the focus being on LN and we still haven't seen Taproot be implemented fully into the software.

[dkbit98]

I think Electrum developers should focus work more on adding new privacy features like Silent Payments and PayjoinV2, instead of working on Lightning Network.
I have nothing against submarine swaps but only a small percentage of people is actually using Lightning Network, and same could be said for users who run their own nodes.

I noticed another intersting update in this new version of Electum:

- Keystore enabling/disabling (Qt):
     - It is now possible to add a seed
       to an existing watching-only wallet, or to a keystore within a
       multisig wallet. Similarly, it is possible to pair a watching-only
       keystore with a hardware device. These operations are performed
       from the 'Wallet Information' dialog.

[nc50lc]

I think Electrum developers should focus work more on adding new privacy features like Silent Payments -snip-

Someone is now working on it
A feature request was posted in April, and now there's a PR containing changes to implement BIP352 to Electrum (for Desktop).

Link: github.com/spesmilo/electrum/pull/9900
And here's the feature request issue for you to follow: github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/9728

[Forsyth Jones]

It is fantastic to see they keep improving the LN related features in Electrum wallet but at the same time it is disappointing to see the bulk of the focus being on LN and we still haven't seen Taproot be implemented fully into the software.

Same, Lightning Network, despite being a fascinating 2 layer network, I have tested it only a few times. I hope Electrum compensates this effort (submarine swaps) by making the LN solution more user-friendly for its users. Electrum continues to be one of my favorite wallets, but I'm using Sparrow due to more privacy features (ease of connecting to my full node, taproot, etc).

[cygan]

with the new beta version it is also possible to install third party plugins, even in binary files which can then be switched en- or disabled as needed
the whole thing is optional and requires admin permissions


https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/plugin_dev.html