Electrum: is it really the smartest choice.

These days I was messing up with Electrum's API, and I discovered the obvious. We all are happy with it because it does not need to download the whole blockchain (~ 90 GiB) and is quite easy to use, too.

The point is this: the whole blockchain is needed anyway. Electrum's solution: to demand to "electrum servers", which are not bare bitcoin nodes, the responsability to hold the data for him. So: Electrum helds no blockchain on your PC, but it connects to Electrum server which has it, that can or can not be an active bitcoin node; Electrum asks just what it needs to know and the trick is done.

This may be a problem since it inserts another layer between you and the bitcoin server world. All in all, it not much different to use an online wallet: between you and the bitcoin blockchain there is someone in the middle.

When you use the bitcoin original sw, you become a node yourself, you connect p2p to many other bitcoin nodes, you broadcast a transaction or receive the last blocks to and from them. You can choose to mine, you can choose to open a port to become part of the bitcoin network, or you can tell it to just use tor proxy to fetch and send data, and stop.

Electrum is open source, while a web wallet is not. An Electrum server is something we don't know nothing about, too.

What do you think?

p.s. point is: we do need bitcoin servers, we do not really need Electrum servers (they can log everything they want, btw)


Comments


[1 Points] ShadowClones:

It's never failed me, I will continue to use it.


[1 Points] None:

[deleted]


[1 Points] jack19056:

Electrum on tails would connect to their servers through tor, so you are safe, tails also spoofs you mac address. Also even on normal desktops like mac and windows, electrum can use tor's socks5 proxy for connection.


[1 Points] pinochetHA:

Using electrum is very different to using a webwallet. A webwallet owner can walk off with your bitcoin anytime they feel like doing so. If keys are created using Javascript client-side it can be maliciously altered to steal keys. With electrum you get the security of cold storage, the software has been scrutinized for vulnerbilities and you have full controll over your bitcoin.

In terms of privacy using a webwallet is also worse. They're getting more information about your browser and of course they are getting you to interact with their site through your browser (the main window for vulnerbilities in your system).

Electrum is a tradeoff. You don't have to download a lot of crap over the Tor network, but in exchange you have to interact with electrum servers which may log stuff and may compromised by three letter agencies. Using Tor, and understanding how to isolate your different wallets mitigates against this.


[1 Points] TheGreatSkeletor:

If you have the bandwidth and disk space then I recommend Armory as the wallet of choice. You can just hide behind a no logging VPN when you need to send BTC to some address.