How to Create and Use an Electrum Wallet

Today, we're going to show you how to create a wallet using the Electrum wallet. Electrum’s focus is speed, low resource usage and simplifying Bitcoin. Startup times are instant because the wallet operates in conjunction with high-performance servers that handle the most complicated parts of the Bitcoin system such as downloading and syncing the blockchain, and broadcasting signed transactions to the network.

Electrum is a great light solution for those that don't want to give up their security. It allows the user to keep control of his private keys and to sign transactions locally without the need to download the blockchain. In short, Electrum is a great tool for those that don’t want to host their own node. So, let’s get started:

Part 1: Download and Install the Electrum wallet

Step 1: Click here to go to the Electrum website, and scroll down until you see the button “Download Electrum” (or click here);

Now you have 2 types of installation, Easy installation and Installation from Python sources.

For this tutorial, we’re going use the easy way, so choose your OS from the list and download the correct version (in our case, we have a Windows 10 Home 64-bit);

Step 2: When the download is complete, double click on the installer and follow the steps

Step 3: Once the installation is complete, the installer will create an “Electrum” shortcut. Open it

Step 4: On “wallet” choose your wallet name, and click “next”

Step 5: You’ll have 4 options, if you already have a seed, public or private key or have a hardware device choose the correspondente option, if not, choose “create a new seed”;

The seed is a random phrase that is used to gain access to your private keys.

(Example: "constant forest adore cookie green weave stop guy fur freeze giggle clock")

Your wallet can be entirely recovered from its seed. For this, select the “restore wallet” option in the startup.

The installer will create your seed (It is really important to save your seed!)

Step 6: Click next, and write down your seed

Choose a password and confirm it. (Attention, it is not possible to recover your password. However, you can restore your wallet from its seed phrase and choose a new password if needed. If you lose both your password and your seed, there is no way to recover your money. So it is important to save your seed phrase somewhere safe);

Step 7: Click next again, and you will have created your Electrum wallet!

As there is no record of any transaction we will have something like the image below:

As you see, you have 4 tabs for now, you can click “view” and select the others 3 tabs (coins, contacts and console) but for this tutorial, we’re only going to speak about the “send” and “receive” tabs;

Part 2 - Receiving and sending coins

Step 1: Now that you have your Electrum wallet set, click on the “receive” tab and you will see your wallet address; You can give this address to the person sending you funds. However, you can also do a transaction request on this tab.

To make a payment request, you can change the description, requested amount and expiration date;

Step 2: To send coins, choose the “send” tab. Fill out the information (address, amount and fee) according to the desired transaction

In “pay to”, write the address to which you want to send;

In “description”, choose a description if you want to remember a specific payment later on;

In “amount”, write how much you want to send;

You will also have to choose your fee, which will determine the speed of the transaction. Miners prioritize transactions that pay the highest fees.