This is an opinion editorial by Arman The Parman, a Bitcoin educator passionate about privacy.

Over many years, I have tinkered with various Bitcoin wallets and mentored many people to hold their private keys securely. I settled on “Electrum Desktop Wallet” as my favorite and most versatile software wallet.

In this essay, I will outline some of Electrum’s features, and my likes and dislikes. This is not a detailed guide on how to use it and get the most out of it. I also won’t be going into why you should hold your own Bitcoin keys; it’s assumed you know and desire to do this, but if you need to know why it’s essential, please take a look at “Six Reasons To Withdraw Your Bitcoin From Exchanges.”

I have experienced first-hand Electrum’s idiosyncrasies and worked out solutions to overcome them – if used correctly, it is the most powerful wallet I have come across.

Electrum is for the person who is, or aspires to be, a “power” user. Because it allows so much control, and because of my familiarity with the software, I choose to teach this wallet to most of the students as part of my Bitcoin privacy/security mentorship course (although some people need something simpler to use). The experience of teaching how to use it has certainly helped me understand what people find intuitive and what they find tricky.

For the new Bitcoiner going at it alone, Electrum would be totally safe to use, provided they take their time and use it in a testing environment with only a small number of…