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Install Electrum on Linux Mint 20.3

Install the pre-requisites for Electrum:

sudo apt install python3-setuptools python3-pyqt5 python3-pip libsecp256k1-0

This will pull in a bunch of dependencies as well. Say Yes.

Go to https://download.electrum.org/ and see what version is the latest version.
As of this writing the latest version is 4.2.1

Install the tar.gz file located in the latest version directory:

pip3 install https://download.electrum.org/4.2.1/Electrum-4.2.1.tar.gz

Add /home/mac/.local/bin to your path. Add this to the end of your ~/.bashrc file:

# Set your path to include $HOME/.local/bin
PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH

You can now simply run electrum from the command line like this:

$ electrum &

Documentation on Electrum is found here:

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

Unofficial Guide:

https://bitcoinelectrum.com/

Using Electrum

BackUps

The unofficial guide suggests not backing up your wallet to cloud even though you have encrypted the wallet. They suggest backing up your wallet to a removable drive such as a flash drive.

Yes you can restore your wallet from your seed phrase but you cannot restore metadata from seed. By metadata I mean your transaction and address labels/descriptions and the addresses saved in your contact book. So backup your wallet every time you make a change to it.

Wallets are stored in:

~/.electrum/wallets

The idea of backups also includes the seed phrase written on a piece of paper. The guide suggests that it should not be stored only on a computer because hard drives fail. It should not be stored in the cloud as that could theoretically be compromised. The guide suggests it should strictly be stored on paper and suggests a notebook that you would not lose or throw away accidentally.

I’ve struggled with this idea. Take for example the idea of your house burning to the ground. You would lose both the notebook, the computer and any backups if not stored on the cloud. I suppose you could store the backup and paper in a fire proof safe.

I did a search for bitcoin cold storage on Amazon and found metal plates you can engrave with your seed. This might be the solution. None of them really say fireproof but if they were in a fireproof safe they might be safe. They appear to be made of aluminum and I suspect they might not survive a house burning down unless in a fireproof safe. There are versions made of titanium that can withstand 3000 degree temps.

Another option I have thought about would be to store the paper and backup offsite or in a different physical building. That brings in additional questions on how secure the offsite place is.

You can backup the wallet by going to:

File > Save Backup

I decided to put my wallet on my NFS share which with RAIDed drive redundancy.

Cryptocurrencies

Electrum only supports Bitcoin. I probably should have researched this earlier as it is now an exercise in futility since I need it to support multiple ccryptos.