spesmilo/electrum
Electrum
Electrum is an open-source, non-custodial Bitcoin wallet client that manages keys, transactions, and balances using Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) for lightweight transaction verification without downloading the full blockchain. It operates through a persistent background daemon that exposes a JSON-RPC interface for wallet operations and automation, and generates wallet keys from a mnemonic seed phrase using hierarchical deterministic key derivation.
The wallet distinguishes itself through support for cold storage security with offline transaction signing on air-gapped devices, integrated Lightning Network payments with submarine swaps and watchtower setup, multisignature wallets requiring multiple private keys for authorization, and full Tor network routing to hide the user's IP address and transaction metadata. Hardware wallet integration is handled through a plugin system that installs dependencies and configures system rules, while release signatures can be verified against the developer's GPG public key.
Electrum also provides merchant payment processing by generating signed payment requests served via an SSL-secured daemon, supports forked coin splitting to access balances on separate chains, and enables wallet creation and restoration including multisignature and watching-only configurations. The wallet manages sending, receiving, and tracking Bitcoin transactions, creates payment requests with fixed amounts and unique addresses, and allows programmatic control through its command-line interface and daemon for scripting and automation.