Electrum desktop bitcoin wallet with Lightning

Swiss angle

Electrum comes from Germany, not Switzerland. The Electrum home page, read on 4 October 2026, says the software is distributed under the MIT licence by Electrum Technologies GmbH and gives its address in Berlin. The same page states that the company is neither a bank nor a financial service provider and stores no user account data. Your keys stay encrypted on your own computer, and nobody holds coins for you.

It signs with the Swiss hardware wallet. The Electrum hardware wallet guide lists BitBox02 next to Coldcard, Jade and others. If you own a BitBox02 from Adliswil, Electrum can be the desktop app that signs with it, and the keys never touch the computer.

You can set the menus to three national languages. The language list in the Electrum source includes German, French and Italian, and the currency list includes CHF, so the wallet can show your balance in francs next to bitcoin.

You hold the keys, so no bank sends you a statement. At year end you look up the ESTV value of your coins and enter it in the wealth tax section of your return; the Swiss Bitcoin tax guide explains how. A watching-only wallet, which the home page lists as a feature, lets you check the balance for that date without the private keys on the computer.

The home page says Thomas Voegtlin created Electrum in November 2011, and the release notes show release 4.8.2 on 11 September 2026 as a security update.

Who it is for

Hardware wallet owners who want a light desktop wallet that does not need a full node. The home page says Electrum is fast because it uses servers that index the blockchain, and the cold storage setup guide shows where such a wallet fits.

People who want multisig or a cold storage setup with a watching-only copy online, both listed on the home page.

Users who want Lightning in the same app. The Android store description in the Electrum repository calls it a self-custodial wallet with Lightning support.

Who it is not for

iPhone users. The download table, read on 4 October 2026, offers Linux, Windows 10 and later, macOS 11 and later, and Android 8 and later, and no iOS build.

People who want full privacy from the first day. By default Electrum asks public servers about your addresses. If that bothers you, run your own node and server, as the home Lightning setup guide describes, or compare Sparrow.

Anyone who wants private support. The home page says the team gives no private user support and that anyone offering it in a private channel is most likely a scammer.