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Does Electrum use Bitcore Apis as it's backend or not?
If not, then what is the purpose of developing Electrum when Bitcore Apis provides all the features Electrum has (like HD wallets and master seeding)?
Does Electrum use Bitcore Apis as it's backend?
Answers
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Electrum uses the electrum-server backend (electrumx is a newer variant)
In fact, electrum actually predates bitcore by about 2 years.
As to why there are multiple implementations of similar APIs and softwares, the answer is really "Why node?". Even the bitcoin node software has multiple implementations (Bitcoin Core and btcd, for instance).
This is a very open source friendly space, and it is generally actively encouraged to have multiple approaches to a problem.
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No
Electrum uses an Electrum Server as an API, which holds information on block headers, UTXOs and information on address balances and historical transactions. Electrum does all key management on the client and no critical user information are stored on the server.
Bitpay (Bitcore wallet) uses a Bitcore Wallet Service (that does wallet creation and key management) and that in turn uses the Insight API (which stores block / transaction data). Insight communicates with Bitcore which sits on top of Bitcoin.
So using Electrum, I can create multiple wallets with n number of addresses in each, right? Does Electrum api also provides a method to handle transactions such as initiate, send or cancel txn? – Gagan – 2018-07-27T09:35:01.447
1Sure it's a full spv wallet – Nikos Kostoulas – 2018-07-27T10:08:40.627
Thanks Nikos! Do you know if Electrum provides any api? – Gagan – 2018-07-27T10:10:08.120
API in what sense? It provides a full UI and command line option. Would you like to use it remotely or what exactly do you want to do? – Nikos Kostoulas – 2018-07-27T10:30:57.610
We need to build a custom BTC wallet interface. Where user can create multiple wallets, address, send/receive transactions. – Gagan – 2018-07-27T11:08:30.050
Also can we add custom fees for every transaction? – Gagan – 2018-07-27T11:09:11.767
Fees are part of custom configuration. I think electrum offers rpc connectivity so you could build on top of that, i.e. having custom interface and sending rpc commands to electrum. – Nikos Kostoulas – 2018-07-27T12:06:05.117
Hi Raghav, so is it right to say that Electrum-api alone (after electrum-server is setup) provides all the basic methods to create wallets, add multiple addresses, create, initiate, send or cancel a transaction, etc.? Not to forget I also want to adjust txn fee during submitting the transaction. Is it all possible with Electrum-api or do I need to use Bitcore? – Gagan – 2018-07-27T09:39:59.650
1Electrum's APIs will help you view address balances/outputs, build a transaction, and broadcast it. Key generation, wallets, and signing are handled by the electrum frontend client, not by the server. They keys never leave the client device – Raghav Sood – 2018-07-27T09:42:27.480
Electrum frontend client such as? – Gagan – 2018-07-27T09:48:00.247
Such as Electrum
– Raghav Sood – 2018-07-27T09:48:34.053Does Electrum provides these apis? Can you please share a document link to it? – Gagan – 2018-07-27T09:56:12.633
Electrum has an RPC interface, I believe, but I'm not familiar with it, never used it. – Raghav Sood – 2018-07-27T09:56:59.283
Okay thanks! Do you know any other API available that can do this by any chance? I want to setup Electrum-server and integrate Electrum client to my application. – Gagan – 2018-07-27T10:01:31.530
1Electrum will likely be your best option for a complete solution quickly, to be honest. – Raghav Sood – 2018-07-27T10:01:54.793