panel-pressrelease.html

<h2>Electrum releases version 2.0 with two-factor authentication</h2>

<p>
Electrum is one of the first Bitcoin wallets to use deterministic
key generation.  Deterministic wallets can be restored from a secret
phrase, called the "seed". This protects users against computer
failures, and makes the wallet very easy to backup; only the seed
phrase needs to be written on paper.
</p>
<p>
The new release of Electrum introduces multi-signature deterministic
wallets, and various extensions that facilitate their use.
</p>
<p>
Probably the easiest way to use a multi-signature wallet with Electrum
is the two-factor authentication service proposed by <a href="http://trustedcoin.com">Trustedcoin
</a>. A wallet protected by Trustedcoin will require two passwords in
order to spend funds: the usual wallet password, and an additional
one-time password, provided by a smartphone application (Google
Authenticator). Since this wallet is fully deterministic, it will
always be possible to restore the wallet from its seed, even if
Trustedcoin's servers stop to be available. This is a unique feature
of Electrum, and an important consideration when choosing a cosigning
service.
</p>
<p>
Electrum 2.0 also includes support for hardware wallets, which offer a
good protection against malware. Two hardware wallets are supported:
the Trezor by Satoshilabs, and the Btchip/HW1 by Ledger.
</p>
<p>
Finally, an important new feature in version 2.0 is the support for
the Payment Protocol (BIP70) with payment requests. Payment requests
are easier to use than Bitcoin adresses, and they provide better
consumer protection, because a signed request is a proof that a
website requested a payment from a consumer.
</p>
<p>
The complete list of new features in Electrum 2.0 can be found in the official
<a href="https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/RELEASE-NOTES">Release notes</a>
</p>