Cake Wallet vs Electrum

Comparing: two wallets
Decided by: Editorial rating
Last reviewed: 2026-08-25

Open source Monero-first wallet with real bitcoin privacy tools, carrying a 2021 key generation bug that is still costing people coins.

Electrum4.4Bitcoin-only

The oldest bitcoin wallet still in active development, and the one whose users are hunted by a fake-update scam running since December 2018.

Verdict: Electrum

Electrum rates higher on our rubric: 4.4 against 3.3 for Cake Wallet.

Criterion: Editorial rating
Cake Wallet: 3.3
Electrum: 4.4

Cake Wallet and Electrum, fact by fact

Every row is from the two reviews as of their review dates, with sources on each. A check marks the side a decidable criterion favours; rows without one are information, not a score.

Cake Wallet and Electrum compared fact by fact from their reviews; a check marks the side a decidable criterion favours.
Fact	Cake Wallet	Electrum
Editorial rating	3.3	4.4 (favoured on this row)
Status	Available	Available
Made by	Cake Labs	Electrum Technologies GmbH
Price	Free download	Free download
Who holds the keys	self-custodial, seed and keys generated and stored on your own device, with no account and no telemetry	self-custodial, keys generated and encrypted on your own machine, with transactions checked by SPV
Bitcoin-only	No	Yes
Runs on	iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux	Android, Windows, macOS, Linux
Screen	Not stated	Not stated
Connectivity	Tor for all traffic, connection to your own node, Ledger hardware signing, and silent payments plus PayJoin on the bitcoin side	Connects to public Electrum servers or one you run yourself, verifying your transactions by SPV
Released	2018, launched as the first open-source Monero wallet on iOS	November 2011, written by Thomas Voegtlin
Countries on the maker's list	No published list	No published list
Last reviewed	2026-08-25	2026-08-25

Pros and cons, side by side

Cake Wallet

What works

Open source under an MIT license, with a public repository that is actively developed
Self-custodial with no account and no KYC, and, in Cake's words, zero data collection or telemetry
Genuine bitcoin privacy tooling: silent payments and PayJoin, plus Tor for all traffic and your own node
Handles Monero properly, which almost no other multi-asset wallet does
Ledger hardware wallet support, plus Cake's own two-factor option and biometric unlock
Reachable outside the app stores: direct APK, Accrescent, and Windows and Linux builds

What to watch

Bitcoin wallets created before v4.1.7 are permanently unsafe and have to be replaced, not just updated
The Milk Sad researchers traced sweeps of those weak wallets continuing into 2024, three years after the warning
The flaw was in Cake's own key generation code rather than a third-party library, and it ran through 2020 and 2021
Multi-asset by design, so it carries far more chains and far more code than a bitcoin-only wallet
Monero's privacy guarantees and much more transparent chains share one app, which takes care to use well

Electrum

What works

Continuously maintained since November 2011, which nothing else on this list can claim
Lightweight: it checks your transactions by SPV instead of downloading the whole chain
Reproducible builds, signed by several independent builders, with signatures published next to every download
Hardware wallet support for Ledger, Trezor and KeepKey, plus multisig and watch-only cold storage
MIT licensed, and anyone can run the server software it talks to, so no company controls the network
An official Android build on both Google Play and F-Droid

What to watch

Users are the target of a fake-update scam that ZDNet traced to more than 22 million dollars of thefts by October 2020
The interface assumes you already know what a change address and a derivation path are
Windows builds are often flagged by antivirus heuristics, which the project says it cannot do anything about
No iOS version, and no built-in way to buy bitcoin
Two-factor signing runs through a third party, Trustedcoin, rather than the wallet alone

Frequently asked questions

Is Cake Wallet or Electrum better?

Electrum rates higher on our rubric: 4.4 against 3.3 for Cake Wallet. The rating follows the product rubric published on our about page; the rows above set custody, price and platforms side by side so you can check it.

Are Cake Wallet and Electrum free?

Yes, both are free to download. What differs is who holds the keys: Cake Wallet is self-custodial, seed and keys generated and stored on your own device, with no account and no telemetry; Electrum is self-custodial, keys generated and encrypted on your own machine, with transactions checked by SPV.

Is Cake Wallet or Electrum bitcoin-only?

Electrum is bitcoin-only; Cake Wallet supports other assets too. Multi-asset: Monero, bitcoin, Lightning, Litecoin, Ethereum, Solana, Zcash, Bitcoin Cash and more

The full reviews: Cake Wallet and Electrum, each with its sources, and every wallet we review.

More comparisons

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