You don't need to rely on a server. With Simplified Payment Verification (section 8 of the bitcoin paper[1][2]) you can verify payments by querying untrusted pe

You don't need to rely on a server. With Simplified Payment Verification (section 8 of the bitcoin paper[1][2]) you can verify payments by querying untrusted peers, without downloading the full blockchain. Bitcoin Wallet[3] for Android and Multibit[4] do this, which is probably why they are now the recommended clients and Electrum is not. Edit: apparently Electrum also double-checks what the server is saying with SPV. I'm a bit fuzzy on why it still needs a server. [1] http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf [2] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Thin_Client_Security#Header-Only_Clients https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Thin_Client_Security#Header-Only_... [3] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.schildbach.wallet https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.schildbach.... [4] https://multibit.org https://multibit.org