diff --git a/helper/electrs-get-sha256.sh b/helper/electrs-get-sha256.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..7e86fa2b3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/helper/electrs-get-sha256.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+#! /usr/bin/env nix-shell
+#! nix-shell -i bash -p git gnupg curl dirmngr
+set -e
+
+# Creating temporary directory
+echo "Creating temporary directory"
+DIR="$(mktemp -d)"
+cd $DIR
+git clone https://github.com/romanz/electrs 2> /dev/null
+
+# Checking out latest release
+echo "Checking out latest release"
+cd electrs
+latesttagelectrs=$(git describe --tags `git rev-list --tags --max-count=1`)
+echo "Latest release is ${latesttagelectrs}"
+
+# GPG Verification
+export GNUPGHOME=$DIR
+gpg2 --fetch-key https://keybase.io/romanz/pgp_keys.asc?fingerprint=15c8c3574ae4f1e25f3f35c587cae5fa46917cbb 
+echo "Verifying latest release"
+git verify-tag ${latesttagelectrs}
+
+# Calculating sha256
+echo "sha256 for ${latesttagelectrs} is $(git archive --format tar.gz --prefix=electrs-"${latesttagelectrs//v}"/ ${latesttagelectrs} | sha256sum )"
+
diff --git a/pkgs/electrs/default.nix b/pkgs/electrs/default.nix
index 512d0b7ae..2fcd40f97 100644
--- a/pkgs/electrs/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/electrs/default.nix
@@ -1,13 +1,11 @@
-{ lib, rustPlatform, clang, llvmPackages, fetchFromGitHub, pkgs }:
+{ lib, rustPlatform, clang, llvmPackages, fetchurl, pkgs }:
 rustPlatform.buildRustPackage rec {
   pname = "electrs";
   version = "0.8.3";
 
-  src = fetchFromGitHub {
-    owner = "romanz";
-    repo = "electrs";
-    rev = "v${version}";
-    sha256 = "01993iv3kkf56s5x33gvk433zjwvqlfxa5vqrjl4ghr4i303ysc2";
+  src = fetchurl {
+    url = "https://github.com/romanz/electrs/archive/v${version}.tar.gz";
+    sha256 = "6a00226907a0c36b10884e7dd9f87eb58123f089977a752b917d166af072ea3d";
   };
 
   # Needed for librocksdb-sys
@@ -21,6 +19,12 @@ rustPlatform.buildRustPackage rec {
     # for recent nixpkgs with cargo-native vendoring (introduced in nixpkgs PR #69274)
     "1x88zj7p4i7pfb25ch1a54sawgimq16bfcsz1nmzycc8nbwbf493";
 
+  # N.B. The cargo depfile checker expects us to have unpacked the src tarball
+  # into the standard dirname "source".
+  cargoDepsHook = ''
+    ln -s ${pname}-${version} source
+  '';
+
   meta = with lib; {
     description = "An efficient Electrum Server in Rust";
     homepage = "https://github.com/romanz/electrs";