Solidus Wallet
How this works, explained once
Holding credentials in a wallet: keys, recovery, presentation and what happens when you lose the device.
55 articles
- What's Actually Live in Solidus Wallet TodayThe unlinkability implementation described here is unaudited.
- How Solidus Wallet Handles Your KeysThe unlinkability implementation described here is unaudited.
- Custodial vs. Non-Custodial Wallets: What Actually Changes"Custodial" and "non-custodial" get used like marketing labels: one side sounds safe, the other sounds risky, and the label does the arguing instead of the mechanics.
- What Is a Verifiable Credential Wallet? (Issuer, Holder, Verifier, Explained)The unlinkability implementation described here is unaudited.
- Social Recovery vs. Seed Phrases: How Guardian-Based Key Recovery WorksLose your seed phrase and, in most wallets, you lose everything tied to it, permanently, alone, with no one to call.
- How a DID-Linked Wallet Address WorksA wallet address is usually a random-looking hex string, copy it wrong by one character and the transfer is gone.
- Credential Portability: Why the Verification You Already Did Should TravelThe unlinkability implementation described here is unaudited.
- What Is a Non-Custodial Wallet?
- HD Wallets Explained: BIP-32, BIP-39, and BIP-44One seed. A whole tree of keys, every one of them derived from it deterministically, the same seed always produces the same tree, on any wallet that implements the standard correctly.
- What Happens When You Lose a Seed Phrase (And What the Alternatives Are)If you've lost your seed phrase and it wasn't backed up anywhere, and your wallet has no alternative recovery method set up, the plain answer is: it's gone, and so is whatever it controlled.
- Testnet vs. Mainnet: What It Means for Your WalletThat distinction, not a feature list, is the actual subject of this page: if you've opened the wallet and wondered why a balance or a transaction doesn't seem to be worth anything, the answer isn't a…
- What Is a k-of-n Threshold? (Multisig and Social Recovery, Explained)A bank vault built for two keyholders doesn't care which two show up.
- Solidus Wallet FAQ: What It Does (and Doesn't Do) TodayShort, honest answers to the questions people actually ask before trusting a wallet.
- How to Create a Solidus Wallet, and What Happens UnderneathCreating one takes about a minute. Understanding what it did takes slightly longer, and this guide covers both, because the second part changes how you should treat the first.
- How to Import an Existing Wallet, and Why You Probably Should Not YetDo not import a recovery phrase that controls anything you would mind losing.
- Linking Your Identifier to Your Wallet: There Is No Step, and That Is the DesignIf you came here looking for the linking screen, there is not one.
- How to Set Up Guardian-Based Recovery, and What the App Currently Gets WrongGuardian recovery means a group of people you choose can restore your access without any of them being able to take it alone.
- How to Choose Guardians, and the Failure Mode Everyone PicksThe mechanism asks for a group of people, a threshold, and nothing else.
- Recovering After You Lose Your Device: You Get Your Identity Back, Not Your BalanceGuardian recovery restores who you are. It does not restore what you held.
- How to Test Your Recovery Setup Without Destroying ItA recovery policy nobody has exercised is a belief. There are two ways to stop believing and start knowing, and they prove different things.
- How to Receive a Credential, and What Your Wallet Actually KeepsReceiving one is short: an issuer gives you an offer, you paste or scan it, and the credential appears in your identity screen.
- Sharing a Credential From Your Wallet: What the Button Actually ProducesThere is a share button. It produces a summary, not a presentation, and the application tells you so on the screen where it happens.
- What Is Linked to Your Identifier, Including the Part That Is PublicThere are two answers to this question and only one of them is on your screen.
- Backing Up Without a Seed Phrase: What Guardians Replace and What They Do NotYou cannot back this wallet up without the phrase. The rest of the page is what that means and what to do instead, and the application makes the same admission before you get here.
- What Is a DID, and What Happens When You Resolve OneAn identifier of this kind is a string that resolves to a document, where the document says which public keys speak for it.
- What Is Inside a DID Document, Field by Field From a Live OneWe resolved a real identifier and read what came back. This is that document, described rather than reproduced, because reprinting a stranger's identifier would serve nobody.
- Self-Sovereign Identity: The Claim, and How Much of It We Can Actually MakeThe term is not ours. It comes out of a decade of work by people who were arguing about identity architecture long before this project existed, and the short version of what they meant is: the person…
- Proof of Identity Means Three Different Things, and Conflating Them Is the ErrorThe phrase turns up three times in this project meaning three different things.
- What Actually Signs Your Transactions, and What the Signature CoversEvery transaction this wallet sends is signed on your device with a key derived from your recovery phrase.
- Holder Binding: The Property That Stops a Credential Being a Bearer TokenA credential without holder binding is a document. Whoever obtains it can use it, exactly like a cinema ticket or a bearer bond, because nothing in it says who is allowed to present it.
- What a DID Method Is, and Why Ours Puts the Network Inside the IdentifierThe identifier format allows for many schemes, and a method is one of them: a name, plus rules for what the rest of the string looks like and how to turn it into a document.
- Level of Assurance: Four Levels, Two Issuable, and One Rule That Only Runs DownhillA level of assurance is a short answer to "how carefully was this checked".
- Trust Anchors Are the Verifier's Problem, Not the Holder'sA trust anchor is the place where checking stops. A signature is checked against a key, that key comes from a document, and at some point somebody accepts a key for reasons that are not cryptographic.
- How an Issuer Gets Trusted, and the Sixty Seconds Nobody MentionsYour wallet does not decide which issuers to trust and neither does the chain.
- What Format Your Credential Is In, and Three Things Fixed at IssuanceThe unlinkability implementation described here is unaudited.
- The Mobile Driving Licence Credential FormatThere are two credential formats in serious use for government-issued identity in Europe.
- What the European Wallet Is, and Why Ours Is Not One YetNothing on this page is legal advice. It describes a framework and our position against it, and any obligation you have is between you and whoever regulates you.
- Zero-Knowledge Proofs, and the Much Narrower Thing We Actually HaveA zero-knowledge proof convinces somebody a statement is true while revealing nothing beyond its truth.
- Credential Data Model 1.1 and 2.0, and a Proof Block That Names the Wrong ThingThe credential data model had a version change, and most of what people say about it is about two date fields.
- How Signing In Works, and a Client That Does What the Server Leaves OptionalSigning in here is an ordinary authorisation-code exchange. What makes it worth a page is that the client does several things correctly that the server does not require, and this estate has spent…
- Signing In With a Wallet Address, With an Identifier, or the Third Thing We Actually DoTwo approaches get compared constantly in this category. We implement neither, and the honest version of this page says that before it explains them.
- How a Wallet Decides What to Share, and Why Ours Is Not in That ConversationThe intended shape of this exchange is that a verifier states what it needs, your wallet works out which of your credentials satisfy it, shows you the choice, and sends the minimum.
- Does Your Identifier Work With Other Tools? Three Answers, One of Them No"Does it interoperate" is three questions wearing one coat, and they have different answers.
- Guardian Recovery and Multisig Look Alike and Protect Different ThingsBoth are arrangements where several people have to agree. That surface similarity is why they get compared, and the comparison usually misses that they are agreeing about different things.
- Erasure and an Append-Only Ledger: What Can Actually Be Deleted HereNothing on this page is legal advice. It describes what our systems do and do not delete.
- The Travel Rule, and Why It Has Nothing to Attach To Here YetNothing on this page is legal advice, and we make no compliance claim.
- Is a Non-Custodial Wallet a Regulated Provider? We Can State Facts, Not the ConclusionNothing on this page is legal advice, and we make no claim about our own regulatory status.
- MiCA, and the Question of Whether There Is Anything Here For It to ReachNothing on this page is legal advice, and we make no compliance claim and no claim about our own classification.
- eIDAS 2.0 From the Relying Party's Side, Where Our Own Verifier Half Satisfies ItNothing on this page is legal advice, and we make no compliance claim, hold no qualified status of any kind, and do not claim to be aligned, compatible or conformant with this framework.
- Data Minimisation From the Holder's Side, Where Almost Every Lever Belongs to Somebody ElseNothing on this page is legal advice and we make no compliance claim.
- What Those Certifications Actually Certify, and Why We Hold None of Them
- How Your Wallet Talks to the Chain: It Does Not, and That MattersThe page was scaffolded to explain how the wallet calls the chain.
- Which Hash Function Secures Your Wallet? There Are Two, in Different LayersThe question assumes one answer. There are two, and which one applies depends on whether you are asking about the chain or about a credential.
- Does Your Wallet Verify the Chain Itself? No, and the Missing Piece Is Not the Hard OneYour browser never contacts the chain: our server does, and everything you see is its report.
- Is This Vendor Lock-In? Leaving With Your Keys Is Trivial. Leaving With Your Identity Is Not.Lock-in is the cost of leaving, and every wallet has some. This page measures ours and names no other product, because a comparison would be the wrong instrument for a question about us.