Generating a Cold Wallet
Here is a step-by-step guide for generating an Arweave cold wallet
The following procedure allows you to generate an extremely secure Arweave cold wallet. Using this procedure, your keys will never be exposed to an internet-connected computer before you intend to use your tokens, giving you exceptionally strong guarantees about the security of your AR.
This procedure may seem long but we have broken each of its steps down into granular chunks that should be simple to follow
Cold Wallet generation with Arweave.app
Open up https://arweave.app in your browser tab.
Once loaded, disconnect your computer from the internet
Write down your passphrase on a piece of paper.
Make copies of this file on multiple offline storage mediums (for example, USB sticks or prints of the file to physical paper). Store these copies securely
Reconnect to the internet
Cold Wallet generation with ArConnect
Once downloaded, the wallet will take you to the setup page. At this point, you'll need to disconnect your device from the internet. If the setup page has not been opened, you can click on the ArConnect icon in the extensions section (seen below) to open it.
Chrome | Firefox |
As a safety measure, this file should be stored on different offline storage mediums, like how mentioned above.
Now go into your extensions settings by entering
chrome://extensions
on Chrome,about:addons
on Firefox into your browser's address bar. There you'll have to identify the ArConnect extension/add-on and click on the "Remove" button to uninstall it.
Chrome | Firefox |
Your wallet is now removed from your browser and you can reconnect to the internet.
Cold Wallet generation with the ArDrive CLI (Advanced)
This process is for more advanced users. If you have not used a CLI before, it is recommended to follow the guides above!
Open up your OS' default terminal and install the ArDrive CLI with the following command:
Disconnect your device from the internet.
Generate a seedphrase with the following command, then write it down on a piece of paper.
Copy the generated seedphrase and paste it between the quotes in the following command. Run the command to generate a keyfile.
You'll be able to find you keyfile name
wallet.json
in the directory where you ran the CLI. You should copy it to an offline storage medium and delete the file from your device.You can now reconnect your device to the internet.
Congratulations for completing the steps! Your AR tokens will now be stored safely and securely for months and years to come
Had problems? Don’t worry, drop us a line at team@arweave.org and we'd be happy to help.
If you'd like to make transactions from your cold wallet the ArDrive command line tool has a nice writeup for how to securely send a transaction from a cold wallet.
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