Wallet

Terminology: What you download and install on a device (smartphone, laptop, pc etc) is here referred to as the Obyte software platform, or more commonly "platform". The platform comes with a default wallet, and you can create more wallets on this platform on a device.

The main/hamburger menu (top left) is for the whole platform. Each cogwheel menu (halfway up on the right) works on the displayed wallet only.

Obyte platform

To start, download and install a platform from those listed at obyte.org or Github: releases (includes win32, but not for XP).

The installation now comes with a default single-address wallet, called "Small Expenses Wallet". You can create additional main wallets. A main wallet can also have sub-wallets (smart wallets) inside it, created by conditional-payment smart contracts.

Multiple devices

If you want a connected Obyte wallet on your pc and another one on your Android smartphone, choose the multi-device option as shown below. Don't try to build a second platform from the seed of the first: it will probably not function as expected, especially regarding blackbytes.

Convenience vs security

A 1of3 set-up is very convenient, and if one device fails (it happens) it's not a problem when you forgot to back it up. However, it is easier for a thief to get hold of your coins. Encrypting the platforms makes them more secure.

A 3of3 set-up is dangerous, because if one device fails -- and the back-up fails too -- you have lost your coins. So try to strike a balance between convenience and security. Different people have different circumstances. Someone living in a college dormitory has a different situation to someone working from their secure home.

Independent or connected?

Independent: Useful for experimenting, seeing what happens when you interact with another Obyte user in chat. Use (plain) default Small Expenses Wallet on each device.

Connected: Useful for security. Will show the same balance and history across all devices.

Pairing

Alice has Obyte on two devices, a smartphone and a laptop. Her smartphone platform has two wallets, a Small Expenses 1of1 wallet, and a Savings 1of2 wallet. She has paired the smartphone with her laptop, which only has one wallet, the shared Savings 1of2 wallet.

Alice emails an address in her 1of2 wallet to Bob. Bob sends some Bytes to it. The transaction appears automatically in both her 1of2 wallets, on the smartphone and on her laptop.

Later, Alice pairs her smartphone with Bob's device, a desktop. She does not pair her laptop with his device. They chat. The chat shows in her smartphone only. It does not show in her laptop because the pairing is between devices only, Alice's smartphone and Bob's desktop.

Light/easy or full/hard platform?

Always select the light option unless you REALLY need the full version. If you have funds sent to an address on a full platform you will be unable to spend them until it finishes synchronizing, and this can take a very long time. The bottleneck seems to be the read/write speed to the hard drive, with an SSD being preferred by far.

Single-address wallet

A single-address wallet (platform version 1.11.0 on) you create will not generate the usual new change address. Change will always go to the one-and-only address the wallet contains.

You can use a single-address wallet to run a manual oracle right from your platform, without having to run a node on a server.  This allows you to run a prediction market for a future event, enable users to make contracts (bets) referencing your address as an oracle, and when the outcome of the event is known you post its result from your wallet.

In this version you can also manually attest other users and post arbitrary data into the Obyte DAG.

Attestation

To facilitate Identity verification, starting with version 2.1, the default ("Small expenses") wallet of new users is created as single-address (nothing changes for old users). Users can still easily add another wallet and make it multi-address for better privacy. The second wallet is not linked to the user’s verified identity and can be used anonymously.

Multiple screens

The default wallet is named "Small Expenses Wallet", and has two screens: one for bytes, one for blackbytes. Every new asset you receive (CK1's, Tingos etc) will create an additional screen just for that asset. If you add a wallet to the default set-up -- maybe "Savings" -- it will start out with two screens again.

Update

When doing a routine update, first do a full back-up using the Obyte menu option (see below) just in case, then simply download the latest version and install it over the top of the existing version. So when you get a prompt saying "you already have [this], do you want to replace it?" click yes. 

Main menu options

Add wallet

Choose between PLAIN WALLET and MULTI-DEVICE WALLET, and give it a name. If multi-device (m of n) wallet, choose the total number of co-signers (n), and the required number of signatures (m). For each co-signer (not you), you need to select from the list of paired devices in your library. If the device is not there yet, share a pairing code with it and then select it.

A multi-device wallet is duplicated across each of the paired devices, showing the same transactions, addresses, balances etc.

Signatures

• A 1-of-2 set-up means two devices and either one is sufficient to send a transaction.  
• A 2-of-2 set-up means two devices and both signatures are needed to send a transaction.  
• A 2-of-4 set-up means four devices and two signatures are needed to send a transaction.

Paired devices

Contacts

This shows a list of all devices paired with yours, both the user-chosen name (myputer etc) and the permanent device number (0VC...ARM etc). Some devices you will be able to remove, some you won't. However, if you enter the chat window for that device, there's an Edit button at the top right. One of the options is rename, so at least you can rename "AnnoyingDevice" to "zzAnnoyingDevice" and it will move to the end of your alphabetical list and be out of the way.

Bot store

Currently shows about 20 bots. See wiki article Chatbot for details.

Settings = Global preferences

Device name: Change it if you wish. If you chat to someone, they will see this name

Hub: Default is obyte.org/bb. You can change it

TOR: This option is desktop/laptop only. For Android, use the Orbot app. Sometimes you will not be able to send transactions when Tor is switched on

Language: Select from 18 or so

Unit for bytes: Select from kB, MB or GB. For safety, use the unit matching your usual expenditures. Otherwise you might intend to send 100kB (0.1 MB) and you send 0.001 GB (1 MB) instead because all the leading zeroes are confusing

Unit for blackbytes: Select from kBB, MBB or GBB

Enable push notifications: (Android) toggle on or off

TRUSTED NODES

Witnesses: Easiest to select "Auto-update the witness list from the hub". See wiki Witness article for harder options

Email attestor H5EZTQE7ABFH27AUDTQFMZIALANK6RBG is the default. You can change this, but don't unless you know what you are doing

DEVICE ADDRESS: 0VCPO8MYDRN2E3N5JDRHRSTVEVZSZYARM for example. This doesn't change, and will be visible to anyone you pair with for chat

SPENDING RESTRICTIONS
Request password: Lets you set up a password that will encrypt your platform/wallets. Don't forget it! There is no password recovery option

Backup wallet seed: The seed alone will back up your bytes (and any public tokens/assets like Tangos etc) but not your blackbytes (or other private assets that aren't detailed in the DAG). This is important! (It means "backup platform seed")

Recovery from seed: Recovery is available in single-sig (i.e., not multi-sig) light wallets from version 1.10.1. 

Full backup: Lets you set a password (don't forget it!) and export a full backup file. You should do a full backup every time you do a blackbytes transaction. Many people have lost funds because they didn't do a backup.

Restore from full backup: Note this will permanently delete all your existing wallets and replace them with whatever is in your backup file. If you created this backup on another device, you should have stopped using the original device platform immediately after creating the backup. Never clone platforms/wallets. If you must access your funds from several devices, use multisig.

About Obyte: Version number, commit hash (developer thing), terms of use, translators credits, session log

Cogwheel preferences

Wallet alias: change local name (it means "platform alias")

Color: 12 to choose from

Advanced: (under next heading)

Wallet information

Wallet name (at creation): whatever name you gave the wallet first

Wallet ID: note this does not change, and is different to all the wallet addresses. If this is a shared multi-sig wallet, the ID will be the same on each of the paired devices

Wallet configuration (m-n): multiple-signature configuration, like 1 of 1, 1 of 2, 2 of 2, 2 of 3 etc

Derivation strategy: BIP44: standard method of deriving new keys for addresses

Account (BIP44): BIP44 allows the creation of more than one account. If you create a second multi-sig account with a paired device it will show as #2. If this is the 5th wallet on this device/platform it will show as #5.

CO-SIGNERS Shows the co-signers (if any) for this wallet configuration, and which wallet is currently in use. Note the original wallet names are used, not what they may have been changed to

EXTENDED PUBLIC KEYS:

• Me xpub... (this wallet's xpub)  

• (Other wallet's name, if multi-sig) xpub... (that wallet's xpub)

ALL WALLET ADDRESSES: (examples shown)

65C...AW6
m/44'/0'/1'/0/0 · April 19th 2017, 3:00 pm

7SV...MMM
m/44'/0'/1'/0/1 · April 22nd 2017, 5:47 pm

MR3...APD
m/44'/0'/1'/1/0 · April 26th 2017, 1:34 pm

The m/44'/0'/1'/... designation is part of the BIP44 protocol. Here, the 1' means the second wallet -- the first (small expenses) wallet is designated 0'. The final 0/0 (0/1, 0/2 etc) means the 1st (2nd, 3rd etc) visibly-generated receive addresses; and the final 1/0 (1/1, 1/2 etc) means the 1st (2nd, 3rd etc) automatically-generated change addresses.

BALANCE BY ADDRESS: (examples shown) 7SV...MMM
0.04 GBB

O3J...YL5
0.024402 MB

RAZ...LIM
0.05966 MB
55 Zwib by Jore Bohne (new asset, registered)
576 of 3kc7H8A2oiWr8mv7AcWJeLCA0Cp8c3BLK04kYQ+5pfU= (new asset, unregistered)
0.085248 GBB

UQX...EC6
0.117889 MB

Sweep paper wallet

• This gives an option to scan QR code of paper wallet private key  
• If anyone sees an Obyte paper wallet generator (not a textcoin), please tell me (Slackjore)

Delete wallet

What it says, big red button on the next screen

Smart wallets

When you transact using a smart contract, the funds may go into a smart wallet. One or both parties will be able to unlock this and spend the funds.

Confirmed funds

You need transactions to confirm before  

• A smart wallet first becomes visible  
• You can spend funds from it

Transaction fees are paid in bytes

If you are in a new smart wallet and trying to send blackbytes, or some new asset (like Zangos), it won't have any regular bytes in it to cover the transaction fee. So open the Receive tab, copy the address, paste it into your regular wallet and send some bytes, maybe 0.1 MB. You can easily recover any unspent bytes from this.

Zero out the smart wallet

Lots of little smart wallets can get confusing. So send all funds, in all currencies, to your regular wallet(s). Send the (white)bytes last, or you won't be able to pay the transaction fees.

When all balances in a smart wallet are zero, it will disappear (hooray!).

If you cannot spend the funds, maybe they are locked because the other party needs to spend them. Or some other condition has not been satisfied.

Backup

Full backup is WAY more important than a seed. Full backup keeps your blackbytes, and even better, it means a simple and quick full restore, whereas a restore from seed may require a full node.

Convert

There's no simple way to change from a full platform to a light one. Usually the need becomes apparent when one has sent GBytes from an exchange to a full platform and the funds don't show in a wallet because the platform hasn't sync'd up to the date/time of the transaction. 

In this case, follow these steps to get access to your bytes (not blackbytes):

1. On a separate device, download and install a light platform
2. Find someone you trust that has a fully-sync'd full platform that has zero funds in it. Send that person your seed. They will then restore your platform on their computer
3. That person then sends your funds to your new light platform
4. Continue to use the light platform

To get access to your blackbytes, either  

• Wait until the full platform syncs, then send the blackbytes to the light platform (after pairing); or
• Send that nice person you trusted with your seed the "User data" data directory (see below), and he can then send you the blackbytes (after pairing).

User data directory in Windows, for example, is found at C:\Users\Alice\AppData\Local\byteball\User Data

Reinstall platform

To start from scratch, you have to rename or delete the Obyte user data folder before reinstalling. Be aware that deleting the user data folder results in any existing coins getting lost. After you've renamed or deleted this folder, you can do a re-install and choose the platform type (light/full) again.

Rename or delete this folder before reinstall

• Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\obyte
• MacOS: ~/Library/Application Support/obyte
• Linux: ~/.config/obyte

Changing operating systems

It is apparently possible to make a full backup on Windows, and then restore it on Linux. Everything reportedly gets copied including the device address.

Wallet and explorer differ

Does explorer.obyte.org show some new bytes have arrived, but they don't show in your wallet? 

Platform not connected properly? Your internet connection needs to allow communications to get to and from the platform: an easy check is do the chatbots work? If the chatbots don't work, maybe showing a Socket Closed error, this lack of proper connection must get fixed.  

• Firewall problem?  
• Tor turned on by mistake? (Check this at Settings > TOR, don't just assume it isn't turned on)
• Something else wrong?

Platform not sync'd? If have a full platform it needs to sync up to the date of a transaction to show it. Then, transfer your coins to a light platform and when you're sure the coins are in the light platform dump the full platform.

Weird platform? If you have done something weird like "copied"/cloned a platform from one device to another, or are running more than one instance on a single computer, then you may or may not be able to access these coins. 

Latest version? You are running the latest version, right?

Sync problems

Android

If your phone is taking too long to sync, even with a light platform, it could be due to blackbytes, and because when the screen fades out it often stops syncing. Activate Developer Mode on Android to get under Settings a new option to keep the screen awake/on when plugged in, and this allows you to sync overnight.

Full platform may be better

If you want to do many blackbyte transactions, a light platform is less efficient than a full platform to sync blackbytes. So in this case you are better off with a full platform and thus must have an SSD drive on your laptop/desktop.

External links

• Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 44
• Paper Wallet generator: https://bonuschain.github.io/byteball-paperwallet/