The Stacks Wallet is a cryptocurrency wallet for managing your STX tokens.
Generally speaking, cryptocurrency wallets enable the sending and receiving of cryptocurrency quantities. Unlike physical wallets for carrying cash, cryptocurrency wallets don’t contain tokens directly inside of them; they merely provide a mechanism for managing them on a blockchain using credentials.
The Stacks Wallet specifically empowers you to manage your STX tokens on the Stacks blockchain, as those tokens are associated with a single publicly-known Stacks address and a single privately-held “Secret Key” (otherwise known as a “seed” or “mnemonic” phrase), which serves as your sole credential.
Your Stacks address is akin to a bank account number, in that it’s known and shared publicly so others can send STX tokens to you.
Conversely, your Secret Key is akin to a password, in that it should be kept completely private and used only to authenticate with trusted software like the Stacks Wallet so you can send STX to others and otherwise manage your own holdings. However, unlike a traditional password, no one can ever reset your Secret Key should it get lost. It’s absolutely vital that you secure your Secret Key since its lost will entail the lost of all associated STX tokens irreparably.
The Secret Key consists of 24 words separated by spaces. The words, spaces and their positions in the sequence are all critically important. Be sure to record them exactly as presented by the Stacks Wallet.
When sending STX from the Stacks Wallet, the software digitally signs a token transfer from your address to another then broadcasts it to the Stacks network. After the network has received and validated this transaction, tokens will be moved from your address to the specified destination address. The transaction will be permanently and irreversibly recorded on the Stacks blockchain.
Using the Stacks Wallet, you can:
Use the Stacks Wallet with a hardware wallet device raises the level of security by keeping your Secret Key away from your desktop computer at all times during initial authentication and transaction signing.
The Stacks app is available in Ledger Live. You'll need to install it there before proceeding to connect your Ledger Nano S or X device to the Stacks Wallet for authentication.
Important:
It is important that you understand how to keep good security for your Stacks Wallet software.
Your wallet Secret Key or seed phrase is a cryptographic key with which you need to use the strictest security available to you.
The Cryptocurrency Security Standard publishes guidelines for key storage. These guidelines are presented from least (Level I) to most secure (Level III). We recommend you store your keys with at least Level II security. This level states that you should:
You are responsible for recalling and protecting your keys. Blockstack does not store your seed phrase and cannot help you recover it. If you lose your seed phrase, you lose the key to your STX tokens, which can be a very costly mistake.
Follow these instructions to install the Stacks Wallet:
The Stacks Wallet unfortunately no longer supports authentication and transaction signing with Trezor devices. This is due to how Trezor supports integrations, in which the company's availability and engagement is required to set them up in contrast to Ledger's open model.
If you've used a Trezor device with a previous version of the wallet, you have two options going forward:
Warning: We highly advise that you continue using the Stacks Wallet with a hardware device, even if you can no longer use your Trezor device, to ensure the same level of security to which you're accustomed. As such, option #1 above is recommended over option #2 despite the extra cost and time required.
If you have a Trezor device with a passphrase, you will need to migrate both your recovery phrase and passphrase to a new Ledger device for use with the Stacks Wallet going forward. There is no way to enter the combined recovery phrase and passphrase directly into the Stacks Wallet without a hardware device.
See "Advanced passphrase security" from Ledger for details.
We hope to support Trezor again some day soon, but there is currently no timing expectation available. We will update the community if and when this work gets underway.
The Hiro PBC team is aware of the following issues affecting Stacks Wallet performance and is actively working to resolve them.
Please ensure that you've downloaded the latest version of the Stacks Wallet since other bugs and issues are known to affect older versions.
See all GitHub issues for the Stacks Wallet that track other known areas of improvement, or file your own.
Join the #support channel on Discord and post a message describing your issue if you need personal assistance.
Secret Keys are 12- or 24-word phrases that authenticate you to products built with the Stacks blockchain such as the Stacks Wallet.
They are otherwise known as "seed phrases", "mnemonic seed phrases", "recovery seeds" or "recovery phrases".
Secret Keys are like strong passwords in that they protect your identity and STX holdings. However, unlike passwords, they can never be recovered – by you or anyone else – if lost. So be sure to always back up a copy in a very secure place that you remember!
See our instructions for securing Secret Keys.
Always double check that you trust any downloaded software or website that prompts you for your Secret Key before proceeding to enter it!
Never give your Secret Key to anyone online, no matter how trustworthy they seem. Beware especially anyone who claims to need your Secret Key urgently for any purported emergency, financial or otherwise.
It's common for cryptocurrency users to suffer phishing attacks that fool them into providing their Secret Keys to malicious actors. Once your Secret Key is stolen by "bad" websites or software, there are no guarantees that you will get your associated STX or other digital assets back. And you will surely have to generate a new Secret Key for future usage since the original one will have been compromised forever.
The desktop Stacks Wallet has always generated 24-word Secret Keys for new users, whereas other products such as the Blockstack Browser and web-based Stacks Wallet have generated 12-word Secret Keys for new users.
Generally speaking, if you purchased STX before 2021, your STX holdings are almost certainly associated with a 24-word Secret Key or hardware device such as Ledger or Trezor.
If you have a 12-word Secret Key and never used Trezor or Ledger, you most likely generated it when trying separately to use apps built with Stacks (previously known as "Blockstack") in a web browser. Please ensure that you are entering a separate 24-word Secret Key into the desktop Stacks Wallet to view and manage your balance.
Secret Keys generated by certain Trezor or Ledger devices constitute an exception to this general rule since they may contain 12 or 18 words. You can enter Secret Keys with 12 words directly into the Stacks Wallet to view your holdings if you used a Trezor or Ledger device originally to set them up. Any other lengths such as 18 words must be loaded onto a Ledger device and cannot be entered directly into the Stacks Wallet. However, we recommend you maintain Secret Keys of any length on a Ledger device and connect with that instead to maintain a higher level of security.
You can use 12- or 24-word Secret Keys across both the desktop and web versions of the Stacks Wallet. However, we generally recommend that you generate and use a separate Secret Key for entry in the web browser since it's a less secure environment than desktop software.
Secret Keys originally generated and held on Trezor or Ledger devices can be entered into the Stacks Wallet directly as long as they have 12 or 24 words. However, we highly recommend that you continue using a hardware wallet to connect with the Stacks Wallet to ensure the same level of security to which you're accustomed.
If your Trezor or Ledger device has an additional passphrase, you will need to send your STX to a separate address without a passphrase before entering its Secret Key directly into the Stacks Wallet. There is no way to enter a Secret Key with a passphrase directly into the Stacks Wallet.
Trezor users with passphrases can migrate their underlying Secret Keys and passphrases to Ledger devices for use with the Stacks Wallet. This is the only option for Trezor users with any number of words (e.g. 18) aside from 12 or 24. See our Trezor guidance for details.
Secret Keys generated by the Stacks Wallet are BIP39 compatible and in English.
All Secret Keys entered into the Stacks Wallet must also be BIP39 compatible and in English.
Check if your Secret Key is compatible by cross-checking all of its words against the corresponding list by language.
Note that small transcription errors can lead to problems authenticating with your Secret Key. You may want to check in the lists above for possible variants of the words you've transcribed to correct such errors.
Also ensure that your Secret Key conforms to the following upon entry:
Users who have deposited BTC into the Stacks Wallet to pay for transaction fees can withdraw any remaining amounts by downloading and installing version v3.1.1.
This version comes with a new feature within "Settings" under "Withdraw BTC" that empowers you to enter a BTC receive for receipt of all remaining BTC in another wallet.
Important note: This version of the wallet does not operate correctly for any other purpose such as checking your balance or transaction history, which has been frozen since January 2021 on Stacks 1.0 upon the launch of Stacks 2.0. Please do not use it for any purpose other than withdrawing BTC.
Note that BTC is no longer be needed for paying such fees on Stacks 2.0. Download the new Stacks Wallet to send STX.
Support is available on Discord and Reddit as well as at support@blockstack.com.
Just as you don’t keep all the money you have in your bank in a physical wallet, you shouldn’t keep large numbers of tokens in your cryptocurrency wallet. Instead, if you have a large number of crypto assets, you should store them with a custodial service. Custodial services protect your token holdings using high-security systems.
Custodial services have different techniques for storing crypto assets. The techniques vary according to factors such as the liquidity level you want to maintain or the security you would like. If you own large numbers of token assets as an investment, you should choose a custodial service as if you were selecting any investment service. Consider your needs, the firm’s reputation, fees, and so forth.
The Stacks Wallet is not recommended for institutional holdings. Blockstack suggests a firm such as Coinbase Custody for institutional holders. Coinbase Custody charges its clients a management fee based on assets. Of course, like any responsible asset holder, you should do your own research and select a service that meets your needs. The Investopedia's article What Are Cryptocurrency Custody Solutions? is one place to start.
If you used an older version of the wallet, you should begin using the latest Stacks Wallet with the same 24-word seed phrase from that wallet.
Earlier versions of the wallet required a hardware wallet to send and receive STX. You can connect this same hardware wallet to the latest version of the Stacks Wallet software. Choose “Use existing wallet” upon opening Stacks Wallet. You don't need to create a new wallet.
The minimum amount needed to participate in Stacking directly is dynamic and based on both the total supply of STX and the total amount of current participation. It is be reported by Stacks blockchain nodes at path /v2/pox with the min_amount_ustx property and denominated in microstacks (μstx).
The value will never fall below 50,000 STX.
Follow these instructions if you've already locked STX for Stacking in the Stacks Wallet but wish to increase the amount of STX locked for improved chances to receive BTC rewards. Currently, the Stacks Wallet requires locking STX in increments of 70k or more.
Note: These instructions require you set up STX holdings across two separate Ledger devices or software wallets. Please proceed only if you feel comfortable dealing with multiple devices or Secret Keys. We highly recommend you do so with two Ledger devices and not two software wallets, for security purposes.
You will now participate in Stacking with the total STX locked by both of your wallets for any given cycle in which they are both still locked.
Alternatively, you can simply wait until your STX unlock for your single wallet after the total number of cycles in which they've been locked transpire. You'll then be able to reinitiate Stacking with a new total using the single wallet instead of creating a new one for adding STX before those cycles transpire.
Stacks holders provide the Stacks blockchain with a Bitcoin (BTC) address when participating in Stacking.
BTC is transferred directly to this address via the Proof of Transfer consensus mechanism when the committed STX qualifies for rewards.
You must provide a BTC address in one of two formats:
If you enter a different format while initiating Stacking, you may see the error "only pubkey hash and script hash support".
The "Native Segwit" format (which starts with “bc1”), for example, is not supported.
You can find the latest version of the Stacks Wallet for testing against the Stacks Testnet under the "Releases" tab of the blockstack/stacks-wallet repository on GitHub.
Expand the "Assets" section for the latest release and select the version with "testnet" in the filename that matches your operating system (MacOS, Windows or Linux).