No questions match — try a different search or category.
Is the encryption code open source? Can I verify it?
Yes. The full cryptographic core — the vault-core.js
your browser runs and the iOS Swift VaultCore — is
published for independent audit, and every primitive is standard
(AES-256-GCM, scrypt, HKDF-SHA-256) with published parameters. The
SHA-256 hash of the live module is pinned on the
verify build page so you can
confirm the bytes in your browser match the source.
Is my portfolio actually private?
Yes, at the level we can prove in the browser. Your holdings are
encrypted on your device with AES-256-GCM before they ever leave.
The server sees only a blob of ciphertext plus a monotonic sequence
number. The key never touches the network.
Is there a Tor onion mirror?
Yes. StealthLedger is reachable as a Tor hidden service. The current
onion address is shown in the Tor mirror section on the home page;
open it in Tor Browser to use the same app without a clearnet hop.
It is a preview for now. The mirror is not always reachable yet
while we prepare continuous hosting. If it times out, try again
shortly. It stays on one stable address across restarts, so you can
bookmark it.
Why won’t my passkey work over Tor or in Lockdown Mode?
Hardened privacy browsers disable WebAuthn, the browser API that
passkeys depend on. Tor Browser disables it entirely, and iOS Onion
Browser in its high security setting (which turns on Apple’s Lockdown
Mode) does the same. Passkeys are also bound to the site’s normal
domain, so a passkey created on the clearnet site can’t be reused on
a .onion address.
The fix is to set a login passphrase before you need it. Open
Settings, then Security, and add a login passphrase. Over Tor or with
Lockdown Mode on, sign in with that passphrase or with your 12 word
recovery phrase. Passkeys keep working as normal on the clearnet site.
Account number or username — what's the difference?
Every account gets a permanent 12-digit account number
when you sign up, like 1234-5678-9012. It's
unique, immutable, and reveals nothing about you. You can log in with
it forever, from any device.
A username is optional. It's a memorable handle you
pick (letters, numbers, underscore, hyphen) that also works for
login. You can set one at signup, add it later, or never set one at
all.
Privacy trade-off: an account number is randomly
assigned and leaks nothing about you. A username you pick is
visible to anyone you share it with, and it can be linked back to
you if it matches a handle you use elsewhere. If you'd rather stay
fully anonymous, leave the username field blank and save your
account number somewhere safe. If you want something easier to
type, set a handle that isn't tied to your real identity.
Either way, both identifiers work for login. And you can always
find your account number in Settings → Account.
Why do I have two passkeys — “Sign-in” and “Vault”?
Two passkeys, two jobs, so the server can never decrypt your data
even if it wanted to.
“Sign-in” passkey — proves who you are to the
server. When you tap it, the server checks a cryptographic proof
and sends back your encrypted portfolio file. The server
never sees anything inside that file.
“Vault” passkey — decrypts that file in your
browser. The key it derives never leaves your device. Even if we
got hacked or subpoenaed, we couldn’t hand over your
portfolio because we don’t have the key.
You’ll see both entries labelled in iCloud Keychain / Google
Passwords: 1234-5678-9012 · Sign-in and
1234-5678-9012 · Vault. Two passkeys per
device is the design, not a bug.
What does the server actually see?
- Your account number, plus a username if you chose one — either works for login.
- A scrypt verifier of your login secret — passphrase or the
secret derived from your passkey. The secret itself never
leaves your device.
- If you signed up with a passkey: the credential ID, so we can
prompt the right one next time. Never the private key.
- Your email, only if you chose to add one.
- Your encrypted vault — unreadable without your vault
passphrase.
- An audit trail: when your vault changed and how big
it got. Never what changed.
What is the 12-word recovery phrase?
Twelve English words drawn at random from a fixed 2048-word
dictionary (the same BIP-39
list Bitcoin and Ethereum wallets use). Written down on paper
it's your master backup: bring the phrase to any browser and
you can sign back into your account and decrypt your vault,
even if you've lost every device you own.
The phrase is generated in your browser from your operating
system's cryptographic random-number generator. It's never
sent to the server, not while you're signing up and not
afterwards. The server stores a scrypt verifier of the phrase
— enough to check you know it, not enough to guess it. 12
words gives you 128 bits of entropy, which
is more than enough to be safe against any brute-force attack
anyone can build.
The same phrase unlocks two things: it logs you in
to the server (which then hands you your encrypted vault),
and it decrypts the vault in your browser. One
phrase, one thing to write down.
What if I lose my recovery phrase?
If you still have a device signed in, open Settings →
Sign-in & security and add a passkey or a
memorised passphrase as a fallback. Do it before you lose that
device.
If you've already lost every device and the phrase,
your vault is gone. We can't reset it — we don't have the
key, and neither does anyone else. The one exception is if
you saved the recovery code we showed you at
signup: paste that in and it works as a last-resort unlock.
This is the security trade-off. Any system where staff can
“reset” your account is a system where staff (or
an attacker with staff access) can read your data. We opted
out of that.
Is the recovery phrase generated safely?
Yes. It's produced entirely in your browser by
crypto.getRandomValues(), the
WebCrypto API your browser exposes to the operating system's
CSPRNG (Secure Enclave on Apple hardware, TPM on Windows,
kernel RNG on Linux). There is no server round-trip, no
analytics, no logging. The 128 random bits are mapped to 12
BIP-39 words using the standard checksum construction, so the
phrase you get is a valid BIP-39 mnemonic that would work in
other wallets that use the same derivation.
You can hit Regenerate as many times as you
like before you write anything down — each draw is
independent. Once you tick the “I've written it
down” box and continue, we wipe the words from the page
and from memory, so re-opening the signup form won't show
them again.
How do I sign in with my 12-word recovery phrase?
On the login screen, type your account number (or username),
then tap Recovery phrase on the toggle above
the credential field. You get a grid of 12 numbered boxes,
just like a hardware-wallet restore screen.
The fastest path: tap Paste phrase. That
reads your clipboard and splits the phrase across all 12
boxes automatically. You can also paste into any single box
— if you pasted more than one word, we’ll spread
the tokens across the following boxes. Or just type: Space or
Enter jumps to the next box, Backspace on an empty box jumps
back.
Words are hidden by default (looks like a password). Tap
Show words to double-check before you sign
in, Clear to wipe every slot and start over.
Once you tap Log in we join the words with
single spaces, lowercase, and derive the login proof the same
way signup did — so as long as the 12 words are correct
and in order, it works regardless of how you typed them.
What’s the “Skip the 12 words next time” card at the top of the app?
A one-off nudge that only appears when you’ve just unlocked
with your 12-word recovery phrase AND your
vault doesn’t have a passphrase or an unlock passkey yet. The
recovery phrase is meant to be a break-glass, not a daily
login — so we surface the two faster options in one place:
- Add a passkey — biometric unlock (Face
ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello). Only shown when your
browser can actually do WebAuthn PRF, so it’s always an
honest offer.
- Set a passphrase — a memorised phrase
you’ll type on unlock. Works everywhere, no
hardware needed.
Both buttons deep-link into Settings → Sign-in &
security and start the real flow — no shortcut around
the confirm-and-reseal ceremony.
Two dismiss modes. Not now hides the card for this
session — it comes back next time you unlock with the 12
words, in case you change your mind. Never show again
silences it for this account on this device forever, for the
user who genuinely prefers the recovery-phrase ceremony.
Adding either credential also removes the card automatically.
Your recovery phrase stays as your ultimate backup either way —
nothing about adding a faster unlock deletes it.
What’s the difference between the Passphrase and Recovery phrase tabs at login?
Both prove who you are to the server; they’re just two
different input shapes for two different kinds of secret.
Passphrase is a single field for a phrase
you chose yourself — the one you set at signup or added
later in Settings. You can hit the eye icon to reveal it, and
the field respects your password manager (autofill works
normally).
Recovery phrase is the 12-slot grid, meant
for the phrase we generated for you at signup. Splitting it
into 12 boxes means you can actually see each word, fix
typos in-place, and confirm the position of each one
— not possible with a single blob input.
Pick whichever matches how you signed up. If you added a
memorised passphrase later in Settings, both paths work —
use whichever secret you remember.
Passkey, passphrase, or recovery phrase — which should I pick?
Default to recovery phrase. Twelve random words
on paper is the most portable, most future-proof way to keep
access — works on any browser, any device, no vendor lock-in,
no biometrics that might not exist in ten years. This is why
hardware wallets use the same design.
Pick passkey if you value tap-to-unlock over
portability. Your device (Face ID, Touch ID, Windows Hello, a
hardware key) holds a private key that never leaves it; on
login the browser asks the device for a per-site secret and we
stretch that with the same scrypt KDF the passphrase path uses.
Nothing to remember, nothing to phish — but you're tied to the
device.
Pick your own passphrase if you'd rather
memorise a phrase you chose yourself, or if you plan to log in
from browsers where passkey roaming is awkward.
There are actually two secrets, doing two
different jobs. Login proves who you are to the server so
it hands over your encrypted file. Unlock then decrypts
the file inside your browser — the server never sees the unlock
key. Both can be passkeys, or one passkey and one passphrase, or
both passphrases. The most common setup is: login passkey +
unlock passkey, so a normal visit is a single Face ID prompt.
Your vault passphrase stays as a fallback either way —
it's what protects your holdings if you ever lose every device
that holds a passkey.
Which button do I use on the login screen?
Whichever credential you actually have. The login screen shows
all methods at once so you don't have to hunt for yours:
-
Sign in with passkey — tap if you added a
login passkey (Face ID / Touch ID / Windows Hello / hardware
key). You can leave the account field empty and the OS will
pick the right passkey; or type your account number first and
we run a targeted single-tap ceremony against that account.
-
Passphrase — the default text field. Enter
the memorised passphrase you chose at signup (or after an
Add login passphrase in Settings).
-
Recovery phrase — tap the tab next to
Passphrase. This is the 12 words you wrote down at signup;
treat it as the break-glass path when everything else is
unavailable, not the day-to-day login.
If you're not sure which you set up, try the passphrase field
first — it fails safely and tells you what to try next. Nothing
about the login screen depends on the value you typed until you
submit, so pasting an account number won't hide anything.
Login vs unlock — why are there two steps?
Because they do different jobs and only one of them can involve
the server.
-
Login is between you and the server. It proves
you’re allowed to have the encrypted file, and the server hands
it over. A login passkey or login passphrase
unlocks this step.
-
Unlock is entirely in your browser. It decrypts
the file the server just handed you — the server never sees
the key. An unlock passkey or vault passphrase
unlocks this step.
So there can be up to four credentials on a full account: a login
passkey, a login passphrase, an unlock passkey, and a vault
passphrase. Most people set one on each side and forget about it.
Settings groups all four under “Sign-in & security,” with
Quick sign-in for the day-to-day credentials and
Vault unlockers for the local decrypt step.
Rule of thumb: if a screen is titled Log in, it wants a
login credential. If it’s titled Unlock your vault, it
wants an unlock credential. Adding a passkey on one side doesn’t
add it on the other — they’re independent.
I added a passkey but it’s still asking for a passphrase
You added it on one side; the other side doesn’t have one yet.
The most common case: you added a login passkey, signed
in with a tap, and then the unlock screen asked for your
passphrase because the vault itself doesn’t know about a passkey
yet.
Fix it in Settings → Sign-in & security →
Vault unlockers → Add unlock passkey. That
wraps the vault key with
a passkey-derived secret and appends it to the vault’s unlockers,
so next time the unlock screen offers a passkey button instead of
the passphrase field.
Restoring a backup carries over whatever unlockers the backup had,
which is usually just the original passphrase. Add an unlock
passkey once, after restore, and you’re done.
What if I lose the device with my passkey?
If your passkey syncs (iCloud Keychain, Google Password Manager,
1Password, etc.) it comes back with your account. If it doesn't —
say it lived only on one hardware key — the account is
stuck. StealthLedger can't reset it because it has no
shared secret to reset to.
Practical mitigations, in order of effort:
- Enrol a second passkey on another device (Settings →
Add another device). One on your laptop, one on
your phone is the pattern.
- Keep a login passphrase attached as a fallback — the signup
flow lets you choose one, and Settings lets you add or change
it later.
- Write down your vault recovery code either way —
that's what protects the actual holdings even if every device
is gone.
What if I forget my login passphrase (or lose my passkey)?
Right now, the account is stuck. If we later add an email-based
reset it will only reset the login, not decrypt anything
— the vault contents are still gated by the vault passphrase.
Restoring a backup — what should I expect?
A backup file is your encrypted vault as it was on the day you
exported it: same vaultId, same unlockers, same holdings.
Restoring it into a new account overwrites whatever vault that
account currently has and hands you back the old one. You’ll
unlock it with the backup’s vault passphrase or
recovery code — not the passphrase you just used to sign up.
The usual flow when moving between accounts or coming from the
old single-tenant version:
- Sign up on the new site (any username you like).
- Log in, then head to Settings → Restore from backup…
and pick the JSON file.
- Confirm the “different vault” warning; the app locks itself.
- Unlock with the passphrase (or recovery code) that opened the
backup back when it was made.
- Optional but recommended: add an unlock passkey so future
unlocks are one tap.
If the restore screen refuses your file, the fastest reset is
Settings → Forget access token, log in again with the
account passphrase, then retry.
Does Koinly import work on my phone?
No — the Koinly import is a bookmarklet you drag onto your
desktop browser's bookmarks bar, and mobile browsers don't have
one. Run the import once on a laptop or desktop and the resulting
Koinly section syncs to your vault; from then on you can view it
on mobile like any other section.
Are logins safe if the server gets dumped?
The server never stores your login secret. It stores a
scrypt verifier with N=65536, r=8, p=1 — about
64 MB of memory per guess. A stolen database gives an attacker
no help decrypting any vault; vault contents need the vault
passphrase, which the server has never seen.
What if I forget my vault passphrase?
Your holdings are gone. Not "wait a while" gone — gone. There is
no reset flow because there is no reset key. Set up a
recovery code when you create the vault; that's the
escape hatch.
What if the site owner turns evil?
Because the site serves you the JavaScript that touches your
vault passphrase, a determined operator could push a poisoned
build. We mitigate that with a strict Content-Security-Policy
(no inline scripts, no third-party origins), a small
hand-written codebase, and a published crypto spec you can
diff against what your browser loads. The application code
itself is proprietary; the encryption layer, threat model,
and audit-log format are open for review.
How much does it cost?
Free while we’re in preview. There’s no ad tier, no data resale,
and no plan to add one — the whole product only works if the
server can’t read your vault. If it stays around long-term it’ll
be a small optional subscription so hosting pays for itself; the
free tier and the encryption model don’t change.
Do I need to connect an exchange or a wallet?
No. You type in what you hold (or paste it from Koinly), and we
fetch unit prices only — the same anonymous quote your
browser can already get from CoinGecko. We never see, ask for,
or store your exchange logins, wallet addresses, or API keys.
Does it work on my phone?
Two ways. On iPhone the
native app
is the smoothest path: Face ID unlock, no browser tab to lose,
nothing to add to the home screen manually.
On Android or any other mobile browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox)
the website works the same as on desktop and installs to your home
screen with “Add to Home Screen.” Face ID / Touch ID / device
passkeys give you the same one-tap unlock. The only thing you
can’t do on mobile is the Koinly bookmarklet import — run that once
on a laptop and the result syncs to your phone like anything else.
How is this different from Bitwarden or 1Password?
Same idea, narrower scope. StealthLedger is a purpose-built
encrypted spreadsheet for crypto holdings — fewer features,
smaller codebase. Bitwarden and 1Password are fully open source;
StealthLedger publishes its crypto layer and threat model rather
than the whole app.
Can I delete my account?
Yes, any time. Settings → Account → Danger zone → Delete my
account. Type your account number (or username, if you set one)
to confirm. It’s a hard delete — encrypted
vault, sessions, all of it. No grace period, no undo. Export
your data first from Settings if you want a copy.
Can I export or leave whenever I want?
Yes. Settings → Export encrypted vault downloads your
holdings as an encrypted file you can restore later, and
Delete account is a real delete — there’s nothing to
hold on to anyway, since we can’t read what we’re storing.
Can I share my portfolio without revealing the amount?
Yes. Portfolio → Share renders a card you can copy or
download. In anonymous mode the card shows your allocation shape,
top holdings, 24h change, and a normalised trajectory line —
no dollar values, no y-axis, no account names.
Coin symbols are optional too; leave them off and the card just
shows ranked slices (“#1, #2, …”).
“Copy image + text” bundles the PNG and a share caption into one
clipboard action, so a paste into Telegram / Signal / Discord
drops both together — useful for community shares where you want
the link included.
What is “Hide amounts” for?
A one-tap toggle in the header that redacts every dollar value on
screen without changing the chart shape — useful when checking
your portfolio in public. Percentages, allocation, and 24h change
still render; only the money is masked. Tap again to bring the
numbers back. The state is remembered per device.
Can I chart cash alongside crypto?
Yes. The chart above the holdings has three views: Portfolio
(crypto + cash), Crypto only, or Cash only. In
Cash mode the donut splits per account (Bank, Savings, Wallet…)
instead of collapsing to a single cash slice, so you can see the
shape of your cash side the same way as your crypto side.
The +% delta on the charts card — what is it measuring?
By default the chip reads something like
+A$120 (+24%) · market · 30D. That’s
the market movement of your current basket over the
selected range — i.e. if you’d held today’s coins the
whole time, price movement alone would have this effect. It’s
not personal P/L: adding a coin today and immediately seeing
“+24%” is the coin’s 30-day chart, not your gain.
Head to Settings → P/L baseline → Reset P/L to now
and the chip switches to “since <today’s date>”.
The “market · 30D” suffix disappears and every future delta is
measured against today’s total instead. Clear the baseline any
time to go back to the market-view.
The baseline is stored in your browser, scoped to your account
number, and never leaves this device. Change display currency and
the chip falls back to range-start until you reset again — we
don’t have client-side historical FX to convert an old baseline
reliably.
Where do I find my account number after signup?
Once you’re signed in, open Settings → Account. Your
12-digit account number sits at the top with a Copy button.
It’s also on the “Save these” screen right after signup — the
Copy both as text button there gives you account number
and recovery code as one block ready to paste into a password
manager.
If you signed up before we introduced account numbers, one gets
assigned to you automatically the next time your browser talks to
the server — open Settings, wait a beat, and it appears.
Do you have telemetry or analytics?
None. No trackers, no pings, no third-party scripts.
Does the iPhone app support passkeys and Face ID?
The iOS app supports Face ID unlock for a
remembered device today: once you pair your phone from the website,
a vault key is sealed in the iPhone Keychain behind Face ID, and
the device signs a challenge to re-establish your session. You never
type your passphrase on the phone.
The iOS app is live on the
App Store.
Install it, open the app, and pair with your website account to unlock
your vault with Face ID. Passkey sign-in on iOS is enabled by the
same Associated Domains entitlement that ships with the App Store build.
How do I pair the iPhone app with my account?
Sign in on the website, open
Settings → Devices → Pair iPhone, and
you’ll see a QR code that expires in about a minute. Open the
StealthLedger app on your phone, scan the code, and confirm the pairing
with Face ID. The QR carries a one-time challenge that the phone
signs; the actual vault key is derived on the phone from your existing
unlocker and never crosses the network in plaintext.
After pairing, the phone appears in the same Devices list. You can
revoke it from either the phone or the web at any time; revocation
takes effect on the next request.
Do I have to install the app to use StealthLedger?
No. The website
stealthledger.io is the full
product on its own: sign up, store your vault, chart your holdings,
use passkeys, everything. The iPhone app is a companion for people
who want a one-tap Face ID unlock on the go without opening a
browser. Both talk to the same encrypted vault, so what you add on
one shows up on the other.
Does the iPhone app collect anything different than the website?
No. The iOS build contains no analytics SDK, no crash reporter, no
third-party tracker. The only network calls the app makes are to the
same StealthLedger API the website uses, over TLS, sending the same
opaque encrypted blobs. Apple’s App Privacy label reflects this:
Data Not Collected.
Can I rotate the vault key if a device is compromised?
Yes. Settings → Security → Rotate vault key
generates a brand-new vault encryption key on your device, re-encrypts
your whole vault under it, and re-wraps the new key into every
unlocker you can re-verify (your passphrase and 12-word recovery
phrase). The old vault key stops working immediately — a stolen or
compromised phone can no longer read your balances.
Rotation is an emergency action: remembered iPhone access and passkeys
are removed from the vault, so reconnect each phone from the website
by QR and re-add your passkey afterwards. Your passphrase and recovery
phrase stay the same and still open the vault. The server never sees
the old or new key — the re-encryption happens entirely in your
browser.
Rotation invalidates the old vault key so a compromised device can no
longer decrypt your balances. Fully revoking a compromised device’s
server-side session and signing key is a follow-up — for now, also
change your passphrase if you believe the secret itself leaked.
