SatoshiPay releases Open-Source Multi-Signature Wallet for Stellar
We kick off 2019 by releasing Solar, a blazing fast and user-friendly wallet that brings enterprise-grade security features to the Stellar galaxy. Needless to say, it’s open-source for full transparency. The Stellar network has just become safer, faster, and, in our humble opinion, more pleasant.
Update (18 January 2019): An earlier version of this post said “Solar is the world’s first multi-signature wallet for Stellar that is available to consumers.” It has come to our attention that this statement was misleading. We did not mean to diminish the amazing work done in this field, and therefore removed the statement and added a section about existing Stellar multi-signature wallet implementations.
At SatoshiPay, we are famously very bullish on Stellar but also appreciate that an ecosystem is only as strong as the tools supporting it. This is why we’ve created Solar with the explicit goal of making a business-friendly wallet with an emphasis on speed, a smooth user experience (UX), and security. We believe prioritising these three features at the core of the wallet’s design, will push Stellar even further into the global mainstream.
The wallet
Solar is built on a modern, web-based tech stack (React.js, TypeScript, Electron) to ensure it’s as stable, fast and extensible as possible. During several iterations, we have put a lot of effort into getting the UX flows right from the start. Interacting with a cryptocurrency system should feel at least as easy as using a decent online banking app. Focusing on snappy response times and ease will get us there.
To guarantee stable and instant communication between Solar and the Stellar network from everywhere in the world, we connect to our own recently launched globally distributed cluster of Stellar full nodes.
Solar currently comes with some cool features like asset management (one click to add the most popular assets like EURT or Stronghold’s USD, or RippleFox’s CNY), password-protection, encrypted key storage and multi-signature accounts (more on this below). However, this is just the beginning as we plan on releasing a lot of significant updates in the coming months.
Solar roadmap
- Mobile versions for Android and iOS
- Support for decentralised exchanges (DEX)
- Contact management
- Two-factor authentication
- Cold storage hardware support (Ledger, Trezor etc.)
Of course, this roadmap is subject to change as we get feedback from you, our users.
Multi-signature for security
A cornerstone of crypto-security is the ability to protect an account with multi-signature authorisation. This means you can require all, or a subset of members in a group (say, the board of a company) to approve a transaction before it’s valid. It also enables automated third-party services (e.g. oracles) to interact with wallets in a secure manner. With Solar, this becomes easy to put into practice.
The basic ability to create multi-signature transactions has been integrated in the Stellar protocol from the start, yet it was not an easy task to coordinate signing transactions across different devices before submission to the Stellar network.
SatoshiPay’s Andy Wermke, who spearheads the Solar project, has been collaborating with Interstellar on shaping a proposal for an open standard. Currently, we have implemented an alpha version of this multi-signature coordination service, allowing wallets to negotiate transactions with each other in real-time before submitting them to the Stellar network. We will publish a blog post specifying the details soon.
Other multi-signature implementations
While a strong focus for Solar is to create the most convenient flow out there for creating multi-signature accounts and co-signing transactions between different devices — for novices and experienced users alike, Solar is not the only wallet offering access to Stellar’s fabulous built-in multi-signature capabilities. Here is a list of Stellar software with multi-signature support, in no particular order:
- Stargazer (own co-signing coordinator called “Constellation”)
- Interstellar (own co-signing coordinator)
- StellarGuard (not a wallet, but a co-signing service)
Any project we forgot? Please let us know.
We encourage anyone out there working on Stellar multi-signature implementations to join the effort to create an open standard for co-signing coordination (see SEP-0007).
Open source for open systems
When using any crypto system, it’s important that you trust the tools. For this reason, we have made the Solar source code available on GitHub for full auditability. It’s published under the GPL license and we encourage the community to become active in supporting Solar’s future development.
As a user, you can report issues as well. If you are a developer, don’t hesitate to propose and submit contributions. We are doing our best to make the development process as open and transparent as possible.
To the sun!
If you’re ready to give it a whirl, simply go to solarwallet.io and download the wallet. Currently, Solar is available as a desktop client for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Mobile apps are coming soon.
We live by the mantra of release early, release often, so expect a steady stream of updates as we get feedback from all you wonderful Stellar-nauts. Get in touch via hello@solarwallet.io and follow @Solar_Wallet on Twitter. Your feedback is what’s going to shape the future of this product. Now, go and enjoy the sun! 🌞
The SatoshiPay Solar team
