Below are a list of the best practices to help protect you and your ETN Wallets.

Security

Websites and apps

The official websites that the ETN Network provide are electroneum.com & my.electroneum.com.

Only ever download the ETN App via the link on our official website electroneum.com, don’t download apps by searching for Electroneum or ETN, or visit websites claiming to be Electroneum and NEVER enter your account details into these apps or websites. These sites are phishing sites and are used to gather your information to access your account. We will NEVER email you a log in link or app link, we will only ever direct you to electroneum.com or my.electroneum.com.

Secure your email account

Make sure that you use a strong password for your email account and if available set up 2 factor authentication (2FA) which could be adding a secondary email address, adding a PIN number, linking to an authenticator app such as Google Authenticator etc. This adds another level of security to your account and will help prevent other people being able to access your account maliciously. Ensure that the password you use to protect your email account is unique and has never been used by you anywhere else (see note below about using the same password on multiple sites).

Secure your ETN Wallet

When creating/editing your ETN Wallet we require multiple levels of security information to help protect your account. You will be taken through step by step. It is very important that when creating/editing your account you use a strong unique password that you don’t use anywhere else. Many websites and service providers have been hacked in the past and users details, which may contain your information, have been shared online. If you use the same password as you did with one of those accounts then people may be able to access your account with this leaked information.

Paper Wallets

What is a Paper Wallet?

A Paper Wallet is an offline and (potentially) more secure alternative to storing your ETN in your ETN Wallet. All ETN Wallets consist of three mathematically linked keys, called the public key, the private view key, and the private spend key. As a rough comparison, you can think of the public key as your bank account number (this is your ETN Wallet address that people can use to send you money), the private view key gives the ability to view your bank balance but not spend anything, and the private spend key as your bank PIN code, as it allows the owner of the key to spend the money (ETN!) in the account.

Each key has a specific purpose:

  • Public key (or wallet address) is used when depositing ETN into your ETN Wallet, this key can be given out publicly to anyone that wants to pay you ETN and poses no security risk to your wallet.
  • Private view key is used to view the balance of your ETN Wallet but not spend your ETN. This key should be kept private.
  • Private spend key is used to spend the ETN in your ETN Wallet. If anyone gets access to this they can take all of your ETN so this must be kept private, only YOU need to know what this key is. If any app, website, company, person etc ask for this assume it is a scam and do not give it to them. Only ever import an Paper (offline) Wallet with the official ETN App and please see the note “Using your Paper Wallet” below.

These keys make up your ETN Wallet and anyone who has access to them has control over your ETN Wallet and your ETN.

Your ETN Wallet is accessed by the official ETN App or via my.electroneum.com. On this account we look after your Private Keys for you to make accessing your ETN easier.
A Paper Wallet is a wallet that has been generated without the keys being stored anywhere on the internet (hence “paper”). You can even run the Paper Wallet software from a usb stick on a PC or Laptop that is not connected to the internet.

As part of Project Aurelius, we will no longer be providing a Paper Wallet generator and this feature will be removed from our website. If you hold ETN in a Paper Wallet, or any other offline wallet, don’t worry, you don’t have to do anything and this remains the safest way to store your ETN. We just won’t be doing this bit ourselves anymore. If you would like to generate an offline (cold) wallet to store ETN, there are many providers that you can use to generate a wallet, such as Metamask. This will also give you access to the smart contract functions of the new blockchain. If you use a third party wallet provider such as Metamask, you should make sure that you are comfortable with the process and you trust the provider. We will be providing an ETN Metamask tutorial shortly.

Why use a Paper Wallet?

Anyone with access to your wallet keys has control over your wallet, therefore using the most secure method of storing your coins is of the utmost importance. Ultimately every system connected to the internet is potentially vulnerable to hacks. We take precautions to safeguard your Private Keys (such as keeping them encrypted), but there is always more risk of a hack on a web based service than there is from a Paper Wallet which is not connected to the internet. As well as that consider the following; your personal Paper Wallet printed on a piece of actual paper poses a far less attractive opportunity for a potential hacker/thief than a centralised system of thousands of wallets. The ETN Network is dedicated to ensuring the safety of your ETN Wallet and ETN however we recommend that to increase the security you use a Paper Wallet.

Securing your Paper Wallet

Remember that even though the Paper Wallet is a more secure method of storing your ETN, anyone that gets access to those keys will have complete control over your wallet so the keys must be kept secure. Consider making backups as if you lose any print-out or it gets water damaged or burns up in a house fire for example then the wallet will be lost forever. You might want to consider keeping a digital copy or two somewhere safe on a USB stick (simple keep the PDF file safe). If you are more experienced you can even encrypt the PDF file with your chosen encryption software for additional security. Just remember if you lose access to the Private Keys you have lost the ETN and nobody can ever recover it.

Using your Paper Wallet

It is also recommended that for added security, when you have imported ETN from a Paper Wallet that you transfer the FULL BALANCE and then create another Paper Wallet which has never been used and transfer any surplus ETN you’d like to protect to that new Paper Wallet. If you have a very large ETN balance you might want to use a number of Paper Wallets (remember you can have as many as you like at no cost except the small transfer fee to move the ETN to and back from the Paper Wallet).

System requirements

my.electroneum.com & ETN Wallet

Google Chrome version 60 or above

Android app

Android version 4.4 or above

iOS app

iOS 9.0 or later