Once you have installed bittensor you can create wallets locally on your machine in two ways.
Alternatives
If you don't want to install bittensor you can use a web based wallet, or use a secondary tool like subkey to generate valid Bittensor keys.
1$ btcli new_coldkey --wallet.name my_coldkey 2 IMPORTANT: Store this mnemonic in a secure (preferably offline place), as anyone who has possesion of this mnemonic can use it to regenerate the key and access your tokens. 3 The mnemonic to the new coldkey is: 4 **** *** **** **** ***** **** *** **** **** **** ***** ***** 5 You can use the mnemonic to recreate the key in case it gets lost. The command to use to regenerate the key using this mnemonic is: 6 btcli regen_coldkey --mnemonic **** *** **** **** ***** **** *** **** **** **** ***** ***** 7 8$ btcli new_hotkey --wallet.name my_coldkey --wallet.hotkey my_first_hotkey 9 IMPORTANT: Store this mnemonic in a secure (preferably offline place), as anyone who has possesion of this mnemonic can use it to regenerate the key and access your tokens. 10 The mnemonic to the new hotkey is: 11 **** *** **** **** ***** **** *** **** **** **** ***** ***** 12 You can use the mnemonic to recreate the key in case it gets lost. The command to use to regenerate the key using this mnemonic is: 13 btcli regen_hotkey --mnemonic **** *** **** **** ***** **** *** **** **** **** ***** *****
1import bittensor as bt 2wallet = bt.wallet( name = 'my_coldkey', hotkey = 'my_first_hotkey' ) 3wallet.create_if_non_existent() 4"Wallet (my_coldkey, my_first_hotkey, ~/.bittensor/wallets/)"
Generated wallets are stored locally on your machine under ~/.bittensor/wallets.
1$ tree ~/.bittensor/ 2 ~/.bittensor/ # The Bittensor root directory. 3 wallets/ # The folder containing all Bittensor wallets. 4 my_coldkey/ # The name of your wallet, i.e. "my_coldkey". 5 coldkey # Your password encrypted coldkey. 6 coldkeypub.txt # The unencrypted public address of your coldkey 7 hotkeys/ # The folder containing all this coldkey's hotkeys. 8 my_first_hotkey # Your unencrypted hotkey information.
You can list all the local wallets stored in Bittensor's root directly with btcli list.
1$ btcli list 2Wallets 3└─ 4 my_wallet (<ss58_address>) 5 └── my_first_hotkey (<ss58_address>)
The ss58 encoded strings shown above are compact representations of your public keys, use these as destinations for transfering TAO, for instance when using btcli transfer.
Be sure to store your mnemonics safely
If someone has your mnemonic, they own your tao. If you lose the password to your wallet, or the access to the machine where the wallet is stored, you can always regenerate the coldkey using the mnemonic you saved from above. You can not retrieve the wallet with the password alone.
If you need to regenerate your wallets, you can use the cli with your mnemonic.
1btcli regen_coldkey --mnemonic **** *** **** **** ***** **** *** **** **** **** ***** *****
To create a wallet without installing bittensor you can use the wallet on Bittensor. Click the 0.00 in the top right corner. Select create to create a new wallet or import to import your mnemonic from an existing wallet. The "access" option can be used if you have already created a wallet using the website and have not chosen to "forget" it. Once you have accessed your account, you can send, receive, or stake your TAO.
Bittensor wallets are the core ownership and identity technology around which all functions on Bittensor are carried out. They consists of a coldkey and hotkey pairing of two separate EdDSA cryptographic keypairs which are responsible for different functions within the Bittensor ecosystem but are logically connected via the API. Coldkeys store funds securely and perform high risk operations such as transfers and staking, while hotkeys are used for less secure operations such as signing messages into the network, running miners, and validating the network.
By default the hotkey is not encrypted on the device whereas the coldkey is.
This makes it easier to run miners without inputing passwords while still storing funds securely on the encrypted coldkeys. If you want to encrypt your hotkey, use btcli new_hotkey --use_password.