Create a wallet with celestia-app

For this guide, we will go over how you can generate a Celestia wallet using celestia-app.

Prerequisites

Gone through quick start and installed celestia-app

Note, you do not need to install celestia-node for this tutorial.

Keyring backend

keyring-backend configures where celestia-appd stores your keys. Choose it before you create a wallet, because the backend you pick decides whether the private key is encrypted at rest.

Backend	Where keys are stored	Suitable for
`os`	The operating system keychain: Keychain on macOS, Credentials Management on Windows, libsecret, kwallet or keyctl on Linux	A single-operator machine
`file`	Encrypted inside the app's configuration directory; the password is requested on every access	Servers and containers
`pass`	GPG-encrypted files managed by the `pass` utility	Servers with an existing GPG setup
`kwallet`	KDE Wallet Manager	KDE desktops
`test`	Unencrypted on disk, with no password	Local development and testnets
`memory`	Process memory, discarded when the process exits	Throwaway scripts

You can set the backend for a single command with --keyring-backend, which is what the examples in these docs do. Pass it on every command that touches a key: without the flag, celestia-appd falls back to the default backend and will not find a key that was created in a different one. You can learn more on the Cosmos documentation or Go Package documentation.

Create a wallet

You can pick whatever wallet name you want. The examples below and the validator node guide both use $VALIDATOR_WALLET, so set it to the name you chose:

export VALIDATOR_WALLET=validator
export KEYRING_BACKEND=file # use `test` only on a testnet
 
celestia-appd keys add $VALIDATOR_WALLET \
  --keyring-backend=$KEYRING_BACKEND \
  --interactive

Save the mnemonic output as this is the only way to recover your validator wallet in case you lose it!

To check all your wallets you can run:

celestia-appd keys list --keyring-backend=$KEYRING_BACKEND

Key management

# listing keys
celestia-appd keys list --keyring-backend=$KEYRING_BACKEND
 
# adding keys
celestia-appd keys add <KEY_NAME> --keyring-backend=$KEYRING_BACKEND
 
# deleting keys
celestia-appd keys delete <KEY_NAME> --keyring-backend=$KEYRING_BACKEND
 
# renaming keys
celestia-appd keys rename <CURRENT_KEY_NAME> <NEW_KEY_NAME> \
  --keyring-backend=$KEYRING_BACKEND

Importing and exporting keys

Import an encrypted and ASCII-armored private key into the local keybase.

celestia-appd keys import <KEY_NAME> <KEY_FILE> --keyring-backend=$KEYRING_BACKEND

Example usage:

celestia-appd keys import amanda ./keyfile.txt --keyring-backend=$KEYRING_BACKEND

Export a private key from the local keyring in encrypted and ASCII-armored format:

celestia-appd keys export <KEY_NAME> --keyring-backend=$KEYRING_BACKEND
 
# you will then be prompted to set a password for the encrypted private key:
Enter passphrase to encrypt the exported key:

After you set a password, your encrypted key will be displayed.

Fund a wallet

For the public celestia address, you can fund the previously created wallet via Discord by sending this message to the #mocha-faucet channel:

$request celestia1xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Wait to see if you get a confirmation that the tokens have been successfully sent. To check if tokens have arrived successfully to the destination wallet run the command below replacing the public address with your own:

celestia-appd start
celestia-appd query bank balances celestia1xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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