How to use Aphanite.

If you have used a normal messaging app, Aphanite will feel familiar — you have conversations, groups, requests, and settings. What is different is underneath. There is no phone number or email tied to your account; you sign in by proving you control a wallet address. Every message you send is encrypted on your own device before it leaves, so the servers that carry it only ever see scrambled data they cannot read. And because Aphanite is wallet-native, you can also send and receive crypto right inside a conversation.

What you can do with Aphanite

• Message privately — end-to-end encrypted direct messages and group chats.
• Be reached by your address or a handle — no phone number to hand out.
• Send crypto in chat — transfer funds to someone mid-conversation and view recent on-chain history.
• Stay in control of who reaches you — first contact from strangers waits in a Requests queue.
• Verify who you are talking to — safety numbers and a live in-chat identity check.
• Protect your history — optional encrypted backup that only you can unlock.
• Tune your privacy in depth — a large, private-by-default settings panel.

1. Connect your wallet. Click Connect Wallet and pick your wallet (MetaMask, or any compatible injected wallet). This only shares your public address — it gives Aphanite no power to move funds.
2. Sign in — no gas, no spend. Your wallet signs a one-time, domain-bound message (Sign-In With Ethereum). This proves the address is yours. It is free, off-chain, and never creates a transaction. The rule is simple: sign, never spend.
3. Authorize this device. Aphanite creates a messaging key for this device and asks your wallet to sign a short authorization for it. That signature links the device to your identity so this device — and only this device — can read your messages here.
4. Pick a name (optional). You can ride free using your address, or claim a permanent @handle (3–20 characters: a–z, 0–9, underscore). A custom handle is a paid, one-time extra that writes your name into the public directory; new accounts also get a free random alias by default.
5. Make it yours. Everyone gets a unique avatar generated from their address, or you can upload your own. Choose a light or dark theme and an accent colour, and set your preferred network for sending crypto in chats. All of this is changeable later in Settings.
6. Say hello. Add a few people by @handle or address to get started — Aphanite sends them a first-contact request. You can invite people any time.

Handles. A handle is a permanent, human-readable @name — like @alice— that maps to your address so people can find and reach you without copying a long hex string. Handles are unique, one per address, and are written into Aphanite's public transparency log. Claiming a custom one is an optional paid extra; without it, you are still fully usable by your address or your assigned alias.

ENS names & avatars. If you use ENS, Aphanite can display ENS names and pictures for addresses. This is off by default because looking up ENS sends addresses to a public resolver; turn it on in Settings → Account & Identity if you want it.

Directory visibility. By default your handle is Listed so others can find you in the people directory. Switch to Unlisted in Settings to stay hidden from search while remaining reachable by anyone who already knows your handle or address.

Linked wallets. Hold more than one address? You can link additional wallets to a single identity so signing in with any of them lands in the same account. Each link is a signature from the wallet being linked, and every link is recorded in the transparency log. Manage links under Settings → Account & Identity → Linked wallets.

Adding another device. To use Aphanite on a second device, open it there, connect the same wallet, and authorize the new device's key with a wallet signature. On the new device you'll see a 64-character device key; the authorization ties it to your account. From then on, anyone messaging you seals a copy for each of your active devices, so every device stays in sync.

Fingerprints & transparency proofs. Under Settings → Devices & Keys you can reveal this device's key fingerprint for out-of-band verification, and view the cryptographic inclusion proof that your key really is in the public registry. These are the tools that let a careful user confirm nothing has been tampered with.

Rotation & revocation. Device keys can rotate on a schedule (Manual, Monthly, or Quarterly) for stronger forward secrecy. If you lose a device or no longer trust it, revoke it from the devices list; the revocation is written to the transparency log so your contacts can see the change.

The basics. Open a conversation, type, and send. By default Enter sends and Shift+Enter makes a new line (you can flip this in Settings). Double-tap a message for a quick reaction; your default reaction emoji is configurable.

Editing, unsending & deleting. You can edit or unsend a message for a window after sending it — off, 5 minutes, 1 hour, or 1 day. Deleting a message can remove it for everyone: Aphanite sends a private "delete" instruction over the same encrypted channel, so the server never sees the content involved.

Disappearing messages. Turn on a disappearing timer so messages auto-delete after a set time — 10 seconds up to a week. You can set a default for all new chats in Settings and override it per conversation. There is also a best-effort screenshot notice (it cannot be fully enforced, and Aphanite is honest about that).

Drafts & composing. Unsent drafts are saved locally so you don't lose a half-written message. Text size, chat wallpaper, and other composing preferences live under Settings → Chats & Messaging and Appearance.

Send later. Tap the clock in the composer to schedule a written message — in 30 minutes, an hour, 8 hours, or tomorrow. The message stays on your device until the moment it sends (keep the app open at that time), then goes out through the normal encrypted path. Pending sends show above the composer, where you can cancel them.

How first contact works. When someone you haven't talked to messages you, their message arrives in Requests, not your main inbox, carrying an encrypted intro. Accept it and you both become contacts — messages flow normally from then on. Decline it and it goes away. This one design choice is what keeps a permissionless, address-based messenger usable.

Who can message you. In Settings → Privacy you choose who may start a conversation: Everyone (still via Requests), Contacts of contacts, or Allowlist only. You can also auto-accept people your existing contacts already talk to, if you prefer less friction.

Anti-spam. Nobody pays to message you, and nobody can pay their way in. Spam control is consent-based: first contact always lands in Requests until you approve it, marking a sender as spam silently stops their messages — only you can lift that mark — and per-sender rate limits stop anyone from flooding your Requests queue. A hard block cuts a sender off entirely.

Blocking & muting. Block an address to stop it reaching you entirely, or mute a conversation to silence it without blocking. Manage both under Settings → Privacy → Blocked & muted.

Creating a group. Create a group with a name (2–40 characters) and an optional avatar. Choose whether it is public (anyone can discover and join) or private (invite-only and hidden from discovery), and optionally set a join password. Add members by @handle or address.

Joining & discovering. Browse public groups by name and join them (entering the password if one is set). Verified, official groups carry a checkmark and appear at the top of discovery. Private groups require an invite.

Managing a group. The group creator can set the avatar, invite people, and delete the group; any member can leave at any time. Each group also has an id that developers can use with the API to build bots and integrations for that group.

Encrypted polls. Tap the chart icon in a group's composer to ask the group a question with 2–6 options. Votes update live on the poll card — and because both the question and every vote travel as sealed messages, the server can see neither the question nor the results. One vote per member; your choice locks once cast.

Sending a transfer. Open the transfer control in a conversation, enter an amount, and confirm. There's a handy Tap to use max that keeps a little back for gas. The transfer is a real on-chain transaction signed by your wallet — not by Aphanite. Aphanite never holds or moves your funds; your wallet does, and you approve every transfer.

Requesting crypto. Flip the payment sheet to Request to ask instead of send: the other person receives a tap-to-pay card with the amount and an optional note, and one tap opens their wallet with everything prefilled. No funds move until they approve the payment in their own wallet.

Choosing a network. You set a preferred network during setup and can switch per transfer. If your wallet is on a different network, Aphanite will prompt it to switch before sending.

Transaction history. From within a chat you can view an address's recent on-chain transaction history, so you can confirm a payment landed or get context on who you're dealing with.

Safety numbers. Every conversation has a safety number derived from both parties' keys. If you and your contact see the same number — compared in person, over a call, or through another trusted channel — you can be confident no one is sitting in the middle. If a contact's safety number ever changes unexpectedly, Aphanite flags it.

Live identity check. For an in-the-moment confirmation, use the live verification in a chat: you challenge your contact, and their wallet signs a one-time message proving they control the address you think they do. If the signature matches, you'll see Identity verified; if it doesn't, Aphanite warns you to treat that identity with caution. Verified contacts get a badge in the conversation.

The transparency log. Under the hood, the mapping from handles to keys lives in a public key-transparency log. Your client can check a cryptographic inclusion proof that a key really is in the log, so the directory can't quietly swap someone's key for an impostor's without leaving a visible record. Key changes are surfaced to you.

How encrypted backup works. When you turn on hosted backup, Aphanite encrypts everything on your device using a key derived from your passphrase (with Argon2id, a deliberately slow, brute-force-resistant method), and uploads only the resulting ciphertext. The server stores bytes it cannot decrypt. Restoring on a new device re-creates your exact identity and immediately decrypts your history.

What's included in a backup

• Message history across all conversations
• Every setting and preference
• Any purchased paid features
• Verified contacts & safety numbers
• Pinned/muted chats, drafts, and read state
• Your device keys — so a restore is the same identity and decrypts right away

Locking the app. Set an app lock (PIN) to require a code to open Aphanite on this device — the PIN is stored only as a salted hash and never leaves the device. Pair it with an auto-lock timeout, hide the app's contents in your device's app switcher, and auto-clear copied addresses and keys from your clipboard.

Sessions & anti-phishing. View every active login session and revoke any you don't recognize (or sign out everywhere else in one tap). Keep domain-binding warnings on so Aphanite alerts you if a sign-in request comes from an unexpected site — your defence against phishing clones.

Duress wipe. For high-risk situations you can configure a panic / duress code that instantly wipes local data when entered. Use with care — it is irreversible when triggered.

Network & routing. Choose which relay carries your (encrypted) envelopes, or point at your own custom relay. For extra privacy you can route through a proxy or Tor to hide your IP from the relay, and experiment with cover traffic to blunt timing analysis. These trade a little speed for more privacy and are there when you want them.

Getting a key. Unlock Developer API access (a paid perimeter feature), then create an API key under Settings → API Settings. The secret (an sk_live_… token) is shown once at creation and never retrievable again, so store it safely. Keys can be named and revoked at any time.

What the API can do. Authenticate requests with an Authorization: Bearer header. The endpoints let you confirm your identity, resolve public handles and device keys, browse the public directory, and submit or pull already-sealed envelopes — the same encryption guarantee, offered to developers.

Groups and the developer API use per-message X25519 sealed boxes (the box-v1 suite). Full REST docs and an OpenAPI description are available at api.aphanite.io.