Why Do You Need The Helium Wallet App?

The recent­ly-opened-for-beta-testers Heli­um Wal­let app is not the Heli­um app; that’s the first con­fus­ing thing. The Wal­let app is all about keep­ing con­trol of your 12 words in YOUR hands, and no one else’s. Out­side of the Heli­um Wal­let app, you should NEVER give your 12 (or 24) words to any­one. Per.i.od.

In the world of cryp­to, a “wal­let” is real­ly just a set of dig­i­tal keys that you, and ONLY YOU, have access to. 

That’s real­ly the whole point of the Wal­let app; to make sure you main­tain the secre­cy of your 12 words while still get­ting access to all the oth­er tools out there, like the new man­u­fac­tur­er apps (Bob­cat, Rak, Sense­cap, etc) com­ing out.

Those apps will allow you to man­age your fleet, to remote­ly con­trol and trou­bleshoot your Hotspot, to keep a fin­ger on the pulse of your Heli­um world. What they SHOULDN’T do is ask you for your 12 words. 

Think of it this way: The Heli­um Wal­let is your key. All the man­u­fac­tur­er apps are like doors into var­i­ous rooms. You use your key to open those doors and get into those rooms. You don’t leave the key in every door handle.

The whole thing is kind of bor­ing, and a lit­tle bit of a pain in the butt (going from one app to a few apps), but the secu­ri­ty ele­ment can’t be overstated. 

Let’s walk through what it looks like. First, look for the Heli­um Wal­let app and down­load it from wher­ev­er you get your apps. Then, open it up, pick either the 12 or 24 word option (depend­ing on what you have, most of us have 12), and enter ’em in.

In any giv­en wal­let, you can dig into the trans­ac­tions. You can also add mul­ti­ple wal­lets to the app. You might have one for your active Hotspots, one for a Hotspot you want iso­lat­ed (maybe you have a Host and there’s no need for them to see your oth­er accounts), and maybe you have a sep­a­rate wal­let for where you with­draw your HNT month­ly, just to keep it out of the active wal­let. You can also keep a list of com­mon­ly used address­es you send mon­ey to. Oh hey Gristlek­ing’s Dona­tion Wal­let! 😉

You can click into any of those trans­ac­tions and dive a lit­tle deep­er. You can also pair with a Ledger, or cre­ate an entire­ly new account. 

The whole thing is pret­ty straight­for­ward. Now, why is this all so impor­tant? Hav­ing con­trol of your wal­let through the Wal­let app allows for a “deep link”, which is a direct link from app to app. This allows you to con­nect from your wal­let to any man­u­fac­tur­er’s app WITHOUT giv­ing them your 12 words. 

That’s the whole point. If you give a man­u­fac­tur­er (or any­one) your 12 words, they have access to your wal­let. It’s kind of like leav­ing a set of keys at the car deal­er­ship. Sure, they *prob­a­bly* won’t stop by your house and take your new car for a spin, but…why give ’em the oppor­tu­ni­ty. Your wal­let, your HNT, your con­trol. That’s the deal.

When you buy Hotspots from a man­u­fac­tur­er, you’ll use their app to onboard your Hotspots, and you’ll “sign” those onboard­ing trans­ac­tions with your wal­let. Every man­u­fac­tur­er’s app will be a lit­tle dif­fer­ent. You main­tain con­trol of your Hotspots in the man­u­fac­tur­er’s app, by using the author­i­ty of the Heli­um Wal­let. This also allows you to use third-par­ty apps (not man­u­fac­tur­er’s) in the future, if you want to, say, man­age tax­es on your HNT earn­ings, but with­out putting your HNT or Hotspots at risk. 

One last word to the wise:

Don’t share your fucking words with anyone. 

No man­u­fac­tur­ers, no third par­ty apps, not your broth­er, not your dog, not even the first girl you kissed back in sum­mer camp in ’89. Shoutout to [redact­ed]! Treat any­one who asks for your 12 words with extreme sus­pi­cion; they are try­ing to con you. 

Oth­er than that, have a rad time deploy­ing Hotspots and earn­ing HNT. This is a fun game, and even if you read this in 2023, well, you’re prob­a­bly STILL ear­ly. Rock ‘n roll!