ndau is a digital currency designed to be a dependable and secure long-term store of value. The ndau wallet is a mobile phone application available for both iOS and Android that provides a secure and convenient way for you to send, receive and manage your ndau.
Password
The password you use for this app is only used to protect this app from people who might gain physical access to your phone. You won’t use it on our website, or anywhere else.
As the app says, ndau will NOT be able to help you recover your account if you misplace this password. Be sure to write this password down and put it in a secure location.
Best practices for password creation:
- DO NOT use a password you use on other sites or apps. Password reuse is a key way that criminals gain access to your accounts.
- Use strong passwords: they should be at least 15 characters and contain letters, numbers, and special characters (,.?!@#$^&, etc.)
- Ideally, passwords should not contain dictionary words, important dates, or other things that are easy for human beings to guess.
- Best practices currently recommend either using a secure password locker like 1password or LastPass, or writing down your password on paper and storing it in a secure location. This way, you can create a password which is not human-memorable, making it harder for a criminal to guess.
- We’ve made it so you can use as long a password or phrase as you like! So go nuts. (Within your tolerance for typing things on your phone, of course.)
- What about changing passwords often? This is some older advice which is actually falling out of favor as research has found that people choose weaker passwords if they have to keep re-memorizing new ones, or they forget their new passwords. It makes sense to change your passwords after a major breach, particularly if you re-use passwords (which you shouldn’t do!). It also makes sense to change your password if someone who shouldn’t gain access to your device does get into it. But aside from that, changing your passwords is not really all that necessary.
We know that multi-factor authentication and fingerprint readers are preferred by many users as added security measures. Implementing these measures is on our roadmap, and we hope to get there before too long.
Recovery phrase
A recovery phrase for a cryptocurrency wallet isn’t a password — it’s the basis for the wallet itself. The words in the recovery phrase code for huge, unguessable amounts of math which make up your cryptographic key. This key is in turn used to generate additional keys which code for sub-accounts, a hierarchy which adds an extra level of security by making it so your seed phrase is never exposed.
So it’s critical that you WRITE THIS RECOVERY PHRASE DOWN and PUT IT IN A SECURE PLACE. If you lose this phrase, you lose all of the ndau in your wallet. Period. There’s no getting it back. FDIC can’t help you here. But once you’ve completed setup, you can delete the app, space out on your app password, drop your phone in the Marianas Trench, chuck your device under the wheels of an oncoming Formula 1 race, or do any other number of things to lose access to your wallet — as long as you have your seed phrase, you can confirm to the blockchain that you are the owner of the ndau in your accounts, and restore your wallet.
Sadly, MOST DIGITAL DEVICES DO NOT COUNT AS “A SECURE PLACE” for the purpose of saving your seed phrase. They are only as secure as your weakest password — and that’s not something you want for your investment or savings. Screenshots, cloud services like Dropbox, and your hard drive or phone all have vulnerabilities. Hardware wallets, like Trezor, are an exception, and can safely store a seed phrase if they are kept in a secure place.
It’s also important that you DO THE RECOVERY PHRASE STEP IN A PRIVATE PLACE. There is a risk that someone (or some camera) looking over your shoulder could capture your recovery phrase and use it to gain access to your ndau.
The order of your recovery phrase does matter, which is why we have you repeat the phrase back to us. Spelling matters, too. So check carefully while writing these words down. If you have a cognitive difficulty which hampers your writing, you may want to seek help from a trusted friend or family member during this step.
Network Nodes
Nodes are the backbone of the ndau global network. They validate transactions and add them to the ndau blockchain. Unlike the Proof of Work blockchains used by other digital currencies like Bitcoin, ndau uses a Proof of Stake protocol. Rather than rewarding a miner for performing complex and power-hungry computations, Proof of Stake protocols rely on a node operator’s willingness to commit their ndau assets as “stake” to guarantee performance. Stake operates like a performance bond and can be forfeited as a penalty for erroneous, unreliable, or malicious behavior. Proof of Stake protocols greatly reduce the cost of operating an ndau network node, making node operation accessible to a much larger pool of participants. This larger pool ensures robust, reliable, and decentralized blockchain performance.
Node selection will matter when it comes to earning an incentive (EAI) for holding your ndau rather than trading it. You will delegate your EAI calculations to a node of your choice to help support the health of the ndau ecosystem. EAI is not offered passively but rather is awarded in association with contracting with or directly operating ndau nodes, thus increasing the value of the whole ecosystem through participatory efforts.
Nodes will eventually distinguish themselves as being of different quality — their uptime, EAI earn, and other unique factors that may make a node more attractive for you to stake to. Oneiro will initially run all nodes at launch, but over time the running of nodes will be distributed among anyone interested in becoming a node operator.
We realize that at this point in time we aren’t able to give you much information about the difference between nodes. As new node operators enter the ecosystem, a wide range of new and innovative node qualities will undoubtedly be explored as node operators work to differentiate themselves from others in the network and work to entice ndau holders to choose them for staking. You’ll be able to select a node once that ecosystem evolves. For now, your ndau are staked to a random node.