Understanding Wallets, Accounts, and Addresses

A wallet is created from a recovery phrase and serves as the foundation for managing your digital assets.

Think of it like your online banking profile. It can contain one or more accounts, all protected by the same recovery phrase.

A account is an individual account within your wallet.

Think of it like a checking account or savings account inside your online banking profile.

Every account has its own balances and can hold assets across multiple supported blockchain networks.

You can create multiple accounts to organize your assets however you'd like.

Examples include:

An address is a unique public identifier used to receive assets. Think of it like an account number.

When someone sends you cryptocurrency, they send it to one of your wallet addresses.

Each account contains addresses for supported blockchain networks.

Because addresses are public, it's safe to share them when receiving funds. Never share your recovery phrase or private keys.

When you create a new wallet in WireUp:

Every wallet starts with one account. You can create additional accounts at any time to better organize your assets.

Each account can:

You can import an existing wallet from WireUp or another compatible self-custody wallet using its recovery phrase.

When imported:

If you import multiple recovery phrases, you can switch between wallets and choose which wallet new accounts belong to.

Think of it like this:

Each piece works together to help you securely organize and manage your digital assets.

If you're new to self-custody, it's easy to confuse wallets, accounts, and addresses. While they're closely related, each serves a different purpose. Understanding these concepts will help you confidently manage your assets in WireUp.