Feature · advanced in v2.12.0
Watch-only accounts. Air-gapped signing. N-of-m multi-signature. Tor routing. Offline cold-storage seed generation. Everything Siacoin holders running treasuries, hosts, or serious cold storage actually need.
Load a public address into Sia Wallet without the private key. See incoming transactions, balance, and history — no signing capability on that account. Useful for accountants, auditors, cold-storage monitoring, or anyone who needs visibility without authority.
How watch-only works →Generate a 12-word BIP39 seed and its receive addresses on a computer that has never connected to the internet. Sia Wallet includes a 'cold mode' that disables all network code at startup. The resulting seed can be used online or kept entirely offline for deep cold storage.
Cold storage workflow →Create a 2-of-3 or 3-of-5 wallet where signatures from multiple devices are required to move funds. Uses Sia's native consensus-layer multi-sig — verified on-chain, not in software. Every signer can be a software seed, a Ledger, or an air-gapped signer.
Multi-sig setup →Route all wallet network traffic through your local Tor SOCKS proxy. Sia Wallet does not bundle Tor — you install the Tor daemon yourself and point Sia Wallet at it in Advanced Settings. Blockchain data queries then leave your machine through Tor.
Tor configuration →Export an unsigned transaction as a file on your online watch-only wallet. Transfer it to an air-gapped signing machine via USB. Sign offline. Transfer the transaction back. Broadcast from the online wallet. Keys touch the network only through their signatures.
Air-gapped workflow →Point Sia Wallet at an encrypted volume, a removable drive, or a different disk. Useful for full-disk-encryption workflows, multi-wallet separation, or keeping wallet data off your main system drive. Set on first run or under Advanced Settings → Storage.
Storage settings →Add Account → Watch-only → paste a public Sia address. That account now appears in your wallet with full transaction history, incoming transaction alerts, and balance tracking — but the Send button is disabled. Multiple watch-only accounts can be added: every cold-storage address you maintain, every treasury fund, every host address you operate. Nothing in the wallet can sign for any of them.
Install Sia Wallet on a computer that has been offline since first boot — ideally a machine you bought second-hand, reformatted, and never networked. Launch with the --cold flag or pick 'Cold mode' on the welcome screen. The wallet disables its networking code at startup. Generate a new 12-word seed. Record it on paper and in a second physical form (steel plate, if you're serious). Record the first few receive addresses. Store the cold device somewhere physical and secure. Use the addresses to receive Siacoin from your warm wallet. To spend: run the air-gapped signing workflow below.
Advanced → New Wallet → Multi-signature. Pick your threshold: 2-of-3, 3-of-5, up to 11-of-15. Each signer contributes a public key — from a software seed, a Ledger, or an air-gapped cold device. Sia Wallet constructs the multi-sig address using Sia's native consensus primitive. Spending requires signatures from your threshold number of signers, each contributed to the same transaction via file exchange. The multi-sig is enforced by the Sia blockchain itself, not by Sia Wallet's software.
Install the official Tor daemon from torproject.org. Note the SOCKS5 port (default 9050). In Sia Wallet, Advanced Settings → Network → Route through Tor, and enter 127.0.0.1:9050. All subsequent wallet network traffic — consensus node queries, transaction broadcasts, SC/USD price lookups — exits your machine through Tor. Sia Wallet ships no Tor binary and makes no claims about Tor's own security properties; read The Tor Project's documentation to understand the threat model you're opting into.
On your online wallet (with the target address loaded as watch-only): Send → fill recipient and amount → Export Un Transaction. Save to a USB stick. Plug the stick into your air-gapped signer. Open Sia Wallet on the air-gapped machine. Import Transaction. Review on screen. Sign. Export Transaction back to the USB. Plug the USB back into the online machine. Import Transaction. Broadcast. Keys have not touched the network. The signing machine has not touched the network.
The cold-mode workflow produces what is effectively a paper wallet: a seed recorded on paper with its associated receive addresses. Sia Wallet doesn't render a printable PDF with vanity graphics — purpose-built paper-wallet generators focus on visual fidelity at the cost of security scrutiny. We recommend writing the seed on paper (or steel) by hand.
Sia's native multi-sig primitive supports arbitrary n-of-m configurations up to the block's signature capacity — 11-of-15 is the practical consumer maximum and what Sia Wallet exposes in the UI. Advanced users can construct higher thresholds via the JSON API under Advanced Settings.
Yes. Each signer in a multi-sig configuration can be a software seed, a Ledger Nano, or an air-gapped cold signer. A common setup is 2-of-3 with two Ledgers and one software backup, or 3-of-5 across multiple hardware wallets held in different physical locations.
No. Your seed is never transmitted over any network connection — Tor or otherwise. Tor routing affects only the public blockchain queries your wallet makes (balance checks, transaction broadcasts). Your seed and keys remain local to the machine running Sia Wallet.
Advanced security features ship in the default installer. Choose your OS on the download page.
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