appendix-c.md
Two shapes of software, doing two different jobs.
BT Wallet is the one to install. It is self-custodial, open source, and made by BT LABS, whose founder is a long-time Epic Cash developer, and it ships for Windows, Linux, macOS (Apple silicon), Android and iPhone, updating itself from inside the app (copies from Google Play or the App Store update through the store). Every file on its release page at epiccash.btlabs.uk/releases has a SHA-256 checksum you can compare with BT LABS' signed list before you run it.
What it does that the older wallets did not: invoices — you ask a paired contact to pay an amount, and they approve and pay it or decline it, while you can withdraw it until it is paid; contacts and pairing, so you pay a person you know rather than a pasted string; payment links, which fill in the payment for you; a version with Tor\ and a version without it, because the law on Tor differs from place to place, with a Tor mode that sends every connection through Tor; a Kill switch mode that stops the wallet connecting at all; and support for running your own node, which the wallet sets up and manages for you. BT Wallet is in active development, and the work aims at making payments between wallets more private and more reliable, using new cryptographic tools.
\ No Tor on iPhone for now.
A wallet without a node of its own keeps your keys on the device and connects to nodes spread across the network to fetch chain updates and check balances. The trade-off is the same as every light wallet: you are trusting a node to tell you the truth about balances. A node never holds your keys, but a node can be hostile, so use nodes the community trusts; status.btlabs.uk lists public nodes and shows whether they are online and in step with the chain. Run your own node and the wallet checks the chain itself, at the price of a first sync and some disk space.
New wallet software deserves a small first payment, whichever wallet it is, and the recovery phrase written down either way — a wallet is replaceable, the words are not.
No wallet here is a bank app. There is no password reset, no support line that can move your coins or see your history, and no way to reverse a transaction. That is the point, and it is also the cost.
01. The recovery phrase is the money. Twenty-four words in BT Wallet (some other wallets use twelve), written on paper, stored somewhere that does not burn and is not photographed. Anyone who has them has the coins. Anyone who does not, does not — including you, if you lose them.
02. Never type the phrase into anything but the wallet. No support agent needs it. No website needs it. No helpful person in a chat needs it. A recovery phrase requested is a theft in progress.
03. Test the restore before you trust the backup. On a second device, or a fresh install of the wallet, choose Restore wallet, enter the phrase, and confirm the balance appears. If the wallet received coins before 2025, tap Start from a date or height, then Scan from the start. Keep the original wallet as it is until it does, and close the test copy afterwards. A backup you have never tested is a hope.
04. Two copies, two places. One at home, one somewhere else that is physically separate. Fire and flood are more likely than cryptography failing.
05. Do not store the phrase digitally. No screenshots, no cloud notes, no password manager entry that syncs, no email to yourself. A copy of the phrase on a connected device, outside the wallet, is a copy someone else may find.
06. Verify addresses character by character. Epic has no addresses on its chain, but to get paid a wallet still hands out a long string that tells the sender's wallet where to deliver the payment. Anywhere such a string is pasted, check the first and last characters on both screens. Malware can swap a copied string for another, and a swapped string pays someone else.
07. Send a small amount first. Any new destination, any new wallet, any new exchange: send the minimum, confirm it arrives, then send the rest.
08. Keep the deposit note. Where the exchange uses the relay method, the note is part of the address. Store it with the deposit address, not separately, and in BT Wallet put it in the Message field when you send; a deposit link or QR from the exchange fills it in for you. Without it the exchange may not know the coins are yours. Where the exchange offers a URL deposit, use the URL and leave the message empty.
09. Mind what happens around the chain. Epic's chain shows that payments happened, not who paid whom or how much: there are no addresses on it, amounts are hidden, and nodes drop spent outputs as they go, so there is no public list of your payments for anyone to search. What can leak is around the chain: when you connect, from which IP address, and through which node and server. A well-resourced observer watching one particular wallet over time could learn something from that. Tor and your own node make it harder.
10. Write down what you did. A short note, offline: which wallet, which version, where the backup is, which exchange account exists. The person recovering your coins may be you, years later, with no memory of any of it.
A wallet that will not sync is usually a network problem, not a loss: check the internet connection, check the network mode in Settings › Network & privacy (Kill switch and Node only hold some or all connections), and check whether the node you point at is answering. A wallet that will not open is not a loss while the recovery phrase exists. A phrase that is lost is a loss, and it is final.
The recovery path is always the same: install the wallet, choose Restore wallet, enter the phrase, then Start from a date or height and Scan from the start if the coins arrived before 2025, and wait for the chain to catch up. The coins come back from the phrase; payment history, notes and contacts come back only from an exported wallet data file. It works or it does not, and testing it in advance is the only way to know which.