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Hardware Wallet Mode

Hardware Wallet Mode is a setting that can be enabled which allows a user to sign messages with a Hardware Wallet of their choice.

Configuring Hardware Wallet Mode

When initially connecting a wallet

Step 1: Click the 'Connect Wallet' button
Step 2: At the top of the form, toggle the 'Hardware Wallet Mode' setting
Step 3: Connect to the Wallet Provider you are using with your Hardware Wallet.

When a wallet is already connected

Step 1: Click your User Profile in the top right of the page.
Step 2: At the top of the popup, toggle the 'Hardware Wallet Mode' setting.
Step 3: Connect to the Wallet Provider you are using with your Hardware Wallet.

Why is this necessary?

Cardano wallets have two types of public keys associated with them, a staking key and a spending key. In Clarity, we use user's public stake keys as their unique identifier. With traditional light wallet signing, we are able to prove a user controls the stake key they claim to control by signing data using their stake key without ever needing to construct a transaction. However, for hardware wallets, this is not possible. Hardware wallets can only sign transactions with their spending key. To work around this, we are able to construct a dummy transaction, which does nothing, but stores the public stake address of the user in its metadata, which can be decoded and validated by the application. This method is no less secure, but it is less user-friendly, which is why it is disabled by default.