2.1. Wallet-native identity

How Obscura uses your Solana wallet (e.g., Phantom) as a wallet-native identity for wallet-to-wallet messaging, without email or phone accounts.

Obscura treats your Solana wallet as a first-class identity.

Obscura is a wallet-native messenger. See What is Obscura.

When you connect a Solana wallet (like Phantom), you are not creating an account. You are completing wallet-based authentication. This is also a crypto wallet login flow. You prove control of a private key for a wallet address.

There is no email login. There is no phone number. There is no separate user database mapping you to off-chain identifiers. The wallet address is your identity in the app.

Wallet-based identity (instead of usernames and accounts)

Traditional messengers start with an account record. Web3 messaging starts with a cryptographic identity. In Obscura, your wallet public key is the stable identifier. This is a self-custodied, decentralized identity model.

You can still choose to attach a display name later. That choice is optional. Your base identity remains the wallet.

What wallet-native identity enables

Wallet-native identity has practical benefits for wallet-to-wallet DMs:

• Pseudonymous chat by default. Your identity is a wallet address.

• Multiple identities. Use different wallets for different contexts.

• Portable identity. Your wallet exists outside Obscura.

• Explicit consent. Actions are tied to wallet signatures, not passwords.

This model also pairs cleanly with messaging to public addresses. See Messaging to wallet addresses.

What the wallet is not (encryption key)

The wallet establishes identity and consent. It does not directly encrypt chat messages. It is not used as the raw messaging key material.

Obscura uses separate messaging keys for end-to-end encryption. That separation limits blast radius if a wallet is compromised. See Messaging keys and the encryption model.