HideW Talk to us

Your wallet,
hidden in plain sight.

HideW encrypts your Stellar key and tucks it inside an ordinary PNG. No seed phrase on paper, no custodian holding your funds — just your image and your password.

Talk to us See how it works
Glass card with a key made of pixels
AES-256-GCMkey sealed
m/44'/148'/0'SEP-0005 path
12recovery words you never see
~5sStellar settlement
0copies of your key we hold
Explainer

How an image becomes your wallet.

Fifteen seconds, five steps — from a photo you like to a wallet only you can open.

1A normal photo
An ordinary sunset photo
Looks like a normal photo
sunset.png
Argon2idEncryption key derived
AES-256-GCM
Wallet unlockedKey extracted from your photo
BalancesXLM · USDCExample view
Payment signed in your browser · settles in ~5s

Start with any picture you like — it will become your backup.

  1. 1. A normal photo

    Start with any picture you like — it will become your backup.

  2. 2. Password → key

    Your password goes through Argon2id to derive an encryption key.

  3. 3. Encrypt the wallet key

    The wallet key is locked with AES-256-GCM into ciphertext.

  4. 4. Hide it in the pixels

    The encrypted bits go into the least-significant bits of pixels. It still looks like a normal photo.

  5. 5. Unlock & pay

    Photo + password restore the key. Payments are signed in your browser.

The problem

Self-custody breaks at the backup.

People don't lose crypto to clever attacks. They lose it to a paper slip in a drawer — and that fear pushes them back to custodians.

Backups fail quietly

Seed phrases get photographed, misplaced, damaged or simply forgotten. You only discover the backup failed on the day you need it.

Convenience defeats security

The safe option is awkward, so people reach for the easy one — screenshots, notes apps, cloud docs.

seed.txt · screenshot_0412.png · notes

So users choose custody

Handing keys to an exchange feels safer than guarding twelve words. That trades away the point of owning crypto.

HideW's answer

Make the backup something people already keep safe and copy everywhere: a picture.

How it works
How it works

Four steps. One image. Only you can open it.

A photo being scanned into pixels
  1. 01

    Pick any PNG

    A holiday photo, a pet, a sunset. Any image you like becomes the carrier for your wallet.

  2. 02

    Derive and encrypt

    A BIP-39 mnemonic derives your Stellar key via SEP-0005, then it's sealed with AES-256-GCM — all on your device.

  3. 03

    Hide it in the pixels

    The ciphertext is spread across the image in a key-derived pixel order. The picture still looks like a picture.

  4. 04

    You hold the only copy

    Without your password the wrapped key is useless. We never see it, store it or hold a spare.

Under the hood

Serious cryptography, zero escrow.

Your password is stretched with memory-hard Argon2id into a key-encryption key (KEK) that wraps your wallet key. Transactions are built as unsigned XDR and signed in your browser — the secret never leaves your device.

hidew · keyspec
kdfArgon2id · 384 MB · t=3
cipherAES-256-GCM
derivationSEP-0005 · m/44'/148'/0'
signingclient-side · unsigned XDR
key_escrownone
Dark shield with a keyhole
Why Stellar

Built for money that actually moves.

Settlement in about five seconds and fees measured in fractions of a cent. Stellar is a network designed for payments — so HideW is too.

Payment settled
Live

Payments & remittances

Send XLM anywhere with near-instant settlement and negligible fees.

Planned

Stablecoin settlement

Trustlines and USDC, held and sent from the same image-backed wallet.

Planned

SDEX & path payments

Route payments across Stellar's built-in exchange so the recipient gets the asset they want.

Planned

Anchors & on/off ramps

Move between fiat and crypto through SEP-6 and SEP-24 anchors.

Status

Working today. Bigger tomorrow.

Roadmap tiles
  1. Wallet creationKey generated, encrypted and embedded in your PNG
  2. RecoveryImage + password unlocks the account — no other login exists
  3. Send XLMReviewed, signed on-device, then submitted
  4. Balance & historyPulled live from Horizon
  5. Browser-side signingArgon2id, AES-GCM, steganography and SEP-0005 ported to the client
  6. Unfunded accountscreateAccount vs payment, with the 1 XLM minimum handled
  1. Security auditThird-party review of the crypto and steganography layers
  2. USDCTrustlines and USDC support
  3. Path paymentsRouted over SDEX
  4. SEP-24 anchorsFiat on/off ramps
  5. Fully local recoveryYour password is never posted anywhere
  6. Mobile appWrapping the same client-side crypto
Verification

Don't trust. Check the vectors.

Argon2id parity

WASM implementation matches reference output.

Pixel permutation

AES-CTR driven ordering is deterministic and reversible.

SEP-0005 test vector

Derives the expected public key:

GDRXE2BQUC3AZNPVFSCEZ76NJ3WWL25FYFK6RGZGIEKWE4SOOHSUJUJ6

Fails closed

End-to-end run rejects a wrong password — no partial key, no leak.

Open questions

Where we'd value the Stellar team's input.

Image durability

Re-compression destroys the payload, so messaging apps are a real failure mode. HideW warns clearly and gates the download step — and we'd welcome guidance on further mitigations.

Audit priorities

Which layer deserves scrutiny first: the steganographic encoding, the KDF parameters, or the client-side signing path?

Ecosystem fit

Which SEPs matter most for a wallet in this position — anchors, or the URI scheme for payment requests?

Own your keys. Lose the paperwork.

We're asking for a technical review of the custody model — and a conversation about which parts of Stellar (anchors, SDEX, issued assets) come next for a wallet built to lower the self-custody barrier.

Non-custodialSEP-0005Client-side signingTestnet + Mainnet ready
Read the full pitch