Architecture·7 min
How the encrypted account file actually works
Rippex keeps your secret key in a local JSON file encrypted with SJCL, never on a server.
When you set an account password, the client derives a symmetric AES key from it and encrypts the family seed into a small JSON document — the file the save dialog calls simply wallet. Nothing about that file leaves your machine: the key material is decrypted in memory only while the wallet is unlocked, for the length of a signing operation. That design is why a Rippex account survives a reinstall, and why a lost password leaves the secret key as the only route back in.
18 March 2018
XRP Ledger·5 min
Why a new account needs 20 XRP before it exists
The activation notice on a fresh wallet is a protocol rule, not a Rippex fee.
The XRP Ledger charges a base reserve for every account entry it stores, and Rippex reports it verbatim: send at least 20 XRP to your own r-address to activate it. Until that payment is validated the balance line reads zero and no transaction can be signed. Each trust line or open offer adds an owner reserve on top, which is why the client shows total and spendable balances separately — reserves are locked, not spendable, and the difference surprises people who try to empty an account to the last drop.
02 February 2018
Security·6 min
The secret key is the account — treat it that way
One string beginning with s controls the balance. There is no reset link.
Rippex shows the secret key exactly once, on the screen right after account creation, and asks you to confirm you saved it. Copy it onto paper by hand. A screenshot lands in a cloud photo library, a note app syncs to a phone, and a paste buffer is readable by any process on the machine. Anyone who obtains the key can move the funds in seconds, and anyone who asks you for it — a support agent, a recovery service, a helpful stranger in a forum thread — is attempting theft.
11 November 2017
Cold storage·8 min
Cold Wallet and Submit Txn: signing on an air-gapped machine
Two tabs on the account screen turn Rippex into a genuine cold-storage workflow.
On a computer that never touches the network, Cold Wallet builds and signs a transaction and hands you the signed blob. On an ordinary online machine, Submit Txn broadcasts that blob to a rippled node. The secret key never exists on an internet-connected system, and because the signature is produced offline, a compromised node can refuse to relay the transaction but cannot alter a single field of it. This is the setup long-term holders should be using.
24 August 2017
Payments·5 min
Destination tags: the most expensive field people ignore
Exchanges share one address across thousands of customers. The tag is how they tell you apart.
A payment to an exchange without the required destination tag is delivered correctly by the ledger and then sits in the exchange's pooled account with nothing to identify the depositor. The funds are not lost on-chain, but recovering them means a support ticket that may take weeks, or may fail outright. Rippex shows the tag field, the fee, the sequence number and the resulting spendable balance before you approve. Read all four, and send a small test payment first — XRP Ledger transactions are final within seconds and cannot be reversed.
19 May 2017
Assets·6 min
Trust lines, IOUs and the risk nobody prices in
Anything on the ledger that is not XRP is somebody's promise to pay.
A trust line records that you are willing to hold up to a certain amount of an issued currency from a specific issuer. The limit is a cap, not a balance, and every line you open raises your owner reserve, cutting into spendable XRP. Closing an unused line — balance zero, limit zero — releases it again. Rippex always displays the issuer next to the balance, deliberately: an issued dollar is only worth what the issuer will honour, and confusing it with native XRP is the classic beginner loss.
07 February 2017
Recovery·9 min
Recovering an old Rippex wallet from 2017 or 2018
Your XRP was never inside the wallet. It has been on the ledger the whole time.
The wallet file holds a key, not coins, so an old balance is still exactly where you left it — check the r-address on any public explorer and you will see it. If you have the wallet file and its password, open it in Rippex and read the secret key from the account screen. If you have only the secret key, restore straight from it. From there, move the balance to a current address you control. Treat every paid recovery service that asks for your key or file as a theft attempt: possession of the key is possession of the money.
13 October 2016
Operations·4 min
Reading result codes instead of guessing
The ledger tells you precisely why a transaction failed. Rippex does not hide it.
tecUNFUNDED_PAYMENT and tecINSUFFICIENT_RESERVE mean the amount plus fee would push you under the reserve — lower the amount. terNO_ACCOUNT or actNotFound means the destination has never been funded, or your own account is not yet activated. tefPAST_SEQ and tefMAX_LEDGER mean the sequence number or the last-ledger window went stale after a disconnect; refresh and resubmit. And if the client will not unlock at all, the password is wrong or the file belongs to another account — restore from the seed rather than trying variations.
26 April 2016
