Installing the wallet
You will have VigiWallet installed from a source you verified, and you will know why that verification matters more than the install itself.
Where it comes from
Download it from the page that publishes its checksums.
VigiWallet is published on vigichain.org/wallet, and every build there is listed with its size and its SHA-256 — the site build fails if those figures ever stop matching the file being served. Take the browser extension for a laptop, the mobile build for a phone. A wallet downloaded from anywhere else is a wallet somebody else chose for you.
Illustration to come
Real screen capture of vigichain.org/wallet at the download block, with the version and SHA-256 visible. Captured at 1440×900 in the dark theme — never a mock-up.
The check
Compare the hash before you install, not after.
On Windows, `Get-FileHash file.zip`; on macOS or Linux, `shasum -a 256 file.zip`. Compare the result with the one on the page. It takes ten seconds and it is the only step in this course that protects you against a compromised download — after installation, a wallet that was tampered with can show you anything it likes, including a matching checksum.
Illustration to come
Real screen capture of shasum/Get-FileHash output beside the published value, on somebody’s actual desktop. Slightly imperfect framing is fine — it should look done, not staged.
First run
A password, and a phrase you write on paper.
The wallet asks for a password that encrypts the vault on this device, then shows twenty-four words. The password protects the file; the words are the wallet. Write them down on paper before continuing — the next lesson explains exactly what they are, and why a screenshot of them is the most common way people lose everything.
Illustration to come
Real photograph: a person writing words onto a paper card with a pen, laptop out of focus behind. Hands visible, ordinary desk. It must feel like a real moment, not a product shot.
What is on your device
Keys live here and nowhere else.
The vault is encrypted with a key derived from your password — scrypt, then AES-256-GCM — and it never leaves the machine. There is no account, no server-side copy and no reset link, which is the whole point and also the whole risk. Everything in this course after this point exists because of that one sentence.
Illustration to come
Real photograph of two ordinary devices on a desk with the wallet on its lock screen. Domestic, not corporate; the point is "this lives on your own machines".
In short
- Download only from vigichain.org/wallet, where every build is published with its SHA-256.
- Verify the hash before installing; afterwards is too late to be meaningful.
- The password encrypts the vault on this device; the twenty-four words ARE the wallet.
- There is no account and no reset: keys exist on your devices only.