Advisory
Xumm has no access to accounts or funds ever.
Xumm Support will never ask for any secret or confidential information or to be sent XRP.
Anyone who does is scamming.
Xumm provides complete and direct control of digital assets to the user. As per the Terms of Service there are is no way back once a transaction is signed and sent.
It is strongly suggested to have an offline copy (secure and physically safe (think fire, water)) of the credentials AND make it so someone else (lawyer?, trusted third party?) can access them if something happens to you.
Introduction
This is an ongoing article explaining terms encountered when using XRP ledgers accounts leaning of course to how they are used in Xumm.
The goal is provide plain-English definitions. As much as possible, reference to underlying documentation is provided for those wishing to drill deeper on a particular term.
Comments and request for clarifications or additions are welcome.
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Don't feel bad if you are unclear what specific terms exist and how they are used. The amount of misuse of these terms is what motivated this article.
General Terms
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Fiat (currency)
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Fiat money is any money that is accepted by a government for paying taxes or debt, but is not pegged to or backed directly by gold and other valuables (fiat money systems have no gold standard).
Source: Wikipedia
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Digital Asset
- The Wikipedia definition is fairly broad and doesn't speak specifically to Cryptocurrencies.
A digital asset is anything that exists in a digital format and comes with the right to use.
Source: Wikipedia
However, that could be taken to include cryptocurrencies. The right to use being conferred by control of the keys for a particular account.
The Elements of XRP Accounts and Credentials
Accounts
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Label
- This is your name for the account. Use whatever you like. Best practice is to call it something significant.
Credentials
In common usage some of these terms are used interchangeably;
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Password
- the per account password to sign when users select a security level higher than bio-metrics
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Keys or "secret key"
- in XRPL context usually referring to the family seed but, in general, any secret info.
When communicating information for the purposes of solving a problem it is critically important to use the correct terms correctly.
This next term often gets used for what is defined in Xumm as password or passphrase;
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Passcode
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The Passcode is multiple digits selected by the user when the app is first installed that unlock the app ONLY.
The purpose is to keep anyone who gets physical access to the phone from being able to access accounts.
The passcode has nothing to do with account data.
Enabling Bio-metric Authentication (FaceID, fingerprint) bypasses the requirement to input a passcode to open the app.
Cryptographic Keys
The XRP ledger uses cryptographic keys to secure accounts and transactions.
In the XRP Ledger, a digital signature authorizes a transaction to do a specific set of actions. Only signed transactions can be submitted to the network and included in a validated ledger.
Source: https://xrpl.org/cryptographic-keys.html
There are four secret elements related to an XRP account;
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Passphrase
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The Passphrase is a user-created value used to sign transactions.
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Private Key
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This is the most sensitive of the secrets and is not exposed in Xumm.
Many people misuse this term - interchanging with anything they consider to be a 'secret' credential.
The private key is the value that is used to create a digital signature. Most XRP Ledger software does not explicitly show the private key, and derives the private key from the seed value when necessary.
Source: https://xrpl.org/cryptographic-keys.html
How private keys are derived is highly technical so not for the faint of heart but the method can be seen here.
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Family Seed
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A [Family} seed value is a compact value that is used to derive the actual private and public keys for an account. ... The seed value is secret information, so you must protect it very carefully. Anyone who has knows an address's seed value has effectively full control over that address.
Source: https://xrpl.org/cryptographic-keys.html
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Xumm Secret Numbers
- Xumm Secret Numbers are a type of secret created by XRPL Labs (the creators of Xumm) to provide enhanced security and reduce input errors.
- Few XRP ledger clients / wallets support Xumm Secret Numbers.
- Xumm Secret Numbers are a proposed standard, and the source code to generate, read & convert them is open source & publicly available.
- If you want to use your XUMM generated XRP ledger account with another client supporting the Family Seed secret format (
s...) Secret Numbers can be turned into a Family Seed (for cross XRP Ledger client / app compatibility).
Transaction Terms
Only fields that might require explanation when doing a basic transaction are here. Comment or open a support ticket if more help is needed.
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Source/Destination Tag
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Source tags and destination tags are a feature of XRP Ledger payments that can indicate specific purposes for payments from and to multi-purpose addresses. Source and destination tags do not have direct on-ledger functionality; source and destination tags merely provide information about how off-ledger systems should process a payment.
There is an article with a more extensive (and less technical) explanation here.
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Memo
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Pretty much exactly what it sounds like. A place for any extra data users might need while working with the transaction.
Please Note: For some reason Coinbase uses "Memo" in their XRP withdrawal screens for the Destination Tag. Very confusing.
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Token / IOU / Issued Currency
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Issued Currencies Overview All currencies other than XRP can be represented in the XRP Ledger as issued currencies.
These digital assets (sometimes called Tokens or IOU's) are tracked in accounting relationships, called trust lines, between addresses.
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Any address may freely issue (non-XRP) currencies, limited only by how much other addresses are willing to hold.
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Issued currencies can be traded with XRP or each other in the XRP Ledger's decentralized exchange.
Source: XRP Ledger Project Developer Portal
Copyright (c) 2020 XRP Ledger Project
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