New wallet, quick start
You are holding a board. Here is how it becomes a wallet.
first, check which one you have
Plug the board in and look at its screen. If it says a name and a short address, it is already a
wallet and you are in the wrong place — open START HERE instead. If it says
this, read on:
no key yet
then
A board becomes a wallet when a station flashes it and gives it a key. That is one command on the
machine of whoever brought you here, with your board on the end of a cable, and it takes under a
minute. Ask them for it. The board comes back with a name, an address of its own, and a balance of
nothing, which is the correct amount to start with.
last
Open START HERE
From here on your board is a wallet and the other door is the one you use.
why can't this folder do it by itself?
Because the only way to get one of these is from somebody who already has one. That is not a
gap we have not got round to filling — it is how the thing spreads, and it is why there is no
shop, no account and nobody to ask for permission.
It has a cost, and it is fair to say it out loud: the station that keys your board makes the key,
so for a moment somebody else knows it. If that bothers you — and it should — the answer
is to key a board from a station you own. A board keying itself, with nobody else in the
room, is being worked on and is not finished.
what does the key actually do?
It is the board's name in the arithmetic. Every baud it earns and every payment it signs is
signed with it, and the money is on the board, not on this computer and not on any website. A
board with no key can light up, hear the street and show you a screen, and it cannot own anything.