Basics
MERKI documentation
What MERKI is, who it is for and how its one-time keys protect a Robinhood Chain account. Start here before you open the wallet.
MERKI is an experimental smart wallet on Robinhood Chain whose keys only you hold. Your account is a small contract we call a keyhold. It accepts one kind of signature: a Winternitz one-time signature built from Keccak-256 hash chains, checked through the standard ERC-4337 EntryPoint. The address stays put for as long as you use it, while the signing key behind it moves on after every operation.
Who it is for
People who hold assets for the long run and want that store kept apart from the wallet they trade with. The everyday wallet stays as it is. The keyhold is the place you move savings to and touch rarely.
The idea in five lines
- The worry. A big enough quantum machine might turn an exposed elliptic-curve public key back into its secret, and any account that has ever sent a transaction has left that public key on chain for good.
- The answer. Authorise the account with a signature that only needs a hash function. Hash-based signatures are not affected by the algorithm that breaks elliptic curves.
- The rule. A Winternitz key is safe for one signature. Each signature therefore names the next key, and the keyhold moves to it in the same step.
- Usable now. Under ERC-4337 the account contract itself decides which signatures count, so the chain needs no upgrade.
- The limit. This protects how the account is authorised. The chain, your device and your activity stay exactly as exposed, and as public, as before. See Limits & safeguards.
What is in the box
| Part | What it does |
|---|---|
| Keyhold contract | Holds your assets, checks one-time signatures, retires each key and stores the next one. |
| Keyhold forge | Creates keyholds at addresses that are known in advance from your first two keys. |
| Hash-chain verifier | A Solidity library that walks each chain forward and rebuilds the key hash (about 106k gas). |
| Web wallet | Makes the phrase, derives keys, signs in the browser, keeps a journal of used keys and submits through your connected wallet. |
| Deployment check | A script that proves deployed contracts match this source byte for byte. |
The keyhold forge is not deployed yet, so the wallet runs in practice mode. This page will list its address once it is live. Next: why a different signature matters, or go straight to getting started.