Elastos Essentials
Elastos Essentials is a free mobile app for Android and iOS that wraps every part of Elastos you'd otherwise need separate tools for: a multi-chain crypto wallet, your decentralized identity (DID), a Web3 dApp browser, encrypted storage, governance voting, NFTs, and more — all behind one recovery phrase.
If you're new to Elastos and just want to do things (hold ELA, vote, mint a DID, use a dApp), this is the app you install.
Why a super-wallet?
Most crypto users juggle a wallet for one chain, a separate app for identity, another for storage, another for governance. Essentials collapses all of that into one place:
| What you can do | Where it lives in the app |
|---|---|
| Hold and send crypto on 22+ chains from one recovery phrase | Wallet tab |
| Receive ELA, USDT, BTC, ETH, etc. | Wallet tab → token → Receive |
| Stake ELA and vote for Supernodes | Wallet tab → Staking |
| Vote for the Elastos DAO Council | Governance widget (Advanced mode) |
| Create and publish your DID | Identity tab |
| Sign in to dApps without an email/password | Built-in dApp Browser + WalletConnect |
| Store files in your personal Hive vault | Hive Manager |
| Send and claim crypto Red Packets | Red Packets |
| Manage NFTs (ERC-721 / ERC-1155) | Wallet tab → below tokens |
| Run a multi-sig wallet (Standard or Gnosis Safe) | Wallet tab → Create multi-sig |
The whole thing runs from one 12-word recovery phrase. Lose your phone, install Essentials on a new one, restore — everything comes back.
Get the app
Essentials ships on both major mobile stores. Search "Elastos Essentials" in the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store, or follow the install links from elastos.net. Both builds are free.
Several community-led forks of Essentials are actively maintained under the Elastos DAO umbrella. If you want the latest features and fixes, check which org is shipping the build you download. The original repos still work for everything documented here.
Where to start
If you've never used Essentials before, start at the top and work down:
- Home Screen and Navigation — Lite vs Advanced mode, what the widgets do, how to find things.
- Wallet Management — Create or restore a wallet, back up your recovery phrase, connect a Ledger hardware wallet.
- Identity and Contacts — Set up your DID, edit your profile, manage credentials.
- dApp Browser — Use Web3 apps inside Essentials, enable it on iOS, avoid phishing sites.
- Hive Vault — Pick a storage provider and set up your encrypted personal vault.
- NFTs and Red Packets — View your NFTs, claim BPoS staking NFTs, send crypto gifts.
- Multi-Signature Wallets — Set up 2-of-3 (or any threshold) shared wallets for teams or extra security.
- Security and Privacy — Master password, biometric unlock, what's protected and what isn't.
What Essentials does not try to be
Worth being clear up front:
- It's not a custodial exchange. You hold your own keys. If you lose your recovery phrase, no one can restore your funds for you.
- It's not a hardware wallet replacement for very large holdings. For higher assurance, pair it with a Ledger over Bluetooth (Essentials supports this on supported devices).
- It's not a node. It talks to public RPC endpoints by default. You can point it at your own endpoints in the developer settings if you prefer.
Building on Essentials?
If you're a developer integrating Essentials into a dApp, identity flow, or signing pipeline — the in-app provider injection, Connectivity SDK, multi-sig coordination protocol, and backend architecture are documented separately at Essentials Architecture.