Desktop wallet basic usage
This is the Hydra wallet “My Wallet” page, it shows the following:
- Available
- Pending
- Total
Other Tokens
If you own any tokens, they'll show here (including their balance and contract info).
This section shows transactions recorded for your wallet, including incoming, outgoing and staking transactions.
On the left side of the wallet, we can find basic wallet functionality such as:
- Send
- Receive
- Smart Contract
- Transactions (This is a more detailed and full historical set of transactions)
On the send menu, we have different functions, all are quite basic to learn and use.
Pay to: Here we’ll enter the address we want to send Hydra to (Only Hydra ignition addresses will work).
Label: Optional, as it’s stated, it’s just a name/tag
Amount: Here we enter the amount of Hydra we want to send
Once all fields are covered, we can click on the “Send” button and the Hydra coins will be sent to the address we entered above.
Here we can display our Hydra wallet address and also generate new ones!
This is useful for receiving payments from more than one sender and helps you keep track of each transaction while at the same time improving your anoymity.
To obtain the deposit address, simply click on “Request Payment” and you’ll see a popup dialog showing your Hydra wallet deposit addresses. All displayed addresses belong to the same wallet.
Here you can see both incoming and outgoing transactions, shows every historical transactions.
First, let’s encrypt this wallet before making the backup, this will allow the backup to be encrypted as well. Go to settings -> Encrypt wallet.
Next, let’s enter the password for this wallet, please remember this password because without it you’ll lose access to your Hydra.
Lastly, we get a warning reminding us to save/remember this passphrase as there's no way to recover your Hydra without it
NOTE: On Hydra 0.18x, the wallet doesn't restart after encrypting. After you see the above message, the wallet is already encrypted and ready to use.
To unlock the wallet for sending and private key commands use Settings - Unlock Wallet to reach the Unlock wallet page.
Use the Unlock wallet page to completely unlock the wallet(uncheck the For staking only box). To unlock the wallet for staking only, follow the procedure for Staking below. NOTE If the wallet is unlocked for staking only on this Unlock wallet page, the Stake menu Staking button must also be clicked to the right to activate staking.
It's recommended to make the backup after encrypting the wallet.
To access the backup option, we go into File/Backup Wallet and then we enter route and name.
After the backup’s name is entered and we’ve verified the route where the wallet is being saved to, we can click on save. Now we’ve successfully backed up our wallet.
Go to File -> Restore wallet, this will open a dialog which will allow us to restore directly from the Hydra-core Hydra wallet!
Here we selected the wallet backup with the reindex option selected (salvagewallet can also be used if necessary).
In order for staking to take place we must:
- 1.Have a transaction with more than 500 confirmations on the blockchain
- 2.Unlock our wallet prior to staking (preferably before reaching 500 confirmations on your inputs).
- 3.Keep our wallet open at all times, otherwise even if our coins are matured, they won’t be able to stake.
Here’s how to unlock the wallet for staking only, starting with version 0.18.2. Select the main menu "Stake” option to show the Stake page. Click the Staking button to the right, then enter the passphrase to unlock for staking only and activate staking.
IMPORTANT: If unlocking the wallet using Settings – Unlock wallet and the Unlock wallet page, the Stake menu Staking button must also be clicked to the right to activate staking.

Remember to have your wallet open 24/7, if you close it, you won’t be able to stake
Please make sure “for staking only” is selected.
On Hydra 0.16x, the console tab can be accessed from the "Windows" menu, as shown here:
The console tab is incredibly useful, although it's mostly for advanced uses, it is a very powerful tool and can perform actions that aren't really possible using the graphical interface.
Last modified 2yr ago