Board the Lifeboat

Boarding takes one transaction and one file you must not lose. Do it while Ed25519 is still safe. After Q-day, registration is frozen.

Steps

Open Lifeboat in the app and connect your wallet.
Make the key. The browser picks a random secret and builds the key from 26 hash chains. Nothing leaves the tab.
Save it offline. Download the key file and store it somewhere that is not this computer: a USB stick, a password manager, paper.
Board. Your wallet signs one transaction that writes the key’s fingerprint to your Lifeboat account.

The page then shows Boarded at slot … with a link to the account on Solscan.

What making the key looks like

This builds a real Lifeboat key right here, with the same steps as the app.

26 chains × 255 hashes

Public key: not built yet
Fingerprint (goes on-chain): not built yet

Runs in this tab with a random secret and is thrown away on reload. It is the same construction the app uses for your Lifeboat.

What is in the key file

{
  "kind": "quantark-lifeboat-v1",
  "holder": "<your wallet>",
  "lmots": "LMOTS_SHA256_N24_W8",
  "id": "<16 bytes hex>",
  "q": 0,
  "seed": "<32 bytes hex, the secret>",
  "publicKey": "<24 bytes hex>",
  "commitment": "<32 bytes hex, what goes on-chain>"
}

Only commitment is published. It is a hash of the public key, so the chain learns nothing that helps an attacker, quantum or not. Format details in Formats and hashing.

Boarding again

Boarding again with a new key replaces the old fingerprint. Keep only the newest file, and only board again if the old file was lost or exposed.

What boarding does today

Boarding records the fingerprint and makes your wallet show up as boarded in every coin’s Lifeboat coverage. Snapshots include it. The claim that uses it to recover a balance after Q-day is not built yet. See Lifeboat and snapshots.