Short names

#Claiming a name

Choose Receive, then Get a short name, like @ada, or Short names in the menu. Type the name you want and claim it. The fee, and what becomes public, are shown before anything is sent.

A name is:

• 3 to 20 characters: the letters a to z, the digits 0 to 9 and the underscore, starting with a letter;
• lower case only. People may type it with or without its @, in any case: @Ada and ada both find @ada;
• without the word "opacus", so that no name can speak as Opacus.

Only plain Latin letters are allowed, so no two names can look the same while being different: a Cyrillic а cannot pass for a Latin a.

A name costs a small fee, paid once from your private balance: on the testnet 0.002 SOL or 0.3 tUSD. Your wallet does not appear in the claim.

First come, first served. Whoever claims a name first holds it.

#Paying a name

In Send, type the name, like @ada. Before you pay, the app shows the Opacus address the name points to and since when it points there. If you paid that name before from this browser and it pointed somewhere else then, the app says so: its keeper may have pointed it elsewhere, or let it go and someone else took it. Check with them before you pay.

A name works in a list of payments too: a line like @ada, 1200.

#Pointing it elsewhere, or letting it go

Your names are in Short names in the menu, or under Your names in Receive. For each, you can:

• Point elsewhere: to another Opacus address, your own or anyone's;
• Let it go: anyone may then claim it after you. Its fee is not given back.

Only you can do either. Each name is kept by a key of its own, which your account makes for that name alone, on any device.

#What is public

A name is a public record on Solana, like a phone book entry:

• Public: the name, the Opacus address it points to, when it was claimed and when it last moved, and the claim's fee.
• Private: whose name it is, your wallet, your balance, and who pays the name or how much.

Nothing ties two names of one account together, or a name to your wallet. A name says where to pay, not who holds the address.

A claim made right after a deposit could be tied to it by its time; the app tells you when you deposited in the last day.

#Good to know

• On the testnet, one connection can claim 5 names a day.
• A name's keeper can point it anywhere at any time. Pay a name you trust, as you would an address.