[Greymass Newsletter] Anchor Updates & We're Hiring!
Find out what we've been up to in August.
Hello and happy August! It’s been full-steam-ahead at Greymass lately, with everyone working hard on our products and growing as a team. It’s a lot to keep up with, so today we’re bringing you the highlights from our recent Medium posts. The greatest hits, if you will, straight to your inbox.
So if you’re curious about the latest updates to Anchor (particularly if you’re an Android user and you got a strange notification recently…) or if working at Greymass sounds interesting to you, then this edition of the Greymass Newsletter will be right up your alley.
We’re Hiring! Want to join us?
Here at Greymass, we have big dreams: that blockchain technology can be easy for everyone to use, that the internet can be a better place, etc. But to turn these big dreams into a reality, we need a bigger team! So we’re currently on the lookout for a Product Manager, an API Developer, and an SDK Developer.
If any of those jobs are in your wheelhouse, we’d love to chat. Or if you happen to know someone who’s on the lookout for a job, you could always forward them this newsletter. :)
Anchor Updates
First of all: thank you so much to everyone who donated to our latest Anchor Pomelo grant! We see you, we appreciate you, and we couldn’t do what we do without you. This newsletter will continue to feature Anchor updates, so you’ll be able to see in real-time what your donations make possible. ♥️
For Android Users: What is that Key Migration message?
Hey there, Android users who are on version 0.40 or higher! You either just downloaded Anchor or you’re keeping your app up to date, and for that we applaud you. But you may have noticed a message recently that looks like this:
Don’t worry, this is an expected result of recent updates and is not a scam. But with the recent wallet hacks in the crypto community, we completely understand users’ concerns and wanted to spend a minute explaining what this prompt is about.
You see, we’ve recently made some structural changes to how Anchor uses the Secure Enclave*. These changes will allow for app improvements like a higher number of private keys per account, and more secure transaction signing protocols.
*A Secure Enclave is a tiny piece of hardware in modern smartphones that’s designed to safely store info like your fingerprints and passwords.
So what should you do when this message pops up?
First, click OK to continue. At this point, Anchor will adjust the aliases created by the Secure Enclave to encrypt your keys to a new format that will allow for a greater number of private keys per account.
You will then be prompted to authenticate via your preferred method (PIN or biometrics) for each set of keys you have stored in Anchor.
Once the migration has completed, you will be brought to the regular home screen of Anchor for Android.
The Key Migration will only need to happen once and should not appear for any other reason. If you experience something contrary to the process listed above, please contact our support team at support@greymass.com or reach out via our Support Portal.
Now that’s out of the way – here’s what else is new for Anchor!
The Latest for Anchor Android
Anchor for Android is now upgraded to Version 0.41, with improvements like:
Updates to the transaction prompt and recovery page screens, so that users have a better experience
Upgrades for multiple processes including the ricardian contract cards rendering, migration flow and signing requests
An update to handle signing requests urls that use the “esr-anchor” scheme, so that we no longer need to use the “esr” scheme, which is used by other wallets as well
The Latest for Anchor Desktop
The desktop version of Anchor also recently got some love from our developers, with a V1.3.5 update that:
Fixed a bug that was affecting multi-signature transactions
Updated the camera permissions for M1 macs, so that the webcam can now be used to scan the QR code on an owner key certificate
Resolved issues during owner key certificate generation
And of particular interest to developers, added support for Jungle4
QUICK TIP: How to Never Lose Access to Your Anchor Wallet
You might have noticed that we mentioned the “owner key certificate” a lot in the last few bullet points. If you use Anchor and you’ve never printed your owner key certificate (and written down the words that go with it), now is a great time to do so!
The certificate prevents the worst-case crypto nightmare we’ve all heard about – where you lose access to your wallet and all the funds in it, and can never get them back. 😱 Print* the certificate, write down the words, store it in a safe place, and you can sleep easy knowing that will never happen to you.
*No printer? Here’s a hack - using the app or your system’s printing prompt, you can choose to save the certificate as a PDF instead. Just make sure that you type out the words and save them too, otherwise the certificate won’t work when you need it.
Want more Greymass?
If you want to dive deeper into what we’ve been up to lately, then check out the August Progress Update on Medium for the latest support articles, a sneak peek at what’s coming next for Unicove, and a fun bingo board that we use during Greymass meetings. (Can you guess whose cat meows the most on video calls?)
Cheers,
The Greymass Team