Frequently Asked Questions from Users
This page indicates some frequently asked questions that pertain to users of the SilentVault wallets.
Question: What is the difference between SVWeb and SVSpark?
The SVWeb app is a wallet app. Although it is downloaded from a web page and may be launched from a web page, it actually employs a Java virtual machine (JVM) to eliminate the large number of security issues with web browsers. SVSpark is a Spark extension, built in XMPP, the extensible messaging and presence protocol. SVSpark has chat rooms, a help conference room for tech support, and other Jabber chat features, including Off the Record (OTR) for secure messaging.
Question: How do I add bitcoin or litecoin to my wallet?
Once you have logged into your wallet (see tutorial here) you will want to go to the exchanges tab (see tutorial here), pick an exchange (there is currently only one) and log into that exchange. At the top of the exchanges tab screen you should see a line of black menu items including buy and sell. To add bitcoin, go to the buy menu item, choose it, and fill out the screen. You'll be prompted to make a bitcoin payment to a particular wallet hash. Once that is completed, after six confirmations, or about an hour, your Silent Bitcoin will appear in your wallet. The same process works for Litecoin.
Question: I made a payment, why don't I have my Silent Bitcoin?
The process takes about an hour because we wait for six confirmations before acting on a payment. We do so as a security measure, to ensure the integrity of the payments we receive.
Question: How do I redeem my Silent Bitcoin for bitcoin?
The process is very similar to adding bitcoin or litecoin to your wallet. Once you have logged into your wallet, go to the exchanges tab and log into the exchange. At the top of the exchanges screen find the black menu item "sell" and click on it. You will be prompted to indicate the destination hash for the bitcoin where you want it to be received. The same process is used to redeem Silent Litecoin to your choice of litecoin destination wallet address.
Question: Are there any fees for buying or selling Silent Bitcoin or Silent Litecoin?
No. There are no fees charged to buy Silent Bitcoin with bitcoin. There is no fee to sell Silent Bitcoin for bitcoin paid out to the destination address of your choice. The system charges no fee for buying or selling Silent Litecoin. There are fees charged for purchasing tokens, and the default setting for new wallets is to buy tokens automatically. If you don't wish to buy tokens, you can change that setting in your wallet. Tokens are needed to use the internal wallet functions of making payments, storing receipts, and so forth, so you will need tokens to make use of the wallet. By setting your wallet to buy tokens manually, you may reduce the number of tokens you buy to those you need immediately. You can further reduce your costs by setting your wallet not to store receipts, which also reduces the records your wallet keeps of transactions you make. When you fund your Silent Bitcoin sale by paying Silent Bitcoin to the exchange's wallet, your wallet will be charged the cost in tokens of making a payment, 12 tokens, or about 35 cents.
Question: How much do tokens cost?
The published cost per token set by the issuer of Silent Bitcoin is 0.0001 bitcoin. On 7 January 2015 the exchange rate published at XE.com for bitcoin to US dollar was $291.375. So, tokens cost about 2.9 cents each on that day. The cost for tokens is set by each currency issuer. You can read about the cost of tokens, and their various uses, in our terms and conditions. Obviously, as the price of bitcoin changes, the cost of each token changes. You can find the current bitcoin price on various web sites. XE.com Bitcoin to USD
Question: How do I renew my expired vouchers?
There is a menu item in your client for this purpose. In SVSpark, look at the very top of the application window. Just under the title bar there is a menu which says SilentVault Spark, Contacts Actions Help Wallet. You want the Wallet menu, and the Expired Vouchers item. When you choose this item, a new screen should appear that shows your expired vouchers. Click the radio button next to the voucher you wish to renew or redeem, and click the renew button to renew, or the redeem button to redeem.
Question: Can I set up to accept Silent Bitcoin at my web site?
Yes. There is a separate FAQ for Merchants that covers many topics related to accepting payments in the SilentVault system. Basically, you need to understand two things. First, SilentVault is built on the Voucher-Safe architecture, so accepting SilentVault currencies is just like accepting other Voucher-Safe currencies. Second, there is an existing shopping cart interface for creating web site tools to accept all Voucher-Safe currencies, found at OnionPay.com. We are currently working on a demo for a Silent Bitcoin tipjar.
Question: What happens if your web site is down for maintenance?
You can keep track of our routine maintenance schedule and other postings about our systems at Our Announcements Forum. Basically, when you open the SVWeb app, it will check the site it was downloaded from for updates. If you built your copy of the wallet app from source, this setting may be different. If you have any difficulty with our apps, please contact us. The SVWeb app will hang while starting (during the check for updates) if the site you downloaded it from cannot be reached. There are two such sites: silentvault.com and voucher-safe.org. So if one were down for an extended period, you could still be up and running by installing the SVWeb wallet app from the other site. Whether you roll your own from source code, install from silentvault.com, or from voucher-safe.org, your wallet particulars remain unchanged. This situation does not apply to SVSpark which does not automatically check for updates at start-up. Again, whether you use the SVWeb wallet or SVSpark, the contents of your wallet and procedures for logging in are the same.
Question: When I bail in my bitcoin, who owns it?
The bitcoin is held in trust by the Silent Bitcoin Trust, which causes vouchers to be issued in the SilentVault environment to benefit the SilentVault wallet you've associated with the bitcoin payment. After the bitcoin is paid over to the Silent Bitcoin Trust's wallet address, and after six confirmations of this transaction, Silent Bitcoin is placed in your SilentVault wallet. Your voucher for the Silent Bitcoin is a digital representation of your ownership of the bitcoin held by the Silent Bitcoin Trust.
Question: If the SilentVault team is put out of action through death, disaster, imprisonment, court orders, or indefinite detention without charges, what happens to my bitcoin?
The SilentVault system is not entirely dependent on its team continuing to exist. If the entire team were eliminated by some major event (such as an extinction level natural disaster), the issue of whether you can
connect to your SilentVault wallet may not be uppermost on your mind. However, as long as the Internet exists, servers in the SilentVault ecosystem should continue to operate. Because our system does not make
use of any functions on the SilentVault.com server, the disappearance of that server won't eliminate any wallets, nor would it eliminate your ability to access the Secure Distributed Storage, Distributed Hash
Table, and Openfire Servers using your wallet. If you downloaded your copy of our SVWeb wallet app from silentvault.com and that site is not available, switch to SVSpark, visit voucher-safe.org, or compile your own copy of the wallet app from source.
In certain worst-case scenarios, the issuer and publisher code for the Voucher-Safe system may become open source. In other worst-case scenarios, the SilentVault team may publish and do our best to broadcast
information indicating an impending deadline after which it may become impossible for any of us to remit bitcoin to blockchain wallets. We do have plans, contingency provisions, and a legal team dedicated to
avoiding worst case scenarios. Necessarily, though, there is always risk to any technology, risk to any system you use to safeguard your privacy. The extent to which it makes sense to you to hold Silent
Bitcoin may depend on how you view those risks, as well as how you calculate the risks against the rewards of greater autonomy and freedom.
What Happens if SilentVault Goes Bankrupt or Is Shut Down?
There is no way to be sure exactly what would happen. However, there are risks in our system, and we discuss them in considerable detail here. Exactly what happens depends on matters out of our control. So, if all our servers, or all servers in the world, were shut down, that would affect things differently than if only the SilentVault.com server were shut down, since none of the wallet data is stored on our web server.
User funds are never used to pay company expenses. However, access to wallets depends on the company continuing to pay its expenses, including for those servers where data is stored. So, in the event a bankruptcy were approaching, we would do our best to notify customers through our various outlets - including this site and our Twitter account, for examples - to encourage users to recover their funds immediately, or spend them out to external wallets. In the event a receiver were appointed, users willing to give up some of their anonymity would be able to present information about the vouchers in their wallets, provided the servers are still accessible, or about what had been in their wallets using print-outs or screen captures.
There are various ways in which users can mitigate the risks of SilentVault's system, including keeping a zero balance in their wallet. Again, the risks and the ways they may be mitigated are discussed in some detail here.