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Dakota Wallet Infrastructure

Welcome to Dakota’s wallet infrastructure—a sophisticated yet accessible platform for managing digital assets across blockchain networks. In the rapidly evolving world of digital finance, the challenge isn’t just securing assets; it’s creating systems that are secure, flexible, and genuinely usable by organizations of all sizes. Dakota’s wallet infrastructure represents a fundamental reimagining of how institutional wallets should work.

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How Dakota Wallets Work

At the heart of Dakota’s design is a simple but powerful idea: separate the concerns of identity, authorization, and policy. This separation creates unprecedented flexibility while maintaining absolute security.

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True Non-Custodial Architecture

When you create a Dakota wallet, you’re not trusting us with your assets. We never have access to your private keys—not even temporarily, not even encrypted. Instead, our infrastructure coordinates between your authorized signers, each maintaining their own keys, to execute transactions according to your defined policies. This non-custodial approach means that even in the impossible scenario where Dakota’s entire infrastructure was compromised, your assets remain secure. The cryptographic signatures required to move funds never leave your control. We facilitate coordination; you maintain ownership.

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Universal Addresses Across Networks

One of Dakota’s most elegant innovations is our approach to multi-chain support. Within a blockchain family (like all EVM-compatible chains), a single Dakota wallet provides one consistent address. Your Ethereum address is your Polygon address is your Arbitrum address. No more managing different wallets for different networks, no more confusion about which address to use where. This universality extends to operations as well. The same signer groups, the same policies, the same governance rules apply across all supported networks in a family. Deploy once, use everywhere.

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The Intent Model

Rather than directly executing blockchain transactions, Dakota uses an intent-based model. Every action—from simple transfers to complex DeFi operations—begins with an intent: a cryptographically signed declaration of what you want to accomplish. This intent model provides multiple layers of security and flexibility. Intents are human-readable, so signers know exactly what they’re authorizing. They’re cryptographically signed, preventing any tampering or replay attacks. They include idempotency keys, ensuring operations can’t be accidentally duplicated. And they’re evaluated by our policy engine before execution, enforcing your governance rules automatically.

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The Building Blocks

Dakota’s wallet infrastructure consists of four interconnected components, each serving a specific purpose in the overall security model:

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Wallets: Your Digital Vaults

A Dakota wallet is more than an address on a blockchain—it’s a complete financial instrument with built-in governance. Each wallet maintains a single address across its blockchain family, managed by your chosen signer groups and governed by your defined policies. Wallets can represent different organizational units (departments, projects, purposes) while maintaining consistent security standards.

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Signer Groups: Distributed Authority

Signer groups transform the single point of failure in traditional wallets into distributed, resilient authority. Each group consists of multiple signers, each with their own cryptographic keys. You might have an operations group for routine transactions, an executive group for large transfers, and a compliance group for regulated operations. Groups are dynamic—add new members when people join, remove them when they leave, all without changing wallet addresses or deploying new contracts.

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Policies: Automated Governance

Policies encode your organization’s rules directly into the wallet infrastructure. Need two signatures for transfers over $10,000? Three for anything over$100,000? Restrict certain operations to business hours? Block transfers to sanctioned addresses? Policies handle all of this automatically, evaluating every transaction against your rules in milliseconds. No human intervention required, no possibility of oversight or exception.

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Intents: Cryptographic Instructions

Every operation begins with an intent—a signed message describing the desired action. Intents ensure that operations are explicit (signers know what they’re signing), authentic (cryptographic signatures prevent forgery), and controlled (policies evaluate intents before execution). This intent layer provides the perfect balance between security and usability.

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Your Journey with Dakota Wallets

Getting started with Dakota wallets is straightforward, but the platform’s depth supports even the most complex requirements. Here’s how organizations typically evolve their wallet infrastructure: Start Simple: Begin with basic multi-signature wallets. Create a signer group with your key stakeholders, set up simple approval thresholds, and start transacting. Our Getting Started Guide walks you through this process step by step. Add Governance: As transaction volume grows, add policies to automate approval workflows. Different amounts require different approvals. Certain addresses need special handling. Time-based rules control when transactions can occur. The Policies Guide shows you how. Scale Operations: Expand to multiple wallets for different purposes. Create specialized signer groups for different roles. Implement sophisticated transaction patterns for DeFi integration. The Transactions Guide explores these advanced patterns. Ensure Security: Throughout your journey, Dakota’s cryptographic foundation ensures security. Understanding this foundation helps you make informed decisions about key management and signing strategies. The Cryptography Guide provides this deeper understanding.

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Explore the Documentation

This documentation provides everything you need to integrate and operate Dakota wallets:

• Concepts - Deep dive into the architectural components and how they work together
• Getting Started - Step-by-step guide to your first wallet integration
• Signer Groups - Understanding and managing distributed authority
• Policies - Implementing automated governance rules
• Transactions - Executing operations through the intent model
• Cryptography - Technical details of our cryptographic implementation