Accounts and HD Wallets

How wallet-cli organizes what you see in list.

Seeds and accounts

A seed wallet is one BIP39 mnemonic; it can derive many accounts. Ids reflect that:

wlt_z259a1hq        ← seedId (one mnemonic)
wlt_z259a1hq.0      ← accountId = seedId.index (one account, one address per family)
wlt_z259a1hq.1

create makes a new seed plus account #0; derive --seed-id wlt_… adds the next account (or an explicit --index) from the same mnemonic. Restoring the mnemonic elsewhere re-derives the same addresses — which is why the mnemonic is the real backup and the master password is only local protection. Note that create does not print the mnemonic; run backup to export it to an offline file.

One account, one address per chain family

A key is not tied to a chain, so an account holds one address per family — a TRON base58 address and an EVM 0x address — derived from the same seed at different BIP44 coin types:

m/44'/195'/<index>'/0/0   TRON
m/44'/60'/0'/0/<index>    EVM

Both are real, independent addresses: they hold separate balances, and funding one does nothing for the other. list -o json and current -o json report them together, under addresses keyed by family, with derivationPath naming the template each came from:

{"accountId":"wlt_z259a1hq.0","label":"main","type":"seed","index":0,
 "addresses":{"tron":"TE9kPMtaMjfZN95CuPRsCHUQGWwx9EcJW8","evm":"0x7B28FE10FBccE88c3967ff0Fd64f1ffB46b46C9C"},
 "seedId":"wlt_z259a1hq",
 "derivationPath":{"tron":"m/44'/195'/0'/0/0","evm":"m/44'/60'/0'/0/0"}}

Which one a command acts as follows the selected network, not a setting on the account: --network nile uses the TRON address, --network sepolia the EVM one. Text listings show one family at a time and say how many accounts they left out; JSON always carries every family.

Not every account has both. A watch or ledger account holds exactly one address — the one you pasted, or the one the device app derives — so it carries a family field and only works on networks of that family. Selecting it on another is family_mismatch.

Account types

Type	Created by	Secret stored locally?	Can sign?	Families
seed	create, import mnemonic, derive	encrypted seed	yes	TRON + EVM
private-key	import private-key, import keystore	encrypted key; no derivation possible	yes	TRON + EVM
ledger	import ledger	none (watch-only entry)	on the device	the one --app selects
watch	import watch	none	no — queries only	the one the address is

The active account

Most wallet-bound commands need an account. Resolution order:

1. --account <accountId|label|address> on the command;
2. otherwise the active account — set with use <account>, shown by current and the (active) marker in list.

Labels are unique, 1–64 chars, renameable (rename) — the stable handle is always the accountId.

Lifecycle

• backup <account> exports secret + metadata to a file created with mode 0600 and never overwritten (in the current working directory by default). Treat the file as the secret it contains — and mind where you run it, since the CLI does not check whether that directory is shared or version-controlled. The native format carries the seed or key itself, so it covers every family at once; backup --keystore carries a single private key, so --network selects which family's key it holds.
• delete removes accounts; deleting an HD wallet cascades from the seed root — all derived accounts of that seed go with it. The on-chain assets are untouched: re-import the mnemonic to regain access.
• Losing the master password is unrecoverable locally; the escape hatch is always the mnemonic → import mnemonic.

See also

list · create · import · Security model

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