These days, most people expect messaging apps to claim end-to-end encryption. The term is used so much that it hardly needs explaining, even though not everyone can define it. Apps know this and often use it as their main reason to earn your trust.

But encryption is only part of the story. Who holds the keys? What can the app still see, even if your messages are hidden? Could the company access your account if needed?

These questions matter even more when a messenger does more than just send messages. EXTRA SAFE offers private messaging and a self-custodial wallet, so your security goes beyond just chats. Here’s how our security works for both, with a look at each protection method.

The Technology Behind EXTRA SAFE Security

Let’s take a closer look at the security core, with a full breakdown of the technologies behind it.

Cryptographic Identity and User-Controlled Keys

When you open EXTRA SAFE for the first time, you pick a display name, and that's what you see. Underneath it, though, your real identity isn't the name. It's a Hierarchical Deterministic (HD) wallet: the same kind of cryptographic wallet that holds crypto assets, generated from a single mnemonic phrase. There's no username in the traditional sense and no password, because the wallet itself does that job.

Every action you take, logging in, sending a message, starting a call, gets authorized by a digital signature from that wallet's private key. The signature proves you own the key without ever revealing it, and the key itself never leaves your device.

The exact standards behind this, for anyone who wants them, are laid out in the Technical White Paper

This means controlling your account is the same as controlling your private key. EXTRA SAFE can check your signature, but it cannot create one itself. So, EXTRA SAFE cannot act on your account without you.

End-to-End Encryption

Every message sent through EXTRA SAFE takes the same path: encrypted on your device; decrypted only on the recipient’s.

Two devices work out a shared secret between them, using the same underlying math as your identity, and that secret becomes the key that encrypts your messages. Each file gets its own separate key, so if one file's key were ever exposed, nothing beyond that single file would be.

The specifics — ECDH over secp256k1, AES-256-GCM for messages, AES-CTR for files — are in the Technical White Paper

None of this information reaches EXTRA SAFE’s servers in a readable form. The servers only relay and briefly store encrypted messages, but they cannot decrypt anything that passes through them.

Data Minimization by Design

When you create an account, you don’t need to provide a phone number or email address. This is our deliberate choice.

EXTRA SAFE doesn't tie your in-app activity to a phone number, an email, or your real name, so there's no identity profile sitting behind it the way there is on most apps. EXTRA SAFE does not store message content, your contact labels, or the reasons for your conversations.

For a deeper look at why this distinction matters, read Data Minimization Explained: Why Data Privacy in Messaging Apps Should Matter to You.

Peer-to-Peer Communication

A voice or video call in EXTRA SAFE aims to connect directly from your device to your recipient’s device, taking the shortest path possible.

This direct connection uses WebRTC and works whenever both devices can reach each other. If a network blocks this path, a TURN server relays the encrypted media, but does not store or read it. A separate signaling server helps the devices connect, but it only sees connection details, not the call itself.

What Does This Mean for You?

Now let’s see what all of this actually looks like in everyday use.

Your Identity and Contacts

Signing up never asks for your phone number, your email, or your real name, and none of that changes once you're using the app.

Your EXTRA SAFE Number acts as your address, not your identity. It is public so others can find and message you. Your display name is also visible, helping people recognize you. The names you give your contacts stay private and are encrypted. EXTRA SAFE never asks you to upload your device’s address book.

Your Chats, Calls, and Shared Files

A conversation in EXTRA SAFE stays between the people having it. In practice, that means nobody else gets access: not EXTRA SAFE, not an attacker trying to breach the servers, not someone trying to listen in on a call.

• For chats, messages and files sit on EXTRA SAFE's servers encrypted, and only temporarily. The ephemeral messaging is a second layer of security: once your contact has viewed the message, it disappears from the chat on whatever timer you set, anywhere from one minute to a month.

• For calls, nothing is stored at all. Calls connect directly when possible, and the signaling server that helps set up the connection never handles the audio or video itself.

One thing worth knowing: deleting a message clears it from the chat, not any copy your contact already saved somewhere outside it. That part stays on them.

For a closer look at what this feels like in daily use, read 6 Ways to Make Private Conversations Easy with EXTRA SAFE Chat.

Your Assets

EXTRA SAFE’s wallet is self-custodial, which leads to an important question: who controls the funds inside it?

You have full control. EXTRA SAFE cannot freeze your funds, move them without your signature, or restore access for you, because you never gave it that power.

This also means you have one important responsibility. Your recovery phrase is the only way to regain access if you lose your device. If you lose the phrase and have no backup, you lose the account for good.

We explain storage options, from paper to encrypted backups, in How to Store Your Recovery Phrase Securely in EXTRA SAFE.

Controlling your funds is one thing, but what a stranger can see about them is another. By default, a stablecoin transfer runs on a public blockchain, where anyone who knows the wallet address can look up every balance and transfer tied to it. On Avalanche, EXTRA SAFE closes that gap with Private Balances: convert a stablecoin to its private form, and the amount disappears from public view, while the transfer itself still shows up as confirmed.

Read more in Pay in Stablecoins Without Making Your Financial History Public: Explaining Private Balances.

How It All Fits Together

There is no single feature that makes this work. Instead, it’s a combination of cryptographic identity, encryption, data minimization, and peer-to-peer connections. Each one protects you in a different way, and together they offer stronger security than any one feature alone.