How to Use New Sora Wallet Options

Sara Garifullina
6 min readJun 30, 2020

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Hooray! We are updating our Sora Application and there are many new options in the Wallet, including the ETH bridge (we know, you have been waiting for it 😉 ).

Right now it is being tested, so for Eth we use Ropsten Testnet. You can get test ERC20 tokens here.

Android and iOS Testnet applications are already available, as well as a desktop app and a block explorer.

How Sora Bridge works

This is important to understand to use the Wallet.

Sora runs on HL Iroha blockchain — it is a private blockchain and to connect it to “the outside world”, we created a bridge to Ethereum network (Ropsten Testnet for testing).

So, there are XOR tokens running on Iroha and XOR tokens running on Ethereum — and now you can exchange them and then, if needed, exchange to other currencies. To make that type of transfers possible, when you update Sora App, a new Ethereum address will be created for you — it will have the same passphrase as your Sora wallet and will be called Associated Ethereum Wallet.

To make an exchange, there will be a fee for transfer on both XOR side and Ethereum (so called “Gas”). Let’s see, what it will look like on the example of Android Sora Application.

Note! In most cases, the system will offer you to make the most efficient transfers — for example, if you have enough native XOR tokens and you want to sent XOR within the Sora system — it will send these tokens and not the ERC20 ones. And vice versa — if you have enough XORs in Ethereum, it will send them to Ethereum address, and not the native tokens.

Case 1. Transferring native XOR into another Sora Network address

This is the option that was available all along — when you transfer native XOR tokens within the Sora system. The transfer fee is minimal and the transaction is almost immediate. No miner’s fee will be taken because the tokens will not leave the inner system.

To make this transfer you just need to send the XORs that you have within the system, and enter the Sora address as recipient (Sora addresses start with did_sora_……). If you have enough native XORs, on iOS you will only see a red Sora icon in the “Token” field of the transfer page and no miner’s fee, and in Android, you will only see “Sora Transfer” in Sender ID on the same page. You can also add a note to such transfer:

Case 2. Transferring Sora-Network XOR into Ethereum address (XOR ERC20)

In this case, you can transfer Sora-Network based tokens to Ethereum — both your own Associated address and other addresses. In this case, there will me a bigger fee within the Sora network + you will need to add some amount of Ether into your newly created Ethereum wallet — at least enough to cover the Gas to perform the transfer.

In the first case (exchanging tokens for yourself), you will still see your XOR tokens in your Sora wallet (they will be withdrawn from your native XOR count and added back into the same wallet, but will become ERC20 XOR that you will also be able to track using your new Eth address in any Ethereum explorer – for testing period use Ropsten Testnet).

Let’s see how you can do that:

First, you need to choose to send “XOR to My Ethereum account”, and enter the transaction details. Please, notice that the receiver address is marked by a grey Sora icon — it means that it is a transaction with Ethereum.

In Miner fee you can choose one of the fees — for slower or faster processing of the transaction.

After the details are confirmed, the transaction is sent. As it is an Ethereum transaction, it takes more time to process: the transaction will be pending for some time and the balance might change (like you can see here — the miner’s fee was not deducted instantly).

After the transaction is considered successful the balances become stable. To check the operation details, just click on the transaction.

Sending XOR to another Ethereum wallet is pretty similar, just enter the address into the search box:

Other steps are the same as when you send XOR to your own Ethereum wallet.

Case 3. Transferring XOR ERC20 into Sora Network

Remember, how I mentioned in the first case that native XOR will be transferred within the Sora network? It is the most financially efficient option (with as few fees as possible). But if you do not have enough native XOR tokens, the system will instead offer you to send your XOR ERC20 tokens to a Sora network address (did_sora….).

Otherwise, the transfer is done the same way — only difference is that the icon of the Token being sent will turn grey, meaning that ERC20 tokens are going to be sent to a Sora system address.

Cases 4 and 5. Combined transfers

If there is a situation, when the transfer can be made only if both types of tokens are combined, no matter to what type of address it is being sent, a combined transfer will be applied.

In that case you will see that both types of tokens are used:

So, overall, the system works like that:

  • there is a combined wallet for two different types of XOR — native one, based on Sora-Network and an ERC20 one — based on Ethereum network. During the transfers, icons of the native token will be red, and the ERC20 ones — grey
  • there is an Ethereum wallet to pay the fees in Gas that are used for ERC20 transfers
  • the system will suggest the most efficient transfer based on your balance — if possible, it will send native XORs within the Sora system and ERC20 XORs within Ethereum
  • but if the balance is not enough, other type of token will be transferred or even both of them at the same time

Do not forget that if you have any questions, you can always ask in our Sora community on Telegram: https://t.me/sora_testnet

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