Coldkeys (Bittensor)

A coldkey is the long-term, security-sensitive key in Bittensor. It controls your TAO and stake and is used to sign financial operations.

References: Wallets (learnbittensor.org), Working with Keys, BTCLI Reference

Responsibilities

• Hold and secure TAO balances and delegated stake.
• Authorize staking, unstaking, moving stake, and transfers.
• Own one or more hotkeys used for operational roles.

Security practices

• Keep the coldkey and its seed phrase offline when possible.
• Never place the coldkey on internet-exposed nodes used for mining/validating.
• Verify official binaries and documentation before performing key operations.

Operational relationship

• Coldkey provides ownership and control; hotkeys derive authority for operational actions.
• If a hotkey is compromised, the coldkey can rotate or revoke without exposing funds (assuming best practices).

Tooling

• btcli and the Wallet SDK support creating, importing, and managing coldkeys.
• Use minimal on-chain interactions from environments you fully trust.

Further reading

• Wallets, Coldkeys and Hotkeys
• Working with Keys
• BTCLI Reference