Vaults are organizational containers that group related wallets together. As an owner or administrator, you create vaults and wallets, configure wallet-level settings, and control which operations each wallet permits. This guide covers vault and wallet setup from the admin perspective.
- Go to Vaults in the console sidebar.
- Select Create vault.
- Enter a name and description for the vault.
- Select Create.
Use vaults to separate wallets by:
- Business unit — one vault per department or team
- Risk profile — separate hot wallets (frequent transactions) from cold storage
- Asset class — group wallets by blockchain or asset type
- Environment — separate operational wallets from test wallets in sandbox
- Open the vault where you want the wallet.
- Select Create wallet.
- Enter a wallet name.
- Select the MPC quorum to use for signing (or HSM in sandbox).
- Select the blockchain the wallet supports.
- Select Create.
Palisade places the wallet in a CREATED state and moves it to PROVISIONED after generating the wallet address. For MPC wallets, quorum members must approve the key generation before the wallet becomes provisioned.
Palisade operates a zero-trust security model. Every new wallet blocks outgoing transactions by default. You must complete three steps before a wallet can send: create a transaction policy, register destination addresses, and enable outgoing transactions. See the sections below.
Open a wallet and select the Settings gear icon to access wallet-level configuration. The settings page has the following tabs:
View wallet metadata including wallet ID, wallet address, public key, vault information, correlation ID, and external ID. All values are copyable.
View key management information for the wallet, including the MPC quorum assignment.
Control outgoing transaction behavior for the wallet:
Three conditions must be met before a wallet can send:
- At least one transaction policy exists for the asset you want to send.
- At least one address book entry exists for the destination (not required for internal wallet-to-wallet transfers).
- Outgoing transactions are explicitly enabled on the wallet.
To enable outgoing transactions:
- Open the wallet.
- Select Enable transactions.
You can disable outgoing transactions at any time from the wallet's Settings page.
See Unlock outgoing transactions for the full walkthrough.
Raw signing allows the wallet to sign arbitrary data payloads, not just standard transfer transactions. Enable this only if your integration requires it.
- Open the wallet and select the Settings gear icon, then go to the Transactions section.
- Toggle the Raw signing switch to enabled.
Raw signing permits signing any data payload. Enable it only on wallets that need it, and pair it with strict transaction policies and approval groups.
Automatic freeze places all incoming deposits into a frozen state until you manually review and unfreeze them. Use this for compliance-sensitive wallets that require manual review of every deposit.
- Open the wallet and select the Settings gear icon, then go to the Transactions section.
- Toggle Freeze transactions by default to enabled.
See Configure transaction freeze controls for full details.
Enable or disable asset sweeping on the wallet. See Configure asset sweeping for setup instructions.
Add tags to wallets for organizational purposes.
- Use descriptive names — include the purpose, blockchain, and environment in wallet names (for example, "Treasury - ETH - Production").
- Start with deposit-only — leave outgoing transactions disabled until you have configured policies, addresses, and approval groups.
- Separate operational wallets from cold storage — use different vaults with different quorums and approval requirements.
- Minimize raw signing — only enable raw signing on wallets that specifically need it.
- Enable automatic freeze on compliance-sensitive wallets — use default freeze for wallets that handle funds subject to AML or sanctions screening.
- Create your first vault — Step-by-step vault creation
- Create your first wallet — Step-by-step wallet creation
- Manage wallets — Reference documentation
- Unlock outgoing transactions — Full guide to enabling sends
- Blockchains and tokens — Feature availability by chain