Protocol Flow

The complete SPECTER payment flow from key generation to spending, with diagrams and code references

From payment to spendable funds

The protocol has six stages. Each one exists to separate public discovery from private ownership while keeping the result usable in today’s wallets.

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Stage 1: Generate your keys

The backend generates two ML-KEM-768 keypairs:

• Spending keypair (spending_pk / spending_sk) - determines where money lands
• Viewing keypair (viewing_pk / viewing_sk) - lets you find your payments

These are bundled into your meta-address: the public-facing profile that senders use.

curl -s -X POST https://backend.specterpq.com/api/v1/keys/generate | jq .

Response includes meta_address, spending_pk, spending_sk, viewing_pk, viewing_sk.

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Stage 2: Publish your meta-address

Make your meta-address discoverable. Two options:

ENS (Ethereum): Upload meta-address to IPFS, set your ENS text record to point at the IPFS CID. Senders resolve alice.eth to your meta-address automatically.

SuiNS (Sui): Same pattern with Sui name records.

Or just share the raw meta-address string directly. Name services are convenient, not required.

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Stage 3: Sender creates the payment

This is where ML-KEM does its work. The sender:

1. Reads your viewing_pk from the meta-address
2. Runs ML-KEM encapsulation to produce:
   • A ciphertext (1,088 bytes) - this is the encrypted hint
   • A shared secret (32 bytes) - known to both sender and recipient
3. Computes a 1-byte view tag from the shared secret
4. Derives a stealth address (Ethereum and/or Sui) from the shared secret + your spending_pk

curl -s -X POST https://backend.specterpq.com/api/v1/stealth/create \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"meta_address":"<RECIPIENT_META_ADDRESS>"}' | jq .

The sender then sends ETH/tokens to the returned stealth_address.

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Stage 4: Sender posts an announcement

The announcement is the public breadcrumb. It contains:

Field	Purpose
ephemeral_key	The ML-KEM ciphertext (encrypted shared secret)
view_tag	1-byte filter for fast scanning
tx_hash	Transaction reference (optional)
amount	Payment amount (optional)
chain	Target chain (optional)
channel_id	Yellow channel link (optional)

curl -s -X POST https://backend.specterpq.com/api/v1/registry/announcements \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "ephemeral_key":"<HEX_CIPHERTEXT>",
    "view_tag":42,
    "tx_hash":"0x...",
    "amount":"0.1",
    "chain":"ethereum"
  }' | jq .

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Stage 5: Recipient scans

This is the discovery process. The recipient:

1. Loads announcements from the registry
2. For each announcement, decapsulates the ciphertext using viewing_sk
3. Computes the expected view tag from the shared secret
4. Fast path: if the view tag doesn’t match, skip (filters ~99.6% of announcements)
5. Full path: if it matches, derive the stealth address and compare

curl -s -X POST https://backend.specterpq.com/api/v1/stealth/scan \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "viewing_sk":"<HEX>",
    "spending_pk":"<HEX>",
    "spending_sk":"<HEX>"
  }' | jq .

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Stage 6: Spend the funds

The scan returns everything needed to spend:

Field	What it is
stealth_address	The Ethereum address holding the funds
stealth_sui_address	The Sui address (if applicable)
eth_private_key	The derived private key for spending

Import the private key into any Ethereum wallet and spend normally.

The scan response contains wallet secret material (eth_private_key, stealth_sk). Treat it like a seed phrase. Never log it, never expose it in analytics.

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The three objects that matter

Object	What it does	Who holds it
Meta-address	Public receiving profile	Published by recipient, read by senders
Announcement	Encrypted breadcrumb for discovery	Published by sender, scanned by recipient
Stealth private key	Controls the funds	Only the recipient

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What sender and recipient each see

Sender's perspective

The sender needs only the recipient’s meta-address or name.

They never learn the recipient’s real wallet address. They derive a fresh stealth address, send funds to it, and post an announcement. From their side, it’s three API calls.

Recipient's perspective

The recipient periodically scans the announcement registry with their viewing key.

When they find a match, they recover the private key for that stealth address and can spend the funds whenever they want. The scanning process takes 1-2 seconds for 100k announcements.

Observer's perspective

An observer sees a payment to a random-looking address and an announcement in the registry.

Without the recipient’s viewing key, they can’t determine who the payment is for. The ML-KEM ciphertext in the announcement is quantum-resistant.

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The security split

The receiving path (stages 1-5) uses ML-KEM-768 and is post-quantum safe.

The spending path (stage 6) produces a secp256k1 key for Ethereum wallet compatibility. That part is classical.

Read Security Boundaries for why this split exists and how it could be resolved.

Post-quantum crypto details

What ML-KEM-768 actually does under the hood.

Try the full flow

Run every stage against the live API.