Question 1

What is Spectral?

Accepted Answer

Spectral is an onchain neobank built on authorization rather than ownership. Instead of a public wallet holding a public balance, you hold a zero-knowledge credential that proves you are allowed to spend. Funds live in a shielded pool, payments are routed by relayers, and merchants are paid in ordinary stablecoins.

Question 2

If there is no wallet address, how do I hold money?

Accepted Answer

Your deposit becomes a note inside a shared shielded pool. The note is a commitment that only a valid proof can consume. Nothing in the pool is addressed to you, which is why an outside observer cannot read your balance, and why there is no address to correlate across payments.

Question 3

What does authorization-based mean in practice?

Accepted Answer

When you pay, you do not present a key that says these funds are mine. You present a proof that says a rule permits this spend: the credential is valid, the note has not been consumed, and the amount sits inside your limit. The protocol verifies the proof and the payment settles.

Question 4

Is this compatible with regulation?

Accepted Answer

That is the point of the design. Daily limits, merchant allowlists, and signed audit reports are enforced by the circuits themselves, so a regulator or an auditor can be given a verifiable report without anyone publishing a spending history. Merchants receive clean USDC or USDT with no history attached.

Question 5

Who pays the network fee?

Accepted Answer

Relayers do. They accept your proof, cover the network fee, and submit the transaction. That is what keeps your own addresses off the chain entirely, and it is what relayers earn $SPECTRAL for.

Question 6

What is $SPECTRAL for?

Accepted Answer

Three things: it pays relayers for verifying proofs, it gives holders the vote over verification keys, spending limits, and compliance policy, and it can be spent on transaction fees at a 25 percent discount so your stablecoin balance stays untouched by fees.

Question 7

Can I lose access if I lose my device?

Accepted Answer

There is no seed phrase to lose. Credentials are re-issued from the same zero-knowledge login you set up originally, so recovering an account does not require you to have stored a secret and does not reveal your identity to the network.