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The offline signer is a DFNS key store in which signing happens out-of-band, on infrastructure that is not continuously connected to the DFNS API. DFNS builds the unsigned transaction, the signature is produced offline, and the signed transaction is broadcast later. Because that round trip is operator-driven, the delay between building a transaction and broadcasting it is effectively unbounded — which is the main thing to design around (see Transaction timing). It is one of three key stores, alongside MPC and HSM. Setting up an offline signer is coordinated with DFNS — contact our .

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Supported networks

An offline signer key can sign for a network as long as the network’s signing scheme is one the offline signer produces. It supports: It does not support:
  • Schnorr signatures — so Bitcoin Taproot addresses are not available (legacy and SegWit ECDSA address types are).
  • The Stark curve — so Starknet is not available.
  • Hierarchical (HD) master keys — offline signer keys are provisioned individually, not derived from a master key.
There is no separate per-network allow list for the offline signer: any network whose signing scheme and curve are ECDSA/secp256k1 or EdDSA/ed25519 is eligible. Creating a wallet on a network whose scheme the key can’t produce is rejected at wallet creation.

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Transaction timing considerations

For most networks a signed transaction has no expiry, so an unbounded offline delay is not a problem. But several networks stamp a validity window into the transaction when DFNS builds it: if you don’t broadcast the signed transaction within that window, it is rejected on-chain and you have to rebuild and re-sign it. These windows apply to every wallet, but they matter most for offline signing, where the delay before broadcast is largest.
For networks that order transactions by an account nonce or sequence number (EVM, and account-based chains generally), a transaction you signed earlier becomes invalid if a later transaction consumes that nonce or sequence first. When signing offline, broadcast in order and don’t build a new transaction on the same account until the previous one has confirmed.

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Solana durable nonces

Solana’s ~90-second blockhash window is too short for offline signing, so Solana transactions from an offline signer wallet use a durable nonce instead of a recent blockhash. The nonce doesn’t expire, so the transaction stays valid until it is broadcast. When you sign from the dashboard, this is applied for you; over the API you set useDurableNonce (and pre-provision a nonce account pool). See Use Solana durable nonces and Recent blockhash and transaction timing.

MPC key store

Default multi-party-computation signing

HSM key store

Hardware security module signing

Solana durable nonces

Remove the ~90s Solana expiry for offline signing

Disaster recovery

Back up and recover keys
Last modified on August 26, 2026