How your money is stored
Where your funds live, who can access them, and how you can verify it yourself.
Your wallet is yours
When you sign up for Sippy, a smart contract wallet is created for you on Arbitrum. This wallet holds your USDC. It's not a row in a database, not a balance in Sippy's system, and not an entry in a bank ledger. It's a real wallet on a public blockchain, and only your keys can move funds out of it.
Sippy helps you interact with that wallet through WhatsApp and the web. But Sippy itself can't withdraw, redirect, or freeze your money.
Where the money actually sits
Your USDC lives in your smart contract wallet on Arbitrum -- a fast, low-cost network built on Ethereum. Every transaction is recorded on-chain, which means anyone (including you) can verify your balance and transaction history using a public block explorer like Arbiscan.
This is different from a bank, where you trust the institution to keep accurate records. Here, the records are public and independently verifiable.
What Sippy can and can't do with your funds
Sippy can:
- Show you your balance and transaction history
- Submit transactions on your behalf when you ask (like "send 20 to +57...")
- Cover gas fees for WhatsApp sends so you don't pay network costs
Sippy can't:
- Move your money without your permission
- Freeze or lock your wallet
- Take a cut of your balance
- Access your wallet if you revoke permissions
How WhatsApp sends work
When you send money through WhatsApp, you're giving Sippy permission to submit that specific transaction for you. Sippy acts on your instruction -- it doesn't have blanket access to your funds. Each send goes through confirmation prompts and daily limits before anything moves.
What "non-custodial" means in plain terms
A custodial service holds your money for you -- like a bank. If the bank has a problem, your access to your money depends on the bank.
Sippy is non-custodial. Your wallet exists independently of Sippy. If Sippy's servers went offline tomorrow, your funds would still be in your wallet on Arbitrum. You could access them with any compatible wallet app using your private key.
The trade-off: because Sippy doesn't hold your funds, Sippy can't reverse a transaction you've already sent. More on that in Account recovery.
Verify it yourself
Your wallet address is visible in Settings. Copy it, paste it into Arbiscan, and you'll see your exact balance and every transaction. No trust required -- just math.
What's next?
- Security model -- how Sippy protects your account day to day
- Account recovery -- what to do if you lose access