Pera Wallet now keeps an encrypted backup of your accounts that only you can open

Pera Wallet, Algorand's default self-custodial app, now offers to keep an encrypted copy of its users' account keys on a server it runs, and by its own account cannot open that copy. Version 7.2.1¹, posted to the App Store² in the last week of October, introduces what the release note calls Backup and Sync, 'a new way to keep your accounts and settings safe and in sync across devices.³'

What a person does with it is small. Turn Cloud Backup on once, and the accounts restore onto a new phone from a QR code or from two credentials, rather than re-entering a 25-word phrase for each account. The copy is not a list of addresses. Pera's support documentation⁴, the source for how the feature behaves throughout this article, says the upload holds the accounts 'including the keys needed to use them,⁵' encrypted on the device and stored against a backup ID. Custody has not moved: the Terms leave control of the keys with the owner, and the same documentation says Pera 'has no way to recover your lost credentials or access your data.⁶'

The reason to read it now is timing rather than novelty. The two credentials that open a backup are created when the feature is set up and can never be reset, so the minute a reader turns it on is the only minute they can arrange them properly.

What the file holds

Inside are the accounts created or imported in Pera and the keys needed to use them, Ledger addresses with the keys left on the Ledger itself, shared accounts with their participants and threshold, contacts, the passkeys Pera can rebuild from a Universal Wallet's recovery phrase, and preferences such as currency and language. Everything is encrypted on the device with AES-256-GCM and argon2 before it leaves, and only a device already holding the credentials can decrypt it.

The Terms of Service read more narrowly, and the difference is worth stating exactly. They state that Pera Wallet 'does NOT store or recover private keys or recovery phrases.⁷' The recovery half holds. The storage half is a promise about custody rather than about copies: Pera now keeps an encrypted copy of key material, and what protects it is the two credentials Pera never receives, not that sentence.

Two credentials, kept apart

Opening a backup on a device that is not already synced takes two things: a 12⁸-word passphrase generated for the backup, explicitly not the recovery phrase of any account, and an Encryption Key that Pera can save as a file on the device, in iCloud Drive or in Google Drive. Pera never stores the passphrase and can reset neither credential, and its own advice is to keep the two in different places.

A synced device can hand the backup to a new phone, a second device⁹ or the browser extension by showing a QR code and a one-time six-digit code; without one, both credentials are typed in. After that the devices stay in step, with Pera syncing a few seconds after any change and every five minutes while the app stays open.

Turning it on

The switch sits in Settings under Cloud Backup¹⁰. Read the introduction, set up a new backup, write down the 12 words on a screen where screenshots are blocked, confirm three of them, choose where the Encryption Key goes, then confirm with the PIN or biometrics. Leave before that last step and nothing is stored. The feature had been on Pera's own list of what was coming, in its August recap¹¹, alongside a new card program and a browser extension.

The app itself is free on the App Store and on Google Play¹². Its feature list runs past custody:

• Create or import an account
• Send and receive algos and Algorand Standard Assets
• Buy, sell and swap
• View NFTs
• Stake natively
• Pair a Ledger
• Connect to dApps over WalletConnect
• Keep watch accounts
• Start from a zero balance because fees are covered for new users

The Chrome Web Store listing¹³ for the browser extension notes that it offers in-app purchases, without naming any of them. Transactions still carry the network fee, and buying, selling, swapping and staking run through third-party services that may charge their own fees under their own terms.

What happens if the copy goes away

The failure to plan for is deletion, not decryption. Pera's guide to managing a backup¹⁴ says turning off and removing one deletes it from Pera's servers across every device, and that this cannot be undone. The privacy policy adds that Pera may also delete a backup where the law, a court or a competent authority requires it, or where the service's security or integrity needs it. It may also delete one if Pera discontinues the feature. Because a backup is not linked to an identity, the individual user cannot be warned, and a discontinuation would be announced in the app or on the site in advance.

What survives is the account, though not always by the same route. A user who loses both credentials with no synced device left cannot open the backup, but can still restore individual accounts from their own recovery passphrases. Ledger addresses were only ever copied, with the keys left on the device. Pera's guide to its Quantum Accounts repeats that every account, 'Quantum or otherwise,' has its own phrase that 'must be stored individually.' Against that, the Terms disclaim liability for 'loss of or inability to restore access from your backup phrase.¹⁵' They also warn that keeping a recovery phrase digitally 'on a cloud service or any third-party device¹⁶' may increase the risk of loss or theft.

The file you hold instead

An older mechanism sits beside the new one, and the two are easy to confuse. ARC-35¹⁷, the Algorand developer portal's offline wallet backup protocol, sets out a file for any wallet on the chain. It holds account details including each user-owned account's private key, encrypted under a key derived from a 12¹⁸-word mnemonic, with the user keeping both the file and the words. Pera's repository records the relabelling that followed. 'When cloud backup is available, copy will be "Legacy Backup" instead of "Algorand Secure Backup".¹⁹' Pera's older web wallet, discontinued in favour of the browser extension, still offers that route on its import screen. The screen describes it as restoring accounts 'using an Algorand Secure Backup file and 12²⁰-word key,' beside importing from Pera Mobile, pairing a Ledger and the 25²¹-word phrase. One route leaves a file in your hands; the other leaves a copy in Pera's.

Who runs it

Pera Wallet, Lda., registered in Lisbon, builds the wallet and is the data controller for the backup. Who stands behind that company is stated two ways in Pera's own material: the privacy policy calls it 'an affiliate within the Algorand group,²²' while a Pera disclaimer published on algorand.co in September calls it 'an entity independent of the Algorand Foundation.²³' The history explains both without settling them. Hipo built the wallet from its 2019 launch and took over operations and partnership integrations at the February 2022 relaunch, and in 2023 the Algorand Foundation invested alongside Borderless Capital, Arrington Capital and DWF Labs, with Yiğit Güler named as Pera's CTO.

The store listing deserves the same care. The App Store description says 'No personal information is collected, which means your account remains anonymous,²⁴' while the same page's privacy label lists identifiers, usage data and diagnostics as collected but not linked to identity, and the Chrome listing discloses authentication information, location and user activity. The backup is separately described as unlinked to a name or email, which is the sentence that matters for it.

Where a reader meets it

On a phone. The iOS listing carries 4.8²⁵ from about 8,000²⁶ ratings, and Google Play shows 4.6 from about 22,100²⁷ reviews and more than 500,000²⁸ downloads. Pera's Chrome Web Store listing gives the browser extension 52²⁹ users at version 7.2.2³⁰. The extension is a place a backup can land rather than where most people will meet it; that download band counts installs, not active users. The older Pera Web Wallet 'has been discontinued,' with browser users pointed to the extension. Our August review noted that Pera Web and Pera Mobile did not sync; what replaces that is a copy Pera holds and restores onto each device, rather than a pairing between two of them.

The code behind it is public. Release v7.2.1 was tagged on October 20, 2026 carrying 'the backup sync and passkey fixes for the 7.2³¹.x release,' the merged change³² describes syncing 'account order, renames and restored-account backup state across devices,³³' and v7.2.2³⁴ followed on October 27.

The other Algorand-first wallet a reader is likely to weigh is Defly, from Innsbruck's Blockshake, which is built around trading: it routes orders across Tinyman and Pact, adds limit orders, charts, Ledger and multisig support, and discounts fees for holders of its DEFLY token.

Pera's own article calls Cloud Backup 'a convenience on top of self-custody, not a replacement for it,³⁵' which is the measure to hold it to at the setup screen, before the first of the two credentials is written down.