Quickstart Guide
Get up and running with Mercury in just a few minutes.
Welcome to Project Mercury! Follow these simple steps to set up your secure, peer-to-peer communication environment.
1. Generate Your Identity
Upon opening Mercury for the first time, you will be prompted to generate a new cryptographic identity.
Unlike traditional apps, Mercury does not ask for your phone number, email, or any other PII. Instead, it generates a mathematically secure key pair exclusively on your device.
Crucial: You will be given a 12-word recovery phrase. Write this down on a piece of paper and store it securely. We do not have a copy of your phrase. If you lose your device and your phrase, you will lose access to your identity permanently.
2. Share Your Mercury ID
To chat with someone, you need their Mercury ID, and they need yours.
- Go to your Profile screen.
- Tap on the QR code icon, or tap your Mercury ID (a long string of characters) to copy it to your clipboard.
- Share this ID via a secure secondary channel, or let them scan your QR code directly using the built-in scanner.
3. Start Communicating
Once you add a contact, they will receive a contact request. Once they approve it, a secure, peer-to-peer, end-to-end encrypted connection is established. You can now send messages, photos, files, and initiate voice or video calls without any middleman servers recording your activity!