Sage Wallet Chia: Complete Setup, RPC Access & Offer Flows Explained

• Key Takeaway 1: Sage is a non-custodial, cross-platform light wallet for Chia that runs on macOS, Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS — no full node required.
• Key Takeaway 2: Sage connects directly to Chia network peers or your own trusted full node, giving you full control over your trust model.
• Key Takeaway 3: Its built-in RPC server (port 9257, HTTPS with SSL certificates) lets developers and power users automate wallet operations programmatically.
• Key Takeaway 4: The Offer flow inside Sage is fully trustless — once you create an offer file, neither party can be cheated because the Chia blockchain enforces atomic settlement.
• Key Takeaway 5: Sage is currently in beta; always back up your seed phrase and test with small amounts first.

Sage Wallet is a high-performance, non-custodial light wallet for the Chia blockchain that lets you manage XCH, Chia Asset Tokens (CATs), NFTs, and Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) on any major platform. Built on a Rust backend using chia_rs, clvm_rs, and the Chia Wallet SDK, it is designed to sync fast, run lean, and expose an RPC interface so developers can plug it directly into automated workflows — all without ever running a full node.

What Is Sage Wallet Chia and Why Does It Matter for Farmers?

If you have been farming Chia for any length of time, you know the reference wallet works fine for basic tasks but can feel slow and resource-hungry when you just want to check a balance or send XCH quickly. Sage was created specifically to solve that problem. Rigidity, the open-source developer behind Sage, launched the project publicly in early 2025 with a clear goal: make Chia wallets more accessible across every major desktop and mobile platform.¹

For a Chia farmer, that matters in a practical way. You do not have to keep a full node synced on your farming rig just to accept a payout or swap some CATs. Sage connects directly to peers on the Chia network using the same peer-discovery mechanism as any full node, so it stays up to date with the blockchain without pulling down the entire chain history. If you do run a full node — say, on your main farm server — you can also point Sage at that node for maximum trust minimization. Either way, the experience is noticeably faster than running the reference wallet on a resource-constrained machine.

Sage Wallet is widely regarded as the first XCH wallet to deliver native mobile support on Android with fast light-sync, making it the most accessible Chia wallet for everyday use.¹⁰

How Sage Differs from the Chia Reference Wallet

The official Chia reference wallet is a full-featured application that ships with the Chia node software. It works well, but it is tightly coupled to the full-node stack, which means it inherits the node’s startup time and resource overhead. Sage takes a different architectural path. The backend is written in Rust using the Tauri v2 framework, and the frontend uses React with TypeScript. This split gives Sage a much smaller memory footprint and a startup time measured in seconds rather than minutes. Automatic CAT detection is another point of difference — when Sage spots a CAT in your coin set, it identifies and labels it without requiring you to manually add the asset ID. That is a genuine time-saver for farmers who receive small CAT payouts from DeFi pools or community airdrops. To learn more about how Chia’s DeFi ecosystem uses offers and asset tokens, see our deep-dive on Chia Offers and One Market.

Sage vs. Other Chia Wallets: Quick Comparison

How to Install and Set Up Sage Wallet for Chia

Getting Sage running is straightforward, but there are a few choices to make upfront that will affect your security posture. Here is the full path from download to first sync.

Step 1 – Download the Right Build

All official releases live on the Sage GitHub releases page at github.com/xch-dev/sage/releases.² You will find signed installers for macOS (DMG), Windows (MSI/EXE), and Linux (AppImage/deb). Android users can install directly from the Google Play Store — Sage is published under Rigid Network LLC.¹⁰ iOS users can join the public TestFlight beta at testflight.apple.com/join/BmUdFXpP (verify the link is active at time of reading, as TestFlight links can change during beta cycles). Do not download Sage from any other source. The only official domain is sagewallet.net, which links directly to the GitHub releases page.

Step 2 – Create or Import Your Wallet

On first launch, Sage gives you two options: create a new wallet or import an existing one using a 24-word seed phrase. If you are migrating from the reference wallet, your seed phrase is exactly the same — XCH uses BIP-39-compatible mnemonics across all wallet software. Write down your seed phrase on paper and store it somewhere safe before you fund the wallet. Sage is fully non-custodial, which means nobody — not the developer, not Rigid Network LLC, not Chia Network — can recover your wallet if you lose those 24 words.

Step 3 – Choose Your Peer Connection Mode

Once your wallet is imported, Sage will begin syncing by connecting to random peers on the Chia network. For most farming use cases, this default peer mode is fine. If you run your own full node and prefer that all your wallet data comes from a trusted source, go to Settings → Network and add your node’s IP address as a trusted full node. This is especially useful if you are running Sage on the same local network as your farming rig, because it eliminates the small delay that comes from routing through public peers. Keep in mind that the RPC ports on your local full node should never be exposed to the open internet — this applies to Sage’s own RPC server as well.

Step 4 – Verify Your Balance and CATs

After your light-sync completes — typically within a minute or two on a decent internet connection — your XCH balance will appear on the main screen. Any CATs already in your wallet will be detected automatically and displayed with their names and icons, which is one of the features that Google Play reviewers consistently call out. The Sage team has built an asset registry lookup into the client so that known CAT asset IDs are resolved to human-readable names without requiring you to add them manually.

Using the Sage Wallet Chia RPC Interface

One of Sage’s most powerful features — and the one that sets it apart from every other Chia mobile or light wallet — is its built-in RPC server. When you enable it, Sage exposes a local HTTPS endpoint that lets scripts, bots, or other services control the wallet programmatically. This is the same kind of API that exchanges and large farming pools use to automate payouts without manual intervention. The Chia Wallet SDK documentation explicitly points developers toward Sage as a practical example of a light wallet with an RPC interface.³

Sage’s RPC server runs on port 9257 over HTTPS and uses SSL certificate authentication, keeping it isolated from the open internet and accessible only to trusted local callers.

Enabling the RPC Server

The RPC server is off by default. To enable it on desktop, open Settings → Advanced and toggle on the RPC client option. Sage will generate an SSL certificate pair and store it locally. You will need the certificate and key file paths when calling the RPC from any external script. The configuration for a typical integration looks like this:

{
  "platform": "auto",
  "rpc_url": "//127.0.0.1:9257",
  "cert_path": "/path/to/wallet.crt",
  "key_path": "/path/to/wallet.key",
  "fingerprint": null,
  "auto_login": false
}

Never expose port 9257 to the internet. The RPC is designed for local use only — whether that is a script running on the same machine or a service on your local network. The SSL certificates that Sage generates are self-signed, which means you will need to use --insecure or the equivalent flag when calling with curl, or configure your HTTP client to trust the local certificate explicitly.

Core RPC Calls Every Chia Developer Should Know

Sage exposes a growing set of endpoints organized around wallet operations. The most commonly used ones fall into a few categories. For status checks, get_sync_status tells you whether the wallet is synced before you attempt any transactions. For sending XCH, the send_xch endpoint accepts an address, an amount in mojos (remember: 1 XCH equals 1,000,000,000,000 mojos), and an optional fee. For offer management, a dedicated endpoint lets you combine existing offer files — a feature added in v0.9.4 that is particularly useful for aggregating multiple partial offers into a single transaction.⁴ There is also a WalletConnect-compatible signing method, chia_signMessageByAddress, which lets dApps request signed messages from within the RPC flow.

One practical workflow that Chia farmers are using is automated coin management. Because farming generates many small coins over time — a condition known as “dust” — the coin count can eventually slow down transaction construction. Sage’s coin-level RPC endpoints let you consolidate small coins into larger ones automatically without touching the GUI. This is the kind of operational task that becomes painful to do manually at scale but takes only a few lines of shell script when you have RPC access.

Generating the OpenAPI Specification

For developers who want a full, machine-readable reference of every available RPC endpoint, Sage includes functionality to export an OpenAPI specification. This outputs a document that describes every endpoint, its request schema, and its response schema. The Sage release process publishes this spec alongside each version, so you can always find the spec that matches the version you are running. Check the official sagewallet.net documentation for the exact generation command for your installed version, as the CLI interface may vary between releases.⁹ This is particularly useful if you are building a trading bot or a DeFi integration that needs to stay in sync with API changes across Sage releases.

Understanding Sage Wallet Chia Offer Flows

Chia Offer Files are one of the most genuinely innovative features of the Chia blockchain, and Sage makes them the simplest they have ever been to use. To understand why this matters, it helps to know what an offer file actually is at a technical level — and then see how Sage handles the entire workflow from creation to settlement. For a broader look at how offers power the Chia DeFi ecosystem, see our guide on how Chia Offers and One Market are transforming DeFi transactions.

What Is a Chia Offer File?

A Chia Offer File is a partially signed spend bundle — essentially half of a valid blockchain transaction. The maker’s wallet constructs and signs their side of the trade, producing a text string that encodes exactly what they are offering and what they want in return. This string can be shared via email, a QR code, a Discord message, or a decentralized exchange like Dexie. Anyone who wants to take the trade imports that string into their wallet, which constructs and signs the second half of the spend bundle, completing the transaction atomically. As the official Chialisp documentation explains, offers are inherently trustless: only the maker and taker are required, and any attempt to modify the offer string will invalidate the cryptographic signatures, causing the transaction to fail before it ever touches the blockchain.⁵

Creating an Offer in Sage: Step by Step

Inside Sage, the offer creation flow lives under the main navigation menu. You select “Create Offer,” then specify the assets you want to send (XCH, a specific CAT, or an NFT) and the assets you want to receive. Sage will lock the relevant coins — you will see your spendable balance decrease to reflect the pending offer — and generate the offer string. You can copy it to the clipboard or save it as a .offer file. From there, you share it through whatever channel makes sense. Chia’s offer-aggregation platforms like Dexie pick up these files automatically when submitted, broadcasting them to potential takers across the Chia DeFi ecosystem. As Chia Network explains, when you create an offer the outcome is predetermined and guaranteed by the blockchain itself — there is no intermediary and no counterparty risk.⁶

Accepting an Offer and Atomic Settlement

On the taking side, Sage’s offer acceptance flow is equally simple. Navigate to Offers → View Offer, paste the offer string, and Sage will decode and display the full terms of the trade: what you will pay, what you will receive, any NFT royalties that need to be honored, and the current blockchain fee estimate. Once you review and accept, Sage constructs the second half of the spend bundle, submits the completed transaction to the network, and the trade settles atomically in a single block. Atomic settlement means the entire swap either completes or fails as a unit — there is no scenario where you hand over your XCH and the taker’s CATs do not arrive. This is structurally impossible because the blockchain will only include the transaction if both sides of the spend bundle are valid.

NFT royalties are enforced at the smart-coin level, which means Sage automatically calculates and includes them as part of the offer. You do not need to manually add royalty payments — the wallet handles this for you, and the royalty recipient receives their cut from the settlement in the same block as the trade.

Combining Offer Files via RPC

For developers building on the Chia DeFi stack, one of the more powerful things you can do with Sage’s RPC is combine multiple offer files into a single spend bundle. The Chialisp documentation confirms that an Automated Market Maker can aggregate offers together and complete them simultaneously — Sage exposes a dedicated RPC endpoint that enables exactly this pattern.⁵ You pass an array of offer strings, and Sage returns a combined offer string that can be submitted to the network as a single transaction. This reduces blockchain fees per trade and improves throughput for any application that needs to process many small swaps in bulk.

WalletConnect: Connecting Sage to Chia dApps

WalletConnect is the protocol that lets any browser-based or mobile dApp communicate with Sage without ever touching your private keys. Think of it as the same mechanism MetaMask uses to connect to Ethereum dApps, but built for Chia’s unique UTXO-based architecture. The Chia documentation notes that WalletConnect is generalized to allow any dApp to connect to any Chia wallet, with support for all asset types including XCH, CATs, and NFTs — and it enables Chia Offers as well.⁷

To use WalletConnect in Sage, you open a dApp in your browser, click its “Connect Wallet” button to generate a QR code or URI, and then open Sage and navigate to the WalletConnect section in Settings to add a new connection. Paste the URI or scan the QR code, and Sage will establish a secure, encrypted session with the dApp. From that point on, when the dApp needs you to sign a transaction — whether that is swapping CATs on TibetSwap, minting an NFT, or creating an offer — the request pops up in Sage for your approval. You review the details and tap Approve; your keys never leave the wallet. The session persists until you explicitly disconnect, and you can pair multiple dApps simultaneously.

One thing to be aware of: WalletConnect sessions are keyed to a specific wallet fingerprint. If you want a dApp to interact with more than one wallet key, you need to enable the Key Switching option in Sage’s WalletConnect settings. Each time a key switch happens, the wallet needs to re-sync before the dApp can send new requests.

Case Study: Sage Wallet Enabling On-Chain Options Trading

When Sage released version 0.12.0, it introduced support for on-chain options contracts — a novel DeFi primitive that is only possible because of how Chia’s offer system works. A Chia farmer can use Sage to create a covered-call contract by locking XCH at a specified strike price and expiration date, then selling that option on the open market as a standard Chia offer file. If the option is not exercised before expiration, the locked XCH returns to the farmer’s wallet automatically. The entire mechanism — locking, trading, expiring, and settling — happens on-chain with no exchange, no custodian, and no counterparty trust required.⁸ This is the kind of financial primitive that was previously only available on sophisticated DeFi networks, now accessible to a Chia farmer through a mobile app.

Security and Beta Status: What You Need to Know

Sage is currently in beta, and the development team is transparent about that. The GitHub README, the official website, and every release note include a clear reminder that the wallet should be used with caution: start with small amounts, always back up your seed phrase, and stay current with releases. Beta does not mean buggy in this case — Sage has been actively maintained across nearly 40 releases and close to 3,000 commits since its initial launch — but it does mean the API surface and some edge-case behaviors may change between versions. As a non-custodial wallet, your seed phrase is the only recovery mechanism. There is no “forgot my password” option and no support team that can restore your funds.

On the security architecture side, Sage is built entirely on battle-tested Rust libraries. The chia_rs and clvm_rs libraries are maintained by Chia Network itself and underpin the Chia reference node, so Sage benefits from the same cryptographic foundation as the official software. The Tauri framework that powers the desktop wrapper has its own security model and sandboxes the frontend from the backend, which limits the attack surface in the event that a malicious web resource attempts to access wallet data.

Because Sage is non-custodial and built on Rust with battle-tested Chia libraries, your private keys never leave your device — making it one of the most secure light wallet options available for Chia.

Conclusion: Why Sage Wallet Is the Right Choice for Chia Farmers and Developers

Sage Wallet has earned its position as the go-to Chia wallet for users who need speed, flexibility, and programmatic control. For farmers, it delivers fast light-sync, automatic CAT detection, and a clean offer interface across every platform they might use — from a Linux farming server to an Android phone at the kitchen table. For developers, the RPC server at port 9257 opens up a world of automation possibilities, from automated coin consolidation to DeFi integrations that would previously have required building wallet logic from scratch. And for anyone who wants to participate in Chia’s growing DeFi ecosystem, WalletConnect and the native offer flow make it easy to interact with dApps and trade assets trustlessly. If you have been holding off on exploring what Chia’s smart contract layer can actually do in practice, download Sage from sagewallet.net,⁹ back up your seed, and start with a small offer — the on-chain experience may surprise you.

Sage Wallet Chia FAQs

What is Sage Wallet Chia and how does it work?

Sage Wallet Chia is a non-custodial light wallet for the Chia blockchain that lets you manage XCH, CATs, NFTs, and DIDs without running a full node. It works by connecting directly to peers on the Chia network — or to your own trusted full node — and syncing only the data relevant to your wallet keys, which makes it significantly faster than the reference wallet on most hardware.

Is Sage Wallet Chia safe to use?

Sage Wallet Chia is considered safe for everyday use, but it is currently in beta. The wallet is built on audited Rust libraries maintained by Chia Network, your private keys never leave your device, and all RPC communication uses SSL certificates. The team recommends backing up your seed phrase before funding the wallet and testing with small amounts while the beta tag remains.

How do I enable the Sage Wallet Chia RPC server?

To enable the Sage Wallet Chia RPC server, open Settings → Advanced in the desktop application and toggle on the RPC option. Sage will start an HTTPS server on localhost:9257 and generate SSL certificates locally. You then reference those certificate paths in any script or tool that calls the API.

What are Chia Offer Files and how does Sage handle them?

Chia Offer Files are partially signed blockchain transactions that encode the terms of a trustless asset swap between two parties. Inside Sage, you create an offer by selecting the assets you want to send and receive, and the wallet generates a shareable offer string. When a counterparty accepts it in their wallet, the trade settles atomically on the Chia blockchain — meaning either the full swap completes or nothing happens at all.

Can I use Sage Wallet Chia on my phone?

Yes — Sage Wallet Chia is available for Android on the Google Play Store and for iOS via Apple TestFlight. It was the first XCH wallet to offer fast light-sync on mobile, and it supports the same full feature set as the desktop version, including CATs, NFTs, DIDs, offer files, and WalletConnect for dApp connectivity.

Sage Wallet Chia Citations

1. Rigidity, “Sage Wallet Thread,” Chia Forum, 2025
2. xch-dev/sage, “The sagest wallet for the Chia blockchain,” GitHub repository, Apache-2.0 license
3. xch-dev/chia-wallet-sdk, “High-performance Rust SDK for developing Chia wallet applications,” GitHub repository
4. xch-dev/sage, “Release v0.9.4 — Add RPC endpoint for combining offers,” GitHub, 2025
5. Chia Network, “Offers,” Chialisp.com documentation
6. Chia Network, “Chia Blog — Offers and DeFi,” chia.net
7. Chia Network, “WalletConnect User Guide,” docs.chia.net
8. The Mayor, “Chia Options,” Hey.com blog, 2025 (re: Sage v0.12.0 options contract feature)
9. Sage Wallet official site, sagewallet.net
10. Sage Wallet, Google Play Store, Rigid Network LLC