What is a Federation address and how can I get one?

Every Stellar account has a public key (or Stellar address) and a private key also referred to as a secret key.

A federation address (or payment address) is linked to your Stellar address and represents a short and easy-to-remember alias created by LOBSTR for your convenience.

Each new LOBSTR user can optionally set a unique federation address for a new Stellar account at the time of account creation and later edit the federation address in the Wallet section of the Settings screen/page.

Your federation address will be resolved into the public key and memo of your Stellar account by LOBSTR and other services on the Stellar network.

You can safely use and share this unique alias with others. 

Other users can easily enter your federation address instead of typing a long public key to send you funds.

Every federation address is divided into two parts separated by an asterisk (*) - the username and the domain.

Example: alex*lobstr.co

- alex is the username

- lobstr.co is the domain

The username in LOBSTR is limited to printable UTF-8 characters with whitespace and the following characters excluded: *,>,+,@, and 'space'.

Note that the '@' symbol is allowed in the username by the Stellar protocol. This allows for using email addresses in the username of an address.

LOBSTR restricts the use of this symbol, but in return allows each LOBSTR user to enable their own 'Accept all' federation address.

This address, generated using an email address of your LOBSTR account, allows you and other users to receive any Stellar assets without manually adding trustlines for each one. 

Example: alex@gmail.com*lobstr.co

- alex@gmail.com is the username

- lobstr.co is the domain

Additionally, you can connect your personal mobile number to your LOBSTR account on the Settings page and share the corresponding federation address with others to receive funds.

The federation address created using your phone number allows you to receive any Stellar assets without manually adding trustlines as well.

You will be informed when you get an incoming money transfer.

Example: 

- +12025550149 is the phone number

- +12025550149*lobstr.co is the corresponding federation address

You can also invite another user to join LOBSTR by sending funds to his/her phone number. The recipient will need to sign up with LOBSTR and connect the phone number to the account to claim funds.

For more information on sending assets to an email address or phone number, please see here.

   
If your Stellar account has a federation address, it can be found on the Receive page on LOBSTR web or under the Wallet tab of the Settings page.

On LOBSTR mobile apps, you can find your federation address on the Deposit screen or under the Wallet tab in Settings.