Hedera Account Management

Overview

Hedera accounts are first-class entities (shard.realm.num), hold HBAR + token associations, and support richer key structures than a single secp256k1 EOA. This skill maps SDK flows to official docs for Accounts and SDK guides under Accounts and HBAR.

When to use this skill

• Generating ED25519 vs ECDSA(secp256k1) keys for HTS vs EVM interoperability decisions.
• Funding new accounts via CryptoTransfer / TransferTransaction.
• Rotating keys with AccountUpdateTransaction while preserving account ID.
• Designing m-of-n multisig using ThresholdKey + KeyList.

Prerequisites

• Completed environment setup (OPERATOR_ID / OPERATOR_KEY in .env).
• Testnet HBAR for account creation fees + initial balance transfers.

Workflow

1. Choose key type

   • ED25519 — default native curve; compact signatures.
   • ECDSA — aligns with many Ethereum workflows; required for some EVM-centric signing pipelines.

   Generate with PrivateKey.generateED25519() or PrivateKey.generateECDSA() (Generate a new key pair).

2. Create an account — minimal pattern:

   const newKey = PrivateKey.generateED25519();
   const tx = await new AccountCreateTransaction()
     .setKey(newKey.publicKey)
     .setInitialBalance(Hbar.fromTinybars(50_000_000)) // 0.5 ℏ example
     .freezeWith(client);
   const signTx = await tx.sign(operatorKey);
   const rx = await signTx.execute(client);
   const receipt = await rx.getReceipt(client);
   const newId = receipt.accountId;
   

   Reference implementation: scripts/create-account.js.

3. Query info / balance

   • AccountBalanceQuery — hbars + token balances.
   • AccountInfoQuery — keys, memo, auto-renew period, proxies.

4. Update account

   • AccountUpdateTransaction — rotate keys, alter memo, extend expiration fields per network rules.

   See scripts/update-keys.js — requires TARGET_ACCOUNT_ID and OLD_KEY_DER.

5. Multisig

   • Compose KeyList with N keys; wrap with ThresholdKey specifying threshold M.

   Example reference: scripts/multisig-account.js.

6. Delete account

   • AccountDeleteTransaction removes account when remaining funds moved per docs — verify latest constraints under Delete an account.

Examples

Example 1

“Create a treasury account with ED25519 keys and 2 ℏ starting balance on testnet.”

Execute create workflow with setInitialBalance(Hbar.from(2)), securely persist private key material offline.

Example 2

“We need 2-of-3 ops keys for our treasury.”

Build ThresholdKey.of(2, KeyList.of(k1, k2, k3)), document signer roster, test partial signatures failure cases.

Example 3

“Rotate our admin key after a contractor offboarding.”

Use AccountUpdateTransaction with old key signing plus new key material; validate with AccountInfoQuery.

Troubleshooting

References

• Local: references/account-apis.md, references/key-types.md, references/multisig-patterns.md
• Docs: Cryptocurrency Accounts protobuf reference, Java SDK recipes mirror JS closely.