Anchor
An anchor associates a user-friendly identifier like a phone number, email, or account number with payment information. At its simplest, an anchor maps a phone number to an account number. Anchors can also carry richer data including source and target details, amounts, and custom fields, providing everything a client needs to construct a payment intent from a single lookup.
Anchors are pure data — they don't hold balances or move money. Other systems query anchors to resolve identifiers and assemble payments. Common use cases include alias directories that map phone numbers or emails to payment credentials, and QR code generation where scanning a code retrieves all the details needed to pay.
Anchor forwarding enables federation: if a lookup finds no match locally, it can fall back to a remote service, and new anchors can be replicated across directories.
Endpoints
| Method | Path | Description |
|---|---|---|
| POST | /anchors | Link a user-friendly identifier like a phone number or email to payment details. |
| GET | /anchors | Query anchors with filtering, sorting, and pagination. |
| GET | /anchors/{id} | Retrieve an anchor by its handle or LUID. |
| PUT | /anchors/{id} | Submit a new version of an anchor. |
| DELETE | /anchors/{id} | Permanently remove an anchor from the ledger. |
| POST | /anchors/{id}/proofs | Submit a signed proof to an anchor record. |
Access & History
| Method | Path | Description |
|---|---|---|
| POST | /anchors/{id}/access/!check | Evaluate what actions a signer can perform on this anchor. |
| GET | /anchors/{id}/changes | Retrieve the change history of an anchor by its handle or LUID. |
| GET | /anchors/{id}/changes/{change} | Retrieve a change record for an anchor by handle or LUID and change number. |
Related
- About Anchors — what anchors are and how they link wallets to external accounts
- Anchor Forwarding — routing payments through anchor lookups
- About Alias Directory — directory-based anchor resolution
Get symbol change GET
Returns a single change by its sequence number. The change includes a full record snapshot as it existed at that point.
Create anchor POST
Anchors are pure data — they do not hold balances or trigger balance movements. They can be forwarded to other ledgers through bridge processing policies. Amounts are stored as integers scaled by the symbol's factor. When forwarding is configured, this request may be validated or proxied through a bridge before being committed locally. See [Anchor Forwarding](/ledger/moving-money/anchor-forwarding) for details. Broadcasts the `anchor-created` signal. Use [effects](/ledger/reference/api/effect) to subscribe.