How to Claim Your First Head

Decaputin
Guides
23 Aug 2026, 05:00

Claiming a Head on Decaputin is not a normal checkout.

There is no email login, no platform account and no credit card form. A Head is claimed with two things: a Nostr public key and a Lightning payment.

Your Nostr key says who is claiming. Your Lightning wallet pays the invoice. Then your Nostr signer seals the ownership proof.

Payment moves the sats. Nostr proves the owner.

This guide walks through the practical mobile path with Primal and Wallet of Satoshi.

Before you start

This guide assumes you already have:

a Nostr account in Primal;
your Primal account ready to connect to Decaputin;
Wallet of Satoshi installed;
enough sats in Wallet of Satoshi to pay the invoice;
Decaputin open in your mobile browser.

If you do not have those yet, start here first:

Wallet of Satoshi is convenient because you can use it as a simple spending wallet. In many cases, the in-app buy or top-up flow may start around a minimum fiat amount, for example 20 dollars depending on provider and region. That does not mean a first Head costs 20 dollars. It means you are loading sats into the wallet. One small top-up can be enough for several low-priced claims, depending on current Head prices and routing fees.

Treat it like a spending wallet, not a vault. Keep enough sats for claiming. Do not store more than you are comfortable keeping in a simple mobile wallet.

Where Heads come from

You can claim a Head from two main places in Decaputin:

Place	What it means
Marketplace	Heads that are available for claim or sale in the public catalog
Heads Cart / Basket	Heads you just generated yourself after a decapitation session

If you have just used the guillotine and generated a new Head, you will usually find it in your basket first.

If you are browsing public Heads, you will usually claim from the Marketplace or directly from a Head page.

The claim flow is the same in both cases: connect Nostr, confirm the npub, generate the invoice, pay with Lightning, then sign ownership.

The full path

The claim flow moves between three places:

Place	What you do there
Decaputin	choose the Head, confirm the npub, generate the invoice, sign ownership
Primal	connect your Nostr identity and approve the ownership signature
Wallet of Satoshi	pay the Lightning invoice

The movement looks like this:

Decaputin → Primal, to connect your Nostr identity;
Primal → Decaputin, to confirm the npub and generate the invoice;
Decaputin → Wallet of Satoshi, to pay the Lightning invoice;
Wallet of Satoshi → Decaputin, to continue the claim;
Decaputin → Primal, to sign the ownership event;
Primal → Decaputin, to see the success confirmation.

That is the whole thing. The rest of this article explains each step.

Step 1 — Choose the Head

Open Decaputin in your mobile browser.

Go to the Head you want to claim. This may be:

a Head in the Marketplace;
a Head page you opened directly;
a Head in your Heads Cart after generating it yourself.

You should see the Head image, its number and the claim area.

Tap Claim Now.

Step 2 — Connect with Nostr

If Decaputin does not already know your Nostr identity, it will open the Nostr login modal.

Choose the remote signer path.

On mobile, this usually means tapping something like Open in Remote Signer. Your phone may show an app picker. Choose Primal.

Primal will open a connection request from Decaputin. Check that the request comes from the Decaputin website, choose the Primal account you want to use, and tap Connect.

This step does not pay anything. It only lets Decaputin read your public Nostr identity and ask Primal for approved signatures later.

Step 3 — Return to Decaputin

After connecting in Primal, return to Decaputin in your browser.

Decaputin should now show a claim confirmation modal with your npub.

Check the npub carefully. It should be the public key from the Primal account you just connected.

Do not guess an npub. Do not paste a random one. The Head will be linked to the npub shown in this step.

Read the terms, accept them, and continue.

Step 4 — Generate the Lightning invoice

Decaputin will generate a Lightning invoice for the Head.

The invoice screen usually shows:

the Head you are claiming;
the amount in sats;
a QR code;
a copy invoice option;
a Pay With Wallet button.

This invoice is the payment request for this claim.

A Lightning invoice can expire. If it expires, generate a new one. Do not keep paying old invoices from screenshots or old clipboard contents.

Step 5 — Pay with Wallet of Satoshi

Tap Pay With Wallet.

Your phone may ask which wallet app to use. Choose Wallet of Satoshi.

Wallet of Satoshi will open the payment screen. It should show the amount in sats and the payment description.

Check the amount.

Then tap Send.

If the payment succeeds, Wallet of Satoshi will show a success screen. The sats have moved. The invoice has been paid.

Step 6 — Return to Decaputin

After Wallet of Satoshi shows the payment as sent, return to Decaputin in your browser.

The invoice modal may still be open. That is normal.

Close the invoice modal.

This is an important small step. After the invoice is paid, the page underneath should update and show that the Head is now linked to your npub. You should see the ownership area change and a button such as Sign Ownership.

At this point, the Head has already been paid for that npub.

That also means the Head is already claimed and enters the official Decaputin collection. Even if the signature step fails or gets delayed, the payment still counts for that npub.

Step 7 — Sign ownership

Tap Sign Ownership.

This is not another payment.

This is the Nostr ownership step. Decaputin asks your Nostr signer to create a signed event that proves the claim publicly on relays.

Your browser may show a short waiting state, such as Signing…. Then Primal should open again.

Step 8 — Approve the request in Primal

Primal will show an app request from Decaputin.

The request may appear as a custom signing event, for example sign_event:7620 or sign_event7620.

That is Decaputin asking your Nostr identity to sign the ownership event for the Head.

Check the request. Make sure it comes from Decaputin. Then approve it.

On mobile, this may be shown as Allow Selected, Approve, or a similar confirmation button.

This step does not reveal your nsec to Decaputin. Primal signs the event. Decaputin receives the signed result.

Step 9 — Return to Decaputin and wait

After approving in Primal, return to Decaputin.

You may see a short waiting state while Decaputin receives and processes the signed event.

When everything is complete, Decaputin shows the success modal.

The Head is now claimed, paid and signed.

What each step actually did

The flow feels long the first time because it crosses apps. But each app has a job.

Step	App	Meaning
Connect	Primal	Decaputin learns your public Nostr identity
Confirm npub	Decaputin	You choose which npub will own the Head
Pay invoice	Wallet of Satoshi	You send sats over Lightning
Close invoice modal	Decaputin	You return to the claim state after payment
Sign ownership	Primal	You publish a Nostr proof for the claim
Success	Decaputin	The claim flow is complete

Once you understand that separation, the flow becomes simple.

Nostr is identity. Lightning is payment. Decaputin ties them together around a Head.

If payment succeeds but signing fails

This can happen.

Maybe you closed the browser. Maybe Primal did not open. Maybe the phone killed the app in the background. Maybe you lost connection for a moment.

If the Lightning payment succeeded, the Head is already paid for the npub used in the claim flow.

The important thing is this: a paid Head already belongs to that npub, even before the signature step is completed.

So do not panic and do not pay again.

You have two ways to continue:

go back to the same Head page and tap Sign Ownership again;
open My Heads, find the paid Head there, open it, and sign ownership from that screen.

My Heads: where your claimed Heads live

Decaputin has a My Heads section where you can see the Heads you already own.

A Head appears there as soon as it has been paid and linked to your npub. This is useful because the payment and the signature are related, but they are not the same step.

So if the payment succeeded and the success modal never appeared, check My Heads.

If the Head is there, open it. If ownership is still waiting for the Nostr proof, you can complete the Sign Ownership step from there.

This is the clean recovery path if the first claim flow was interrupted.

If Wallet of Satoshi does not open

Use the manual invoice path.

On the Decaputin invoice modal, tap Copy Invoice.

Then open Wallet of Satoshi manually:

open Wallet of Satoshi;
tap send or scan;
paste the invoice;
check the amount;
send the payment;
return to Decaputin.

The invoice is the important part. The automatic app handoff is only a shortcut.

If Primal does not open

Try again from Decaputin.

If your phone shows an app picker, choose Primal. If it opens the wrong app, go back and choose the correct one.

Make sure you are already logged in to the Primal account you want to use.

If you are using a remote signer flow, the request may expire. In that case, close the modal and start the connect or sign step again from Decaputin.

If the payment already succeeded, remember that you can also reopen the Head from My Heads and sign from there later.

If the invoice expires

Lightning invoices are temporary.

If the invoice expires before you pay, go back to Decaputin and create a new invoice.

Do not pay an old invoice from a screenshot. Do not pay an invoice you copied earlier if Decaputin has already moved on. The safest invoice is always the current one shown in the active claim modal.

If you do not have enough sats

Wallet of Satoshi will not pay an invoice if the wallet does not have enough balance.

Add sats first, then return to Decaputin and pay the current invoice.

If you use the in-app buy flow, check the minimum purchase, provider fee and final amount before confirming. A top-up may be larger than the price of one Head. That is normal. It can leave you with sats for the next claim.

What not to do

Do not paste your nsec into Decaputin.

Do not pay an invoice twice.

Do not confirm a Primal signing request if it does not come from Decaputin.

Do not assume the payment and the signature are the same step.

Do not panic if the success modal does not appear instantly. Return to the Head, check the ownership area, or look in My Heads and sign ownership if Decaputin asks you to.

Quick checklist

Before tapping Claim Now, make sure you have:

Primal installed and connected to the right Nostr identity;
Wallet of Satoshi installed and funded;
enough sats for the claim and possible routing fees;
Decaputin open in your browser;
a few seconds of patience for app switching.

Then follow the rhythm:

claim on Decaputin;
connect in Primal;
confirm npub on Decaputin;
pay invoice in Wallet of Satoshi;
return to Decaputin and close the invoice modal;
sign ownership in Primal;
return to Decaputin for success.

That is your first Head.