Hardhat Keystore: Secure Private Key Management for Developers

Private key leaks caused over $2B in losses in 2024. One of the reasons for private key leaks is using them as plaintext in .env files and storing them without encryption in local environments. This guide shows how to use hardhat-keystore - a plugin by NomicFoundation - to encrypt and securely manage secrets in Hardhat projects, using Neon EVM as an implementation example.