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Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins #Proofofkeys

Not Your Keys, Not Your Crypto


The best way to store your private keys

Keeping your private keys safe, secure and under your complete control is essential to ensure financial independence and autonomy, which is what attracted a lot of early crypto adopters and remains a key value in the crypto community. In addition to empowering monetary sovereignty, it also serves as a way to hold third-party services accountable by testing them for their solvency.

Proof of Solvency

Purchasing a digital asset means you're buying a key that represents ownership of such value. Requesting proof of that key is a useful method to determine potential risk with exchanges and other digital custodians. Exchanges are suspected of not holding onto the coins and actually failing to carry sufficient reserves. There's also the possibility that the exchange or wallet provider becomes insolvent, has its accounts frozen, or pulls a salacious exit scam. If a large enough volume of crypto is moved by a significant portion of asset holders, custodians are challenged to prove they can accommodate users' demands for ownership of their coins.

Recently, BitUniverse released an Exchange Transparent Balance Rank feature, which aggregates trading volume for the top 60 cryptocurrency exchanges. According to the list, the world's most popular centralized exchanges store at least 1.9 million BTC ($13.9 billion).

Chart showing most popular exchanges for leaving your crypto on

Research from Viewbase shows a similar ranking of leading exchanges for reported monthly trading volumes and ether balances.

Chart of exchanges by trading volume

The ability to verify the activity by these entities is the accountability that is built into blockchain technology, one of the greatest aspects of the technology. It is extremely important to pay attention to this due diligence because a huge disparity between the crypto balances and transaction activity can indicate foul play; in fact, 95% of total volume reported is faked according to a report by BitWise Asset Management.

While regulators are getting stricter, there is still a real lack of protection for exchange users whose funds may be exposed to hacks. In the event that a less-than-desirable event like a hack or fraud happens to the service you keep your crypto on, you may have no way of getting it back. But even custodians like Coinbase and Bakkt have full control of the coins and can refuse or limit withdrawals. Smaller exchanges have made no commitment to any safety standards.

The Outcome

With crypto, long time holders are reminded to be mindful of who truly owns the private keys, and those who are new investors should also be aware of the importance of moving coins away from the initial institution where they bought them. With crypto — you become the single point of failure — since you own the keys — — if you delegate the keys — you are increasing the risk. Make sure your keys are backed up elsewhere — the default is paper, but there are new solutions that enable you to encrypt your paper backups so that you always retain access to your assets.

About the Author:

Kyle Graden is a digital native who was born in what's considered the Millennial Generation. Kyle is a nomadic entrepreneur, growth consultant, and QryptoQueer, striving to make a more accountable, transparent, and equitable world. Kyle's experience in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry spans from marketing a crypto hedge fund to being named to the Top 100 Fintech for UN SDG Influencers list to speaking at conferences and participating in hackathons.

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Vault12 Blog

Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins #Proofofkeys

Not Your Keys, Not Your Crypto

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Vault12

Vault12 is the pioneer in crypto inheritance and backup. The company was founded in 2015 to provide a way to enable everyday crypto customers to add a legacy contact to their cry[to wallets. The Vault12 Guard solution is blockchain-independent, runs on any mobile device with biometric security, and is available in Apple and Google app stores.

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Backup and Inheritance for Bitcoin

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You will lose your Bitcoin and other crypto when you die...

You will lose your Bitcoin and other crypto when you die...

...unless you set up Crypto Inheritance Management today.

It's simple—if you don't worry about it, nobody else will—not your software or hardware wallet vendors, not your exchanges, not your wealth managers. So you have to think about how to protect the generational wealth you have created and reduce the risks around passing that wealth on to your family and heirs. What are the challenges with crypto inheritance?

  • Crypto Wallets are difficult to use and do not offer crypto inheritance management. In fact, most of them tell you to write down your seed phrase on a piece of paper which is practically useless.
  • Some people back up their wallet seed phrases or private keys on paper, local devices like hardware wallets or USBs, or in the cloud - all of these options have severe drawbacks from hacking, to accidental loss, to loss of cloud services. No one wants that to happen to their crypto generational wealth.
  • Software wallets operate on specific blockchains, yet your crypto assets span multiple blockchains, for inheritance to work, you must be able to manage inheritance across every blockchain - now and forever.
Vault12 is the pioneer in crypto inheritance management, watch our explainer video or Inheritance demo today.
Screenshot of Vault12 Guard apps - Add an Asset screen

Crypto Inheritance Management: Get ready today

Vault12 is the pioneer in Crypto Inheritance Management that delivers an easy-to-use and secure method for assigning a legacy contact to your crypto wallets. This enables you to pass on your wallet seed phrases and private keys — including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) — to future generations. Designed for everyday people, and strong enough for Crypto OGs.

This innovative, decentralized system uses a hybrid approach of software fused with the secure element of phone devices (The Secure Enclave for iOS devices, and Strongbox for Google devices). Vault12 Guard enables users to appoint a person or mobile device as a Guardian. The designated Guardian is entrusted to protect the user's comprehensive collection of wallet seed phrases and private keys, safely stored within a decentralized digital Vault. No information is stored on cloud servers, or Vault12 servers and nothing is stored on local devices making it less of a target.

The Decentralized approach reduces points of failure and removes the necessity for regularly revising wallet inventories or modifying instructions for your lawyers, often leading to privacy breaches. It is the best way to preserve crypto generational wealth.

Screenshot of Vault12 Guard app - Adding data into the Vault

Take the first step and back up your crypto wallets.

Designed to be used alongside traditional hardware and software crypto wallets, Vault12 Guard helps cryptocurrency owners back up their wallet seed phrases and private keys (assets) without storing anything in the cloud or any single location. This increases protection and decreases the risks of loss. Making sure you have an up to date back up is the first step in crypto inheritance management.

The Vault12 Guard app enables secure decentralized backups and provides inheritance for all your seed phrases and private keys across any blockchain, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, ERC-20, and other crypto wallets.

Note: For anyone unfamiliar with cryptocurrencies, Vault12 refers to wallet seed phrases and private keys as assets, crypto assets, and digital assets. The Vault12 Guard app includes a software wallet that works alongside your digital Vault. The primary purpose of this is to guard your Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH) wallet seed phrases, private keys, and other essential data, now and for future generations.

Add a legacy contact for your crypto.