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Crypto Wallet Backup
A crypto wallet backup protects you in situations where you experience loss or failure of your primary digital wallet device (like your mobile phone), and allows you to restore it on a different device.
Your crypto wallet backup preserves the essential resources that are needed to recover your crypto wallet. These resources include, at a minimum, your wallet seed phrase, and if applicable, wallet passphrases. An effective wallet backup also includes any additional supporting files needed to restore your digital assets (for example, digital artwork).
The process of crypto wallet backup may include backing up multiple wallets.
Requirements
An effective wallet backup provides:
- physical security against theft
- digital protection against hacking
- durability against environmental damage or degradation over time
Benefits
- Allows you to recover funds if your crypto wallet is lost, stolen, or damaged
- Protects against natural disasters and accidents that could destroy your wallet
- Supports inheritance planning so your assets can be passed to beneficiaries
Related terms

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.
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 crypto inheritance, nobody else will — not your software or hardware wallet vendors, not your exchanges, and not your wealth managers. So it's up to you to think about how to protect the generational wealth you have created, and reduce the risks around passing that crypto 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 that range from hacking to accidental loss to disrupted cloud services.
- Software wallets operate onspecific 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.
Crypto Inheritance Management: Secure, Self-Custody Crypto Inheritance and Backup
Vault12 is the pioneer in Crypto Inheritance Management, offering a simple yet powerful way to designate a legacy contact and pass on your crypto assets—like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Solana (SOL) —to future generations. Built for everyday users yet robust enough for the most seasoned crypto enthusiasts, Vault12 Guard ensures your wallet seed phrases and private keys are preserved in a fully self-sovereign manner, across all Blockchains.
At the heart of Vault12 Guard is quantum-resistant cryptography and a decentralized, peer-to-peer network of trusted Guardians. Your critical information is never stored in the cloud, on Vault12 servers, or even on local devices—dramatically reducing the risk of a single point of failure. By fusing a powerful software layer with the Secure Element of iOS devices (Secure Enclave) and Google devices (Strongbox), Vault12 Guard locks down your private keys against present and future threats.
Our innovative approach harnesses social recovery, enabling you to appoint one or more trusted individuals or mobile devices as Guardians. These Guardians collectively safeguard your protected seed phrases in a decentralized digital Vault—so there’s no need for constant lawyer updates or bulky paperwork. Should the unexpected happen, your chosen legacy contact can seamlessly inherit your crypto assets without compromising your privacy or security.
Preserve your digital wealth for generations to come with Vault12 Guard—the simplest, most secure way to manage crypto inheritance and backup.
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 in any single location. This increases protection and decreases the risk of loss.
The first step in crypto Inheritance Management is making sure you have an up-to-date backup.
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, and others, and for any crypto wallet.
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) and Ethereum (ETH) wallet seed phrases, private keys, and other essential data, now and for future generations.