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How to replace a Guardian of your Digital Vault

With Vault12 Guard, you can replace your chosen Vault Guardians at any time.

With the Vault12 Guard mobile app, you can easily secure your digital valuables with your choice of Vault Guardians. Guardians could be trusted people, or simply additional devices under your control, that help you recover your Vault in case of accidents like phone loss. During the initial setup of your Vault, you identified your choice of Guardians - but you might decide at some later date that you have changed your mind about your selection of Guardians (whether people or devices). You are always free to change any Guardian of your Vault, and it's easy, free and safe to do. In fact, since it helps to build confidence in the process of restoring your vault, and in maintaining a set of active Guardians, we recommend occasionally replacing a Vault Guardian, even if you end up changing it back to the original Guardian configuration when you are done.

This guide will take you through the steps to help you simply and efficiently reassign a Guardian to your Vault.

What if a Vault Guardian's status is still pending?

If something did not go smoothly with adding a Guardian the first time, or for some other reason the Guardian's status remains as "Pending," you can tap inside the details of that specific Guardian to easily re-invite or replace them.

You might also have a reason to replace an "Active" Guardian. The steps are the same: just select the Guardian's name and then use the Replace Guardian button. You'll be asked for confirmation, and then you will need go through the same steps as if adding a new Guardian.

  

Guard app showing a Pending Guardian

How do you add a new Vault12 Guardian?

To add a Guardian, the Vault owner uses the Guard app to send the Guardian an invitation link to join their Vault, and then the Guardian confirms acceptance of the invitation by opening that link in the Guard app on their device.

In this example:

  • Enter the Guardian Name, e.g., “Jason Sands” if it is a person, or “Dana’s iPad” if it's your spare device. (Later, when you are using your Vault, you will distinguish between your Guardians using the name that you enter here.)
  • After entering the Guardian's name, choose either the “Person” or "Spare device" options, and then press "Continue." This choice doesn’t affect how the Guardian device works, it only helps you to remember which Guardians are trusted devices that are controlled by you, and which of your Guardians are trusted people.

 

Guard app adding a person as a Guardian

How do you verify your Guardians' status?

If your Guardian accepted their invitation and joined your Vault, their status will be shown in the "My Guardians" screen of your Vault12 Guard app. After you have successfully replaced your Guardian and enrolled a new one, you should reach a state where all Guardians are marked with green marks and have a status of "Active," as shown in the screenshot. If you still have any Guardians with a status of "Pending," consider replacing them or giving them instructions on how to confirm their participation in your guardianship.

 

"My Guardians" screen showing 3 Guardians with status

What are the next steps after adding Guardians to your Vault?

Now that your Vault is successfully updated with your choice of Guardians, you can do the following:

  1. Add assets including cryptocurrency seed phrases and/or other types of digital assets.
  2. Generate a cryptocurrency seed phrase to use in a new wallet.
  3. Assign a beneficiary Guardian to inherit your digital assets.


https://www.linkedin.com/in/artk42/
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Vault12 Help

How to replace a Guardian of your Digital Vault

With Vault12 Guard, you can replace your chosen Vault Guardians at any time.

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Art Krotou

Art is a crypto-security expert and researcher with serial entrepreneurship background. Having a degree in physics and experiences in multiple cutting-edge industries like fintech, secure hardware and semiconductors, and identity gave him a unique multi-faceted perspective on the problem of key management for individuals in the crypto networks and the evolution of the internet in general.

In his current work, he is specifically researching how cryptographic keys can be inherited without posing a threat to 3rd parties in edge cases. In addition, he advocates for "fault-tolerance via secrets automation". He discusses the quantitative impact of user experience factors on the uptake of non-custodial solutions.

As one of his most notable accomplishments, he co-founded and led through the early years of the company that contributed to the complex technology behind Apple's recent M-series CPUs. He is also the creator of the most friendly and aesthetically pleasing, but nonetheless super secure and fault-tolerant hardware wallet - U•HODL.


Check out his curated series of "Vault12 Learn" contributions below, and follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn for more sharp insights.

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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 wallets 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 delivering 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 enables users to appoint a person or mobile device as 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.