FEATURES · DEAD MAN'S SWITCH
Dead Man's Switch
An on-chain claim-readiness rule built into your smart contract vault. If you stop checking in, your heirs can claim your assets — without sharing seed phrases. Legal steps still depend on local law.
What Is a Dead Man's Switch in Crypto?
A dead man's switch in crypto is a smart contract mechanism that opens a claim path when the wallet owner fails to check in within a set time period. The owner periodically sends a transaction to confirm they are still active. If they miss the deadline — due to death, incapacitation, or loss of access — an heir can initiate a claim, which starts the grace-period deadline before execution. No seed phrases are shared, and the claim rules run on-chain.
How It Works
Set Your Interval
Choose how often you want to check in — 30 days, 90 days, 180 days, or any custom period. This defines how long your vault waits before allowing claims.
Check In Periodically
Send a simple on-chain transaction to confirm you're active. One click from the HeirVault dashboard, or call the contract directly from any block explorer.
Claim Window Opens
If you miss your deadline, heirs become able to initiate a claim. You can still check in to reset the timer, and guardians can extend the deadline before execution.
Heirs Can Claim
A designated heir initiates the claim, which starts the configurable grace-period deadline. If multisig is configured, the required number of heirs must sign before withdrawals are unlocked.
Why a Dead Man's Switch?
Over $400 billion in Bitcoin is estimated to be permanently lost in inaccessible wallets. Most of these losses aren't from hacks or scams — they happen because the owner dies, becomes incapacitated, or simply loses access, with no succession plan in place.
Traditional solutions require sharing seed phrases (a security disaster), trusting third-party custodians, or relying on legal processes that weren't designed for digital assets. A dead man's switch helps by making the trigger condition explicit: if you stop proving you're alive, heirs can begin the claim flow.
HeirVault's core dead man's switch logic lives on-chain in the vault contract itself. Even if HeirVault as a service disappears, users can still inspect and interact with the vault through wallets or block explorers.
Advanced: Death Oracle
Manual Death Evidence Layer
Beyond manual check-ins, Premium users can preserve death evidence for review. The current production-safe path is manual certificate upload and hash verification; registry integrations are not wired for automatic claim initiation.
Manual mode records supporting evidence for heirs and operators. SSDI and GRO registry modes remain unavailable until provider contracts, error handling, and legal review are fully wired.
Death Oracle is an optional layer — your vault's dead man's switch works independently regardless of whether a Death Oracle is configured.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a dead man's switch in crypto?
A dead man's switch is a rules-based mechanism that changes what designated heirs are allowed to do when the owner misses a regular check-in. In HeirVault, a missed check-in lets heirs initiate the smart-contract claim flow; it does not by itself transfer assets.
How does HeirVault's dead man's switch work?
You set a check-in interval (e.g. 90 or 180 days). Periodically confirm you're active by sending a check-in transaction. If you miss the deadline, heirs can initiate a claim through the smart contract; that claim starts the grace-period deadline before execution.
Can I customize the check-in interval?
Yes. You can set any interval from 1 to 365 days. Common choices are 90 days, 180 days, or 365 days. You can also change the interval at any time while the vault is active.
What if I'm temporarily unable to check in?
You can appoint Guardians — trusted parties who can extend the check-in deadline by up to 90 days per active claim, within a 180-day lifetime cap, without being able to access your funds. This covers scenarios like travel, illness, or temporary inaccessibility.
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Set Up Your Dead Man's Switch
Deploy a vault with a contract-enforced inheritance claim flow in under two minutes.
Create Your Vault