bitcoinafterlife
f03a985ae5
1.5 KiB
:material-lifebuoy: Using BAL as a wallet recovery net (or wallet backup)
Inheritance is not the only use for a time-locked transaction. The same mechanism gives you a decentralized safety net against losing your seed.
The idea
Set up an inheritance whose beneficiary is a second wallet you control — for example a mobile wallet on your phone.
If you lose access to the original wallet and therefore stop opening Electrum, the Will-Executors broadcast the transaction on the delivery date and the funds arrive in your backup wallet. If you keep access, you simply keep postponing the date and nothing ever happens.
What you need
- A second wallet already set up, whose receiving address you know and whose keys you can actually access.
- The BAL plugin configured on the wallet you want to protect, with that address as the beneficiary.
- A delivery date you are comfortable with, and the discipline to keep it refreshed — see Keeping the will up to date.
!!! warning "The backup wallet must be genuinely independent" A recovery destination whose keys live on the same device, or are derived from the same seed, protects you from nothing. Use a different device and a different seed, stored separately.
!!! tip "It combines with inheritance" Nothing stops you from listing both a recovery address of your own and your heirs. Remember that the plugin always distributes 100% of the wallet — see Heirs and shares.