Decentralized Legacy

At some point, we will all face the inevitability of death, which can also occur unexpectedly. Often, we forget to share important secrets with our loved ones, such as crypto wallet backup keys, email password or the location of valuable items like gold. The damage can be irreversible.

DecLegacy will help you prepare a strategy & logistics to share your important secrets with someone you trust in case of death or healthcare emergency.

DecLegacy is a web-based application. You can use it without a need to install any software or extension on your computer.

DecLegacy is open source which means that anybody can take a look at how it works.

How It Works

DecLegacy allows you to assign a person you trust (a confidant) to your valuable secret(s).
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Confidant will need to request the access to the secret on DecLegacy, typically when you are no longer able to respond. Upon a request, our service will attempt to contact you via email.

If you do not respond within a reasonable time, DecLegacy will authorize your confidant to reveal the secret.

Storage & Cryptography

DecLegacy server never stores or handle unencrypted content or encryption passwords. All secrets are encrypted in browser ensuring that even those with server-level access, whether intended or unintended, cannot retrieve important secrets.

You would share the encryption password with your confidant, and this should be done offline to prevent hacking attempts.

Encryption password alone is not enough to decrypt the content, as the encrypted information is not exposed to the confidant until it is truly needed.

Virtual, Physical & Logical layer of security

To reveal the secret, the following criteria must be met:

The confidant must have access to their email account or DecLegacy - virtual layer of security.
They must have the encryption password - physical layer of security
DecLegacy must allow confident to decrypt the content - logical layer of security

Trust and Decentralization

Should you trust DecLegacy.com to store your most valuable secrets?
In order to improve the security and trust, we made DecLegacy an open source project, however we would encourage you to NOT trust or rely on any service solely in order to improve your security. With DecLegacy you can easily use a strategy which involves a combination of physical & virtual data storage in order to prevent both physical theft and hacking attempts.

How to Do This?
The simplest way to achieve this is to store the first part of your secret physically (e.g, in a bank safe). The second part can be stored virtually on DecLegacy.
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Your confidant should be informed about the location of the first part and the encryption password for the second part of the secret.
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Even with all this information, your confidant cannot yet reveal the secret because DecLegacy safeguards the virtual portion until you are either deceased or unresponsive.

We wrote an article which explains how and why this concept can be used in Bitcoin Legacy Strategy.

Redundancy and Security

While decentralization improves security, it also increases the risk of losing access to any layer of your strategy. Redundancy is a crucial concept to address this and is heavily used in IT and even space exploration expeditions. Let's take a look at some key redundancy aspects and relevant questions.
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What if DecLegacy Becomes Unavailable
‍All encrypted secrets are emailed to you immediately after any change is made. You can use a browser's JavaScript console to decrypt it - without DecLegacy. You can add a recovery email on your email provider service which will make DecLegacy fully redundant and will make it possible to reveal the secret via two different channels.

What Happens if the Encryption Password is Lost or Forgotten
We suggest adding multiple confidants to each secret to minimize the risk of losing the encryption password. DecLegacy allows you to verify that each confidant knows the encryption password without actually revealing the secret.

‍What if the Physical Part of the Secret is Lost
‍Use redundancy in the physical world too. Store copies of your secret in multiple locations.

People lost a Fortune due to Unreliably Storing Valuable Secrets

With decentralization of money and important secrets it is non-trivial to maintain the access to it throughout multiple generations. You can read some stories about loosing valuable data unexpectedly due to lack of proper strategy and learn why you need a service like DecLegacy.
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In 2014, Mt. Gox, the largest Bitcoin exchange responsible for 70% of all Bitcoin transactions, began its liquidation process. The company reported that approximately 850,000 bitcoins were missing, though 200,000 bitcoins were subsequently recovered. The lost Bitcoins would be worth approximately 40 billion dollars today. Read more on Wikipedia

How could the damage be prevented
Storing digital assets on public exchanges is not 100% safe. If you do not have a private key to access your assets, you do not have a full control over it. Hackers, governments or companies can prevent you from accessing your funds. Individuals should consider hot or cold wallets in order to avoid such incidents.
QuadrigaCX's CEO and founder, Gerald Cotten, died in 2018 after traveling to India. Up to C$250 million (US$190 million) in cryptocurrency owed to 115,000 customers could not be accessed because only Cotten held the password to off-line cold wallets. Read more on Wikipedia

How could the damage be prevented
Storing digital assets on public exchanges is not 100% safe.
Man makes last-ditch effort to recover $280 million in bitcoin he accidentally threw out. Read more on CNBCesU s

How could the damage to be prevented
User could use redundancy and make sure that private keys are stored on multiple locations.
Facebook does not delete the user data of a deceased person unless the individual has explicitly allowed this in their Facebook settings. Read more on CNBC

How could the damage to be prevented
It is a good idea to have a strategy which gives another person access to your every online account, including Facebook. This can be achieved by sharing master password of your password manager. It is not easy to share such password securely and reliably and DecLegacy can help you simplify the process.
Poloniex Hot Wallets Hacked With $114M Seemingly Stolen Read more on CoinDesk

How could the damage to be prevented
Using cold wallet is consider safer than using hot wallet
What happens if you loose your 24-word recovery phrase of your cold wallet. Read more on official Ledger website

How could the damage to be prevented
Private keys or recovery phrases should be stored on multiple locations.
What happens if hardware wallet's recovery phrase is stolen Read more on Binance

How could the damage to be prevented
Recovery phrase can be stored in a combination of virtual & physical storage. This prevents physical & virtual theft.
There are numerous discussions about recovering passwords or Bitcoins online. In most cases the damage is irreversible. Read more on Reddit or on StackExchange

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