Your crypto goes to your family —
automatically.

Engineered for capital you can't afford to lose

• Non-custodial

  We never hold your keys

• Audited

  by OpenZeppelin

• Open-source

  MIT · verifiable on-chain

• Formally verified

  51 Halmos proofs

• AML / OFAC

  Sanctions screening

Mock data · Your real dashboard updates live over websocket

Scenarios simplified · Numbers illustrative · Not legal or tax advice

• Is HeirVault really non-custodial? What does that mean?

  Yes. The smart contract holding your assets is deployed to an address owned by your wallet. HeirVault the company has no signing keys, no admin backdoor, and no way to move your funds. We write the interface you use to configure the vault — nothing more.
• What happens if HeirVault the company disappears tomorrow?

  Your vault keeps working. Recovery instructions are pinned on IPFS and GitHub, not on our servers. Heirs can sign claims directly on Etherscan with any wallet. Read the full recovery playbook at /recovery — it walks through the exact steps your family would take.
• Who can see my seed phrases or private keys?

  No one at HeirVault, ever. We don't collect, request, or store seed phrases. Your keys stay in your wallet (MetaMask, Ledger, Rabby, etc). The only thing the contract knows is the address of your heirs and guardians — not their keys.
• How does the dead-man's switch actually work?

  You choose a check-in interval (90 or 180 days). Before the deadline, you tap "Check in" in the dashboard, send us a Telegram message, or make any on-chain transaction from your owner wallet. If the deadline passes with no activity, your heirs can initiate a claim. You can extend or cancel at any time.
• What if I'm in a hospital or coma and can't check in?

  This is exactly what guardians are for. Up to 10 trusted people can push the deadline forward — capped at 90 days per session and 180 days across the vault's lifetime, with a 24h cooldown per guardian. They can't withdraw or redirect anything. They're a safety net, not a backdoor.
• Can my guardians collude to steal from me?

  No. Guardians have exactly one power on-chain: extend the deadline. They cannot withdraw, change heirs, or redirect funds — the ABI doesn't even expose those methods to them. If you suspect coordinated abuse, your heirs can call an emergency reset after 90 days past deadline, which wipes the extensions. This was specifically audited (OpenZeppelin CRIT-02 patch).
• How do I choose the right multisig (M-of-N)?

  The Playbook has a full chapter on this. Rule of thumb: 2-of-3 for most families (one heir lost, you still inherit), 3-of-5 for family offices with independent oversight, 2-of-2 if your heirs live together. The contract supports up to 10 heirs with any M-of-N combination where M ≤ N.
• Which blockchains does HeirVault support?

  11 chains today: Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, Polygon, BSC, Avalanche, Hyperliquid (EVM) plus Bitcoin (Taproot multisig), Tron, and Solana. All from one dashboard. Check-ins and deadlines synchronise across all chains on a single timer.
• How is Bitcoin handled — it doesn't have smart contracts?

  We use Taproot (P2TR) script-path multisig. Your BTC sits in a native Bitcoin output with a Taproot script that encodes the same M-of-N heir logic. PSBT signing flow, no wrapped BTC, no bridges. Claim works exactly like EVM from the user's perspective.
• What about taxes? How will my heirs be taxed?

  HeirVault generates tax reports with stepped-up basis calculation at the moment of inheritance (US, EU, UAE, Singapore covered out of the box). We are not your accountant — the report is designed to hand to one. Cross-border cases are in the Playbook.
• I live in one country, my heirs live in three others. Does this work?

  This is one of our most common use cases — see /use-cases/expat. Because inheritance settles on-chain, you bypass probate entirely. No court, no translator, no waiting for sibling jurisdictions to agree. The legal kit addresses forced-heirship opt-outs where relevant.
• What are the gas fees to set up or claim?

  Setup: one vault deployment (typically $3–20 depending on chain and gas at deploy time). Ongoing check-ins are free via Telegram/dashboard. Claim: one commit + one execute transaction per heir who wants to pull (L2s make this $0.10–2, Ethereum mainnet $10–50).
• Is the vault upgradable? Can HeirVault push an update that steals?

  V1 and V2 vaults are immutable clones — nothing to upgrade, nobody can change the code. V3 uses a beacon proxy behind a 7-day timelock: any upgrade is announced, auditable on-chain, and you have 7 days to exit to an immutable clone if you don't trust the change.
• Can I cancel or change my vault later?

  Yes, freely. You can add/remove heirs (before any claim), add/remove guardians (with a 1-day cooldown), change check-in cadence, pause deposits, or dissolve the vault entirely and withdraw back to your own wallet. Nothing is locked except an in-progress claim.