Recovery that survives a bad day
You will be able to restore a wallet on a new device, and to choose between a written phrase and split shares knowing exactly what each one costs.
The ordinary case
A new device, the phrase, and everything is back.
Install the wallet on the new machine, choose restore, type the twenty-four words. The keys are derived again from the same seed, the addresses come back identical, and the balance is read from the chain rather than from any backup. Nothing was stored anywhere: it was always derivable.
Illustration to come
Real photograph: somebody restoring a wallet on a new laptop with a handwritten card beside them. It should feel like a real recovery on an ordinary table.
Splitting it
Shares, so that losing one is survivable.
The wallet can split the phrase into N shares of which any T restore it — three shares needing two, five needing three. A single share reveals nothing about the phrase; that is the mathematics of the scheme, and it holds. It lets you place parts with people or in places you trust separately, so no single fire, theft or forgetful moment is the end.
Illustration to come
Real photograph of three plain sealed envelopes on a table, hand-numbered 1 to 3. Nothing legible inside. Quiet and domestic.
What the shares are not
They are base64 text, not encrypted and not SLIP-39.
This wallet splits the phrase itself with Shamir over GF(256) and hands you base64 strings. They are not SLIP-39 mnemonics, so tools that expect those cannot read them, and they are not individually encrypted, so their confidentiality is whatever the envelope, the person and the channel provide. That is stated here because a recovery plan built on a wrong assumption fails exactly once.
Illustration to come
Real photograph of a slip of paper carrying a long base64 string, held or on a table. Use an invented string. The point is that it is text, not words.
Practise it
A recovery you have never rehearsed is a hope.
Restore your own wallet onto a second device, or into a fresh profile, while everything is fine. It costs ten minutes and it is the only way to find out that a word was written illegibly, that a share was stored somewhere you cannot reach, or that the passphrase you were sure of is not the one that works.
Illustration to come
Real photograph of a handwritten checklist with items ticked. Human handwriting, ordinary paper — a rehearsal, not a procedure manual.
In short
- Restoring is deriving the same keys again from the same phrase; nothing was stored elsewhere.
- Shares let any T of N restore the phrase, and a single share reveals nothing.
- Those shares are base64 Shamir shares — not SLIP-39, and not individually encrypted.
- Rehearse a restore while nothing is wrong; it is the only way to know it works.