Social Recovery

Losing a seed phrase means losing an EOA forever. Social recovery replaces that single point of failure with a set of guardians — trusted contacts or devices that can help rotate a compromised or lost signing key without ever holding the full balance themselves.

Guardian design is a security tradeoff. Too few guardians and one compromised friend could collude. Too many and recovery becomes impractical when people lose access to email or phone numbers. Many wallets combine social guardians with a hardware backup or passkey for defense in depth.

Social recovery does not mean giving custody to a company. Guardians co-sign a contract-level change; they never receive unilateral withdrawal rights. Done well, it turns seed-phrase panic into a recoverable process that mainstream users can actually understand.