Readit News logoReadit News
Posted by u/maxcomperatore a month ago
Show HN: Shardium – open-source "Dead Man's Switch" for crypto inheritanceshardium.xyz/...
Hi HN, I'm Max.

I built this because I was terrified that if I die tomorrow, my family gets nothing. The existing solutions were either trusting a centralized custodian or complex hardware setups.

Shardium is a client-side tool that splits your seed phrase into 3 shards using Shamir's Secret Sharing.

Shard A: You keep.

Shard B: You give to a beneficiary (PDF).

Shard C: We hold (or you self-host).

It works as a dead man's switch: If you are inactive for 90 days (email ping), Shard C is released to your beneficiary. They combine B + C to recover the funds.

The Stack:

secrets.js-grempe for the math.

FastAPI + PostgreSQL backend.

Client-side encryption (seed never hits the network).

It is 100% Open Source and MIT Licensed. You can self-host it for free ($0), or use the managed version.

I'd love your feedback on the security model. Roast my code here: https://github.com/pyoneerC/shardium

ycombinatrix · a month ago
I prefer to do a 4 shares / 2 needed for recovery.

I keep 2 on different storage media, 1 with a trusted beneficiary, 1 with a different trusted beneficiary.

This does mean that the beneficiaries can collude to rob me tho. But it is simpler than running & trusting some kind of live service imo.

maxcomperatore · a month ago
running 4-of-2 definitely removes the service dependency.

you highlighted exactly the "bug" i wanted to patch though: the collusion risk. if beneficiary A and B have a beer together, you get rugged.

the "live service" here acts purely as a time-lock. beneficiaries can't collude to rob you today because the 3rd shard isn't released until the dead man's switch actually triggers. it protects you from your own friends.

ycombinatrix · a month ago
You should consider highlighting that this can be used for way more than crypto wallets. The seed phrase can be used to restore a GPG key, a FIDO2 authenticator including SSH/WebAuthn, etc.
reachableceo · a month ago
Why not use Vaultwatden for this ? It has a built in dead man switch recovery system.
maxcomperatore · a month ago
big fan of vaultwarden (i self-host it).

the main difference is architecture: shardium splits the secret (shamir) so the server never holds the full data, whereas vaultwarden holds the full encrypted vault.

also the "grandma factor": getting non-tech family to setup a vaultwarden account was friction. this is just "find paper in drawer, scan qr".