> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.10102.io/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.10102.io/user-guide/shield.md). # Shield Vault (protect a holding) Put a token behind a wait you choose. If your key is ever stolen, anything the thief starts waits in plain sight, and your recovery sheet can stop it. A protected holding is a token you put in the Shield Vault, behind a wait. Anything that leaves it, your own withdrawal included, is public from the moment it starts and only completes after the wait. If someone steals your wallet key, they can start a withdrawal but not finish it before you notice, and a recovery sheet you printed at the start stops it and moves everything to a wallet you chose in advance. If you go silent for a long time, the holding can go to the people you name. Open it from **Shield Vault** in the menu, or at `app.10102.io/shield`. It runs on Ethereum, in the contract `0xA1EA2F8C0518458975E09ED63bf5D48980f76C38`. ## Making one Five decisions, one per step. Nothing is sent until the last one. 1. **What to protect.** wstETH, USDC, USDT or WETH, and how much. If you hold plain ETH, pick WETH: the page offers to wrap the ETH you need first (1 WETH is always 1 ETH, and it turns back into ETH any time). 2. **How slowly it can leave.** 7, 30 or 90 days; 30 suits most people. This is how long you have to stop a withdrawal you did not ask for. Every withdrawal waits this long, yours included, and the page shows the date a withdrawal started today would complete. 3. **Who receives it if you go silent.** Optional. Choose 6, 12, 24 or 36 months without activity, then up to 10 wallet addresses with a share each; the shares must add up to 100%. For someone without a wallet, choose a printed card instead of an address: the page makes a card with a key for them, and their share waits in the vault until they claim it. Anything you do on the holding counts as activity, and a check-in is one small transaction. 4. **A recovery sheet.** Recommended. Enter a recovery wallet, ideally a fresh address from a hardware wallet that has never signed anything, and never the wallet you are connected with. The page makes the sheet on your device: a secret, the recovery wallet, a QR code and plain instructions. Print it before going on. If you download it to print elsewhere, delete the file once it is on paper. 5. **Check and protect it.** The page restates everything in sentences, including the first date the holding could go to your people and the fee (below). Then up to three confirmations in your wallet: register the sheet, allow the vault to take the amount (only if needed; USDT asks twice when an old allowance is set), and open the holding. If one is interrupted, come back and it continues where it stopped. ## Straight from ETH: Stake & Shield If you hold ETH and want it earning while it is protected, open **Stake & Shield** from Home and keep **Maximum protection** selected. Enter an amount: it is staked with Lido into wstETH in one transaction (or, if you already hold stETH or wstETH, you can use that instead). The page then continues straight into the steps above with sensible choices already made: a 30-day wait and your people after 12 months, both changeable before you confirm. wstETH keeps the same amount while its value in ETH grows with staking rewards, and your holding shows what it is worth in ETH today. Prefer instant access? **Keep it in my wallet** leaves the staked ETH in your wallet with a legacy backup instead, with no protection against theft. ## Using it Your holdings show on the same page, with one main action each: * **Check in** restarts the silence clock. With Premium it is free: you sign, and we send and pay for the transaction. * **Add more** puts more of the same token in, under the same settings. It counts as a check-in. * **Withdraw** starts the wait for an amount or for everything, to an address you choose. You can cancel it any time before it completes. * **Change settings** (the wait, the people, the sheet) also waits the current delay, so a thief cannot shorten the wait or swap your people first. * **Finish** appears when the wait is over. After that moment anyone can finish it, which is why a stop must come before the wait ends. Each holding has a public status page, `app.10102.io/shield/1/`, that family can open without a wallet to see what is waiting. **Email alerts, free and optional.** Where they are available, the page offers to email you the moment a withdrawal or a change starts on any holding of your wallet, and weeks before a silence period runs out. It takes one signature and no transaction; the address is stored encrypted, used for nothing else, and you can delete it from the same place. Nothing requires it, and Cypherpunk Mode never asks. ## Stopping a withdrawal with the sheet If a withdrawal or a change you did not ask for appears: 1. Open `app.10102.io/shield` on any phone or computer and choose **Stop it**, or use the button on the holding's status page. 2. Scan the QR code on the sheet with the page's camera button (it works on iPhone and Android alike, and the code is read on the device), or type the secret and the recovery wallet exactly as printed. 3. The page checks the sheet on your device first. A wrong sheet is refused there, costs nothing and never leaves the device. 4. Send it. The page sends it for free when it can; otherwise any wallet with a little ETH for the network fee will do, not only yours. Everything in the holding moves to the recovery wallet on the sheet, right away, and the holding closes. There is no undo. A copied sheet cannot rob you: it can only send the holding to your own recovery wallet. It still ends the holding early, so keep it as safe as a key. The sheet works against a future quantum computer too, because it is a secret whose hash was registered in advance, not a signature from your key. ## If you made a quantum readiness sheet on Home That older sheet and a Shield Vault recovery sheet are different things. The readiness sheet registered a dated proof that you owned your wallet before any quantum break; it moves nothing and stops nothing, and it cannot be used here. Keep it: the date is what it is worth. To protect coins now, open a holding and make its recovery sheet, which is tied to that holding, its recovery wallet and this contract. One sheet per holding. ## When you go silent After the silence period passes with no activity, anyone can release the holding to the people you named, in their shares. If one share cannot be delivered (for example an address a token has blocked), it is kept for that address and can be claimed later from the status page; the others are paid anyway. Finishing a release costs the family nothing: the page sends it for free. Someone named by a printed card opens `app.10102.io/shield/claim`, scans the card (or types what is printed on it) and enters the wallet the share should go to. The card's key signs on their device and never leaves it; no wallet, no ETH and no fee for the claim itself are needed. ## What you should know * **It stays yours.** Only the wallet that opens a holding can withdraw from it. We cannot move it, pause withdrawals or change your settings. The governance Safe that owns the contract can only choose which tokens it accepts, pause new deposits, and set the fee for holdings opened later, never above 0.5%. * **Three ways out, no others.** Your own withdrawal after the wait, your people after the silence period, or your recovery sheet to your recovery wallet. * **The wait protects you only if you notice.** Turn on the email alerts if you like, check the page from time to time, and share the status page with family so they can watch too. * **The vault pays no interest.** You get back exactly the tokens you put in. A token that grows by itself, like wstETH, keeps growing while it waits. * **Reviewed, not yet audited.** The contract had two adversarial reviews before deployment and has not had an independent audit yet. It cannot be upgraded: a fix would be a new vault, and every holding can leave through its own wait. * **Fees.** 0.25% of what leaves, when you withdraw or when it goes to your people, fixed for each holding when you open it. Stopping it with the sheet is always free, and so is claiming a share that was kept. Steps you send from your own wallet also pay the Ethereum network fee. How it works underneath, with the threat model: [Quantum Readiness](/architecture/quantum-readiness.md).