Locksmith Seedless Recovery with Coinbase MPC Wallet

Self-custody is a big hurtle for crypto adoption. Taking that step to fully custody your own funds after holding crypto on an exchange is big and scary. Mostly due to fear of losing the seed phrase means losing access to all of the funds in the account.

Today's quick post is an outline of how you can make the transition to full custody onchain, by using a combination of your Coinbase account, and Locksmith.

Seedless Recovery Quick-Start Steps

You can create a self-custody wallet with these four easy steps, and configure it in such a way that you could completely lose your mobile phone or its associated wallet seed phrase, and not lose any of the funds you had access to there. You can do this in a way that only provides your Coinbase account access to these funds in a recovery workflow.

In the end, you can fully self-custody funds - and recover them - without ever having to remember a seed phrase.

Step 1: Login to Coinbase on Mobile

‍Create a Coinbase account if you do not have one, and download the Coinbase app from the Apple Appstore or Google Play. This will serve as your onramp if you don't already have funds. We need this app to take advantage of the embedded Coinbase MPC wallet.

Step 2: Setup Coinbase Web3 Wallet

‍Follow these instructions to set up and fund your Coinbase web3 wallet in the Coinbase mobile app.

The reason you do this is to generate an on-chain address that is directly associated with your Coinbase account. This web3 wallet you can get access to without having to manage a seed phrase, and can use all of the two factor authentication, security, and recovery options that are available to Coinbase customers.

Step 3: Setup Self-Custody Wallet

‍Download your favorite fully self-custody wallet, like Coinbase Wallet or Metamask, and set up. You don't actually have to remember the seed phrase!

You still want full self-custody of your funds, and while Coinbase's MPC wallet lets you get on-chain without managing a seed phrase, it doesn't let you custody your funds in a fully permissionless way. Setting up this wallet enables you to have an on-chain address that you fully control.

Step 4: Create Locksmith Trust and Link Recovery

‍Follow the instructions on the Locksmith set-up guide using your self-custody wallet to create a Trust. When configuring recovery, choose the address for your Coinbase web3 wallet. That's it!

How does Recovery Work?

After following these steps, you would be free to use your Locksmith account on your self-custody wallet, knowing that any funds inside of your Locksmith account are fully recoverable using your Coinbase account.

Under the circumstances that you've lost your phone or your backup seed phrases, your Locksmith Account that was on that seed becomes recoverable after your pre-configured time.

It is only after this pre-configured time will the Coinbase Web3 wallet be able to fully recover the account. If this time has passed, you simply login to your Coinbase account, navigate to Locksmith Wallet in the web3 dapp browser, and recover the entire self-custody account, all associated accounts, and all funds - in a single transaction!

You could then easily add additional self-custody wallets back into the account, set up recovery once more, and re-take full custody of your funds!

Give it a try today, and follow us on twitter.