You can make a guardian lock your Ethereum account onchain. The wallet can’t then make transactions. This is useful in case your phone is lost or stolen and you want to protect it beyond the phone-layer security.
When a guardian locks a wallet, a 5-day security period starts. This gives you time to get a new phone and recover your Ethereum account. (Locking doesn’t prevent recovery, for precisely this reason).
Any guardian can unlock a wallet, including the one that originally locked it.
For an even more in-depth understanding of our security model, read our blog post here.
A locked wallet cannot:
- Transact
- Add a guardian (though you can remove a guardian by interacting with smart contracts)
Locking duration
- Locking your wallet starts a five day security period
- You can unlock it at any time by using a hardware wallet or friend/family guardian
How to lock your wallet
If you have friend/family guardian, ask them to open their Ready wallet > Ethereum account > Security tab > Guardians > Who I protect. There they need to tap your name in the list and they will see the option to lock the wallet:
- If you have Ready, Metamask or hardware guardian, you can lock the wallet at https://security.argent.xyz/lock-wallet - choose your guardian type and proceed with on-screen instructions.