Companies · Lost access
A partner set up the company wallet and is no longer around
It is a more frequent case than it seems and almost always has the same root: one person set the wallet up, stored the phrase wherever they liked, and nobody else ever knew where it was. When that person leaves, falls out with the company or dies, the company discovers its funds depended on someone else’s memory.
First, the legal side
To work a case on a company’s behalf, two things must be proven: that the wallet belongs to the company and that whoever commissions the work can represent it. Typically that means corporate documentation, the director’s appointment and, where applicable, a board resolution. It isn’t paperwork for its own sake: without it, opening that wallet means opening a third party’s wallet.
Then, the technical side
| Situation | What can be done |
|---|---|
| The partner left the phrase at the company | Restore and move to a new, properly governed wallet |
| The phrase is incomplete | A workable case with a good outlook |
| There is a wallet file and nobody remembers the password | Depends on what someone at the company remembers |
| It was a hardware device and the partner took it | No technical case: it is a legal matter |
| Nobody knows anything | No case |
The third row has an angle that is often overlooked: a company has several memories. The departed partner may have chosen the password, but someone else may have seen it, typed it once or remember the style that partner used for everything else. Asking the whole team is, in these cases, more productive than anything else.
So it doesn’t happen again
- No company asset should depend on one person or one copy.
- A multisig wallet, requiring several approvals to move funds, if the amounts justify it.
- The phrase, if there is one, held by the company and not by an individual, with a written access procedure.
- An internal document stating where everything is and who can access it, reviewed whenever the team changes.
On multisig wallets and why they are a different problem when recovery is needed, see smart contract and multisig wallets.