Register Your Vault
Choosing a backup address, setting your inactivity period, and completing registration on-chain.
Before You Register
Registration is a one-time on-chain transaction that creates your vault. Before you call it, two decisions matter — and they are worth thinking through carefully, because they determine how your backup plan actually works.
Decision 1: Your Backup Address
The backup address is the Ethereum wallet that receives your ETH if recovery triggers. Choose it carefully.
What makes a good backup address:
- A wallet controlled by your chosen heir or primary beneficiary
- A multisig wallet shared among your heirs or estate trustees
- A backup wallet you control — a separate hardware wallet, cold storage, or a secondary EOA
What to avoid:
- An exchange deposit address. Exchanges can reject ETH transfers originating from smart contracts, change deposit addresses without notice, or credit funds to an unlinked account. Never use an exchange address as a backup.
- An address that has not been tested to receive ETH. Whether the backup is your heir's wallet, a trusted party's address, or a wallet you control yourself, send a small test transaction from a separate wallet and confirm receipt before registering. If the address is a smart contract (like a multisig or a Safe), also confirm it is configured to accept plain ETH — a contract that reverts on receive() will cause recovery to fail up to three times before your vault is abandoned.
- An address the intended recipient may have lost access to. A backup address is only useful if someone can actually access it when recovery triggers. If you have designated a family member or heir as your beneficiary, confirm with them that the address is still accessible. Wallets can be lost, hardware devices destroyed, and seed phrases forgotten.
Technical requirement: the backup address cannot be:
- The zero address (
0x000...000) - Your own registered address (the wallet calling
register()) - An address that has been permanently blocked due to three consecutive failed recovery attempts
Decision 2: Your Inactivity Period
The inactivity period is the length of silence that triggers recovery. It must be between 180 days (mainnet minimum) and 3,650 days (about 10 years).
The right period depends on how you actually use crypto:
| Your situation | Suggested period |
|---|---|
| Active DeFi user — transacts weekly | 180 days |
| Occasional user — checks in a few times per year | 180–270 days |
| Long-term holder — buys and holds for years | 365–730 days |
| Cold storage vault — rarely touched | 1,095–1,825 days (3–5 years) |
Remember that any interaction with your vault resets the timer — deposits, sends, withdrawals, pings, and config updates all count. If you genuinely interact with Ethereum every few months, a 180-day timer is fine. If you might go 18 months without needing to touch your funds, choose at least 2 years.
Tip
When in doubt, choose longer. A 365-day period with an annual ping() reminder in your calendar is safer than a 180-day period you might miss during a busy stretch of life.
Registering on the Dashboard
Open the Register modal
Connect your wallet and ensure you are on Sepolia. Click the Register button in the vault dashboard. A modal opens asking for your backup address, inactivity period, and optional deposit.
Enter your backup address
Paste the full Ethereum address of your chosen backup wallet. The form validates the address format. If the address is your own connected address, a previously abandoned backup address, or is an invalid Ethereum address, the form will show an error on submit.
Set your inactivity period
Enter the inactivity period (the app converts to seconds internally). On Sepolia testnet, you can enter a very short period (e.g. 5 minutes = 300 seconds) to test the recovery flow quickly.
Optionally add an initial deposit
You can deposit ETH at the same time as registration by entering an ETH amount. This is optional — your vault can be registered with a zero balance and funded later via deposit(). A vault with zero balance is registered and active but recovery will not trigger (there is nothing to recover).
Confirm the transaction
Click Register in the modal. Your wallet prompts you to sign and broadcast the transaction. The register() call costs approximately 150,000–200,000 gas, depending on whether you are also depositing ETH.
Vault is live
Once the transaction confirms (typically 12–30 seconds on Sepolia), your vault dashboard updates. You will see your balance, backup address, and the recovery countdown timer. No further action is needed on your part — the Aeternum keeper bot's indexer picks up your RecoveryRegistered event shortly after confirmation, and your vault is automatically included in its monitoring from that point on.
After Registration
Once registered, you can update any setting at any time while your vault is active:
- Change your backup address → Update Config in the sidebar → enter the new address
- Change your inactivity period → Update Config → enter the new period in days
- Add more ETH → Deposit button on the dashboard
- Exit entirely → Cancel Recovery in the sidebar — this withdraws your balance and deregisters your vault
Each configuration update resets your inactivity timer, confirming that the wallet is still actively controlled. See Vault Actions for a full breakdown of every available operation.