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Guardians

The W3Smart Wallet security model is based on the power of guardians concept.

What are guardians?​

A guardian is an account (an EOA or a W3Smart Wallet account) that has been permitted by the wallet’s owner to execute certain specific operations on their wallet:

  • approve a guardian addition/revocation
  • approve a whitelist's participant addition
  • approve wallet unlocking
  • approve a wallet recovery
  • approve an untrusted transaction

Guardians never have access to the wallet’s cryptocurrency.

Types of Guardian​

  • System guardian: System guardian is an automated service W3Smart Wallet provides that uses two-factor authentication (phone & email). Every wallet will come with this default guardian. It is added to the wallet when it is deployed onto the blockchain. Users can remove it any time if they choose to keep their wallets secure with other guardians.
  • Other guardians: Along with the system guardian, they are additional guardians (through Adding a guardian process) that users choose to secure their wallets. Other guardians can be an EOA account or a W3Smart Wallet account.

Adding/Removing a guardian​

Adding a guardian is an action triggered by the wallet’s owner and its guardians. While the system guardian is added by default when the wallet is created, all subsequent additions must be confirmed after 36 hours and no later than 40 hours after the addition was requested. This confirmation window ensures that a pending addition can be canceled should the guardian be wrongfully added.

Similarly, removing a guardian is an action triggered by the wallet's owner and its guardians. It must always be confirmed after 36 hours and no later than 40 hours after the removal was requested. This leaves the legitimate wallet owner enough time to notice and prevent the appointment of an illegitimate guardian (or the dismissal of a legitimate guardian) in case the owner lost control over their device.

Number of guardian signatures required to perform operation​

While performing a security-related task such as adding/removing a guardian or recovery/recovery cancellation, the wallet will need a certain number of guardians to confirm this action. The numbers differ depending on the action needed. You can find out more about the approvals needed in this article.