The Morning Raid

It happens at 6 AM. Federal agents at the door. They have a warrant for your devices, your hard drives, and your hardware wallets.

You can't touch your phone. You can't call your lawyer. You certainly can't send your seed phrases to anyone.

Every device you own is now evidence. Every crypto key stored on those devices is now in government custody. Your self-sovereignty just ended in 30 seconds.

This isn't hypothetical. The DOJ has seized billions in cryptocurrency. Civil asset forfeiture doesn't even require a conviction — they take first, and you sue to get it back (maybe, years later).

A missed check-in proves very little

A warrant canary is a specialised transparency practice, not a magic legal shield. A personal missed check-in could mean travel, illness, an email problem, lost credentials, a service outage or a deliberate decision. It does not establish detention, coercion or the lawfulness of moving assets.

ZeroLatch treats inactivity as a trigger condition after a long-horizon schedule and safety period. It does not know why the sender missed a deadline and should not be described as executing an offshore transfer or defeating lawful process.

Use Lawful, Documented Custody

Do not treat a dead man's switch as a way to move assets after detention, seizure, or legal process begins. ZeroLatch can use a 1-day check-in with no additional safety period, but processing is daily; it is not an urgent asset-transfer trigger and it does not determine whether a transfer is lawful.

For a legitimate trust or succession structure, document authority, tax and reporting duties, key custody, approval thresholds, and incident procedures with qualified advisers. A ZeroLatch delivery may preserve encrypted instructions for an authorised representative, but it must not be the only key backup or a substitute for compliant trust administration.