A dormant address does not prove a lost key

An address with no recent transactions may belong to a patient owner, an archive, a custodian or someone who lost access. Public transaction history alone cannot settle which explanation is correct. Estimates of permanently lost cryptocurrency depend on assumptions about address age, spending behaviour and known cases. They should not be presented as a live, verified count of inaccessible wealth.

Dollar totals also change with market prices. A historical report about a device or a person’s remaining password attempts is not evidence of the same situation today. This guide therefore does not give a current lost-coin percentage or a headline dollar estimate.

Do not confuse fraud with a missing backup

The Ontario Securities Commission’s Quadriga review attributes the collapse to fraud by Gerald Cotten. It should not be presented as a case where all customer funds simply remained locked behind a deceased owner’s password.

That distinction matters when choosing protections. Independent accounting and custody controls address different risks from a recovery phrase backup. A conditional message containing instructions cannot fix fraudulent balances, reverse transactions or establish that an exchange actually holds the assets shown on an account screen.

Review your own failure points

List each wallet and exchange, its networks and its recovery route. Ask what happens if a device fails, a secret is lost or the usual operator cannot help. Include separate passphrases, imported accounts and multisignature configuration where relevant. Keep the inventory apart from the complete set of secrets needed to spend funds.

Use official manufacturer documentation for backup verification. Practise unfamiliar steps using a separate harmless test wallet. Do not reset a working live device, paste a seed into a website or trust someone who promises recovery in exchange for your secret. A well-maintained backup reduces specific risks; it does not eliminate every cause of loss.

Make the handoff understandable

ZeroLatch can deliver a scoped inventory and instructions after a missed check-in and safety period. It does not transfer assets, establish legal authority or confirm death. Simple permits authorised service-managed key recovery; Private requires a separate password or ZeroLatch recovery phrase. Neither option replaces an independent backup or a real recipient rehearsal. Start with harmless information and read the security model and backup checklist.

Explain what the recipient should do first and when to stop and contact an adviser. Preserve ownership and transaction records as well as access instructions. A dated, understandable plan is more useful than a dramatic statistic that cannot be verified.