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Social recovery
Social recovery is a way to regain a crypto wallet without a seed phrase: you name several guardians, such as friends, family or your own other devices, and a majority of them can approve replacing the wallet's key if you lose it. Day to day, you sign with one key as normal.
What it means for you. Your protection depends on your guardians: if too many lose access, collude or are tricked, you cannot recover, or someone else can take over. It works only with a smart contract wallet set up in advance; an ordinary key-based account cannot be recovered once its key is lost.
Sources: Vitalik Buterin: Why we need wide adoption of social recovery wallets, ethereum.org: Account abstraction · checked 4 October 2026
Multisig
Multisig (multi-signature) is a setup where moving funds needs approval from several keys instead of one, for example any 2 of 3. Each key can be held on a different device or by a different person.
What it means for you. One stolen or lost key is not enough to move or lose the funds, but losing more keys than the setup can spare locks them permanently. Record which keys exist, who holds each, and the full wallet setup needed to restore it, not only the seed phrases.
Sources: BIP-11: M-of-N standard transactions, bitcoin.org: Secure your wallet, Bitcoin developer guide: Transactions · checked 4 October 2026