What is Guardblock?

Guardblock is a Bitcoin vault that protects long-term holders from mistakes, theft and inheritance issues. It combines multisignature security with time-locked recovery paths, so your Bitcoin stays accessible even if something goes wrong, and recoverable even if Guardblock disappears. Built by the team behind Hardblock, Australia's longest-running Bitcoin-only exchange since 2014.

A Guardblock vault is a Bitcoin storage setup designed to reduce the risk of permanent loss, without giving Guardblock unilateral control over your funds.

The vault combines your hardware wallet key or keys, a Guardblock co-signing key, and a pre-defined timelocked recovery path. In normal use, spending is collaborative, which is what enables you to optionally configure spending controls on your bitcoin secured in the vault. If Guardblock becomes unavailable, your recovery path still exists and remains enforceable on-chain after the timelock expires, allowing you to access your bitcoin no matter what happens to us. Guardblock is not a custodian and cannot move your Bitcoin alone.

A Guardblock vault is effectively a new bitcoin wallet, with additional rules that are set and controlled by you. Those rules define:

• How your Bitcoin can be spent normally
• What happens if something goes wrong
• How recovery or inheritance works
• When you can exit without Guardblock

Keep in Mind

A Guardblock vault is built for long-term secure storage, not frequent trading. You still need to protect your device and backups properly. Guardblock improves resilience, but it does not remove the need for careful setup.

Once set up, you simply perform a rollover transaction every 11-12 months to refresh the timelock, which can be done as part of a healthy annual routine of checking on your security setup and any rules and recovery/inheritance protocols you have in place.

You can perform a rollover as early as you like to refresh your timelock and give you a large time buffer, which may be useful if you are going to be away from your keys for a long period of time.