Ledger

In light of the recent controversy surrounding Ledger and its backup service, I want to propose another idea, one that I think is a lot safer.

Many cryptocurrencies allow you to create special transactions that only become valid after a certain timestamp. These transactions do not need to be broadcast and can be revoked at anytime by the key holder.

Ledger could someday offer a service that allows you to sign, but not broadcast time locked transactions that have them or somebody else as the recipient. These transactions could be created every time a user sends funds and would not be broadcasted unless the user lost access to their keys and the timestamp had been reached.

If the user lost access to their private keys, they could alert the recipient and broadcast the transaction(s) when they become valid. The user could then recover the funds from the recipient (which could be Ledger, another wallet they own, or another third party). The user can also sign multiple backup transactions to different third parties and decide which one(s) to broadcast.

Since the user can revoke such backups at anytime (provided they retain access to their keys), they are free to opt-out at anytime without restriction.

If Ledger supported such a feature, they could alert you when the date looms close or the backup becomes invalid. This would work even if they weren’t chosen as a recipient.

This method has the advantage that it allows the user to retain their self sovereignty, whilst giving them an additional method to recover their funds.

What do you all think about this? Is this the kind of opt-in feature that you would want with your Ledger?