Dead Man Switch

A trustless, non-upgradable Ethereum smart contract for automatic crypto inheritance.

If the owner stops interacting with the contract for a defined period of inactivity, the designated heir can claim all funds.

Mainnet contract: 0xE5f9db89cb22D8BFf52c6efBbAc05f7d69C7ca12

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How it works

1. Deploy your switch — call createSwitch() on the factory with your heir address and an inactivity delay (30 days to 3 years)
2. Deposit funds — send ETH to your switch contract via deposit()
3. Stay alive — call ping() regularly to reset the inactivity timer
4. If you disappear — after the delay expires, your heir can call claim() and receive all funds

No admin, no upgrade key, no backdoor. Once deployed, the contract is immutable.

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Fees

Action	Fee
Deposit	0.1% of deposited amount
Change heir	0.001 ETH flat fee

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Use on Etherscan (no frontend needed)

1. Create your switch

Go to the Factory contract on Etherscan → Write Contract → connect your wallet → createSwitch:

• _heir: your heir's wallet address
• _delay: inactivity delay in seconds (e.g. 2592000 = 30 days, 31536000 = 1 year)

After the transaction, go to Read Contract → switches → enter your address → copy the deployed switch address.

2. Deposit ETH

Go to your switch contract on Etherscan → Write Contract → deposit:

• Set the ETH value to send (e.g. 1 ETH)
• 0.1% fee is deducted automatically

3. Ping (prove you're alive)

Go to your switch contract → Write Contract → ping

Call this before your inactivity delay expires to reset the timer. No ETH required.

4. Change your heir

Go to your switch contract → Write Contract → setHeir:

• _newHeir: new heir address
• Send 0.001 ETH with the transaction (fee)

5. Change the inactivity delay

Go to your switch contract → Write Contract → setDelay:

• _newDelay: new delay in seconds

Minimum: 2592000 (30 days) — Maximum: 94608000 (3 years)

6. Claim (heir only)

Once the inactivity delay has expired, go to the switch contract → Write Contract → claim

All ETH in the contract is transferred to the heir.

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Read contract state

Field	Description
owner	Owner address
heir	Current heir address
lastPing	Timestamp of last activity
inactivityDelay	Delay in seconds before heir can claim

To check if the switch is claimable: block.timestamp > lastPing + inactivityDelay

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Security

• No owner privileges after deployment — the owner cannot withdraw funds directly
• Non-upgradable — no proxy, no admin key
• Reentrancy-safe — follows Checks-Effects-Interactions pattern
• Anyone can deposit, only the owner can ping or change settings, only the heir can claim
• 53 tests passing

Development

cd backend
npm install
npx hardhat test