In standard self-custody setups, your 12-word seed phrase is your single point of failure. If it is stolen or lost, your funds are gone. Smart wallets solve this by implementing **Social Recovery** using **Guardians**.
### The Guardian Model
Instead of a single seed phrase, you configure your smart account with multiple ‘Guardians.’ A guardian can be:
* A hardware wallet you own.
* A trusted friend or family member’s wallet.
* An institutional key recovery service (co-signing via email/phone).
### Executing Recovery
If you lose your active wallet key (e.g. your phone is destroyed), your funds are not lost.
1. You request a key rotation on your new device.
2. A majority of your designated Guardians (e.g., 2 out of 3) sign a transaction to approve this rotation.
3. Your smart wallet rotates its owner key to your new device.
Your guardians never hold custody of your funds; they only hold the power to help you update your validation keys.