What If Your Hardware Wallet Company Fails?

The maker's website is down and the app has been pulled: do nothing yet

If the maker of your hardware wallet has a website that will not load and a companion app that has left the app store, do nothing yet. As long as you still have the seed phrase you wrote down when you set the device up, the coins are still there, and you can get to them without any cooperation from the original maker.

There are only two things to establish: which format your backup is in, and which derivation path the wallet used. The sections below take them in that order.

Why the coins are still there when the maker is gone

Coins are not inside the hardware wallet. They are on the blockchain, recorded under individual addresses. What the hardware wallet keeps is the private keys that can spend from those addresses.

Private keys are computed from the seed phrase, and the algorithms are public standards: BIP-39 specifies how a seed phrase becomes a seed, BIP-32 specifies how the seed derives layer upon layer of private keys, and BIP-44 specifies how each layer is numbered. None of the three belongs to any one maker. So the same BIP-39 seed phrase, restored along the same derivation path on any device that supports BIP-39, produces the same addresses.

A hardware wallet is therefore a tool. If the tool breaks or its maker is gone, you get another one; a closed website or a delisted app cannot touch the balance on the chain.

One exception: a SLIP-39 backup cannot be moved to just any brand

The passage above assumes a BIP-39 seed phrase. One kind of backup is not that.

SLIP-39 is a different standard. Its text states that it is not compatible with BIP-39, and a SLIP-39 backup cannot be converted back into a BIP-39 seed phrase. Each of its shares is 20 or 33 words, drawn from its own wordlist. Trezor's Multi-share Backup is built on SLIP-39, and the Keep Metal product page on Trezor's site also states that the 20-word SLIP39 single-share backup is the default format on current Trezor devices.

So start by counting the words in your backup. Twelve or 24 is generally BIP-39. Twenty or 33 is, going by the word count, SLIP-39, and it can only be restored in a wallet that supports SLIP-39. According to Trezor's guide, the hardware wallets that support it besides Trezor are OneKey and Keystone, and the software wallets are Rabby, Electrum, Sparrow, BlueWallet, Wasabi and NuFi. For specific models, check the Split backup row of the hardware wallet comparison table, and confirm once more in the new brand's official documentation before buying.

The original brand is unusable: 3 steps to restore on another brand

There are two cases: the original app still opens, or the app no longer opens and all you have is the device and the seed phrase. Step one is only possible in the first case, and if it is possible, do it first.

Step one: note the derivation path and a few addresses. While the original app still opens, find the derivation path in the advanced options for each coin. Three are common for Bitcoin: m/44'/0'/0'/0/0 (BIP-44, legacy addresses starting with 1), m/49'/0'/0'/0/0 (BIP-49, SegWit addresses nested in P2SH) and m/84'/0'/0'/0/0 (BIP-84, native SegWit addresses starting with bc1q). For Ethereum under BIP-44 it is m/44'/60'/0'/0/0. Write down the path and the first few receiving addresses for each coin; you will check against them in step three. If the app no longer opens, the addresses can be found in your past transfer records or on a block explorer.

Step two: choose a new device that is still maintained and supports the same backup format. For current models and their official spec pages, see the hardware wallet comparison table. Buy through an official channel, and when it arrives, upgrade and verify the firmware by the official procedure first. During setup, choose to restore a wallet, not to create a new one.

Step three: restore from the original seed phrase, then check the addresses. Enter the seed phrase only on the new device's own screen and buttons, never into a computer or phone. Once the restore is finished, add the original coins in the companion software and see whether the addresses shown match the ones you wrote down in step one, character by character. If they match, you are done. If they do not, the derivation path is most likely different; switch to the path you noted in step one in the advanced settings and look again.

The whole process involves no transfer and no on-chain fee. You have not moved coins to a new wallet; you have picked up a different tool to use the same key.

When changing devices is not enough and you need a new seed phrase

Changing devices solves the problem of a missing tool. If the problem is with the key itself, a new device does not help: you have to generate a new seed phrase and move the coins to it with on-chain transfers. Three situations fall into this category:

• The seed phrase may have been seen by someone else, or was typed into an online device. Follow the emergency steps after a private key leak.
• The maker announces a flaw in how seeds were generated. The example is Coinkite's Coldcard security advisory of July 2026: seeds generated by affected firmware lack sufficient randomness. The advisory says explicitly that updating the firmware does not repair a seed that already exists, and the official status page adds that moving to a newer device does not either. The only remedy is to generate a new seed on fixed firmware and move the coins to it.
• You want to leave a backup format. Moving from SLIP-39 to a device that supports only BIP-39 is one example. The two formats do not interoperate, so the only way is to create a new wallet and transfer.

Models being superseded or losing updates is routine: two examples with official sources

The Coldcard Mk4 was succeeded by the Mk5. The Mk4 page on Coldcard's site now says the Mk4 has been succeeded by the Mk5, with the same features and an improved screen and keypad. The Mk5 product page in turn says you can migrate seamlessly from an existing Coldcard device.

The Coldcard Mk2 and Mk3 stop at their final firmware version. According to the Coldcard security status page, 4.2.0 is the last firmware release for the Mk2 and Mk3, and Coinkite recommends moving long-term funds to a current Mk4, Mk5 or Q.

In both examples the maker is still around and only the old model has reached the end of the road. What you do is the same as when a maker goes under: rely on the seed phrase and carry on with a device that is still maintained.

Another situation is a maker that is still around but introduces a feature you do not want. Ledger's Recover is a paid subscription service; once you subscribe, encrypted fragments of the seed phrase are held by three companies, and the details are in the notes in the comparison table. If you do not want it, you need not subscribe. If it makes you want to change brands, that too is done with the same seed phrase.

What to do day to day so you are not tied to one maker

Keep the seed phrase and the device apart. Write the seed phrase on paper or a metal plate and keep it in two places. No photos, nothing in a photo library or cloud drive; the reasons are in can you photograph a seed phrase or keep it in a cloud drive.

Write the backup format and derivation path next to the backup. Whether it is BIP-39 or SLIP-39, which path was used and whether a passphrase was added are all easy to leave out. When you come back to restore years later, they save a great deal of trial and error. The passphrase itself has to be kept separately and should not be written on the same sheet as the seed phrase.

For large amounts, do not keep everything with one brand. Use two brands, two seed phrases and two sets of backups. Whichever one runs into trouble, only part is affected.

Before buying, confirm the device uses public standards. Buy only if the device supports BIP-39, or supports SLIP-39 and you know which other wallets support it too. I would rule out straight away any device advertising a proprietary private key scheme or in-house encryption: once the maker is gone, no second tool can read its backup.