Glossary
Non-custodial
Non-custodial means a service or wallet has no access to your keys or funds. How it differs from self-custody, and how it applies to our own service.
Non-custodial describes a wallet or service that doesn’t hold the user’s private keys and has no technical ability to dispose of the user’s funds.
The term describes the relationship with the provider, while self-custody describes the owner’s situation. When you use a non-custodial wallet such as Sparrow or Trezor Suite, you hold the keys and the company only supplies software. If it left the market, your funds would still be yours, because they depend on your key, not on its server.
The same goes for services that help with setup. Shellcrew Vault is non-custodial: we don’t see the recovery phrase or the keys, we have no access to funds and we can’t move anything. The client enters the seeds, and we check the process and the recovery test. Before you trust any firm, ask yourself one question: could it withdraw my money if it wanted to? If so, it’s a custodial model.
Why it matters for your family
A non-custodial service won’t become an intermediary in an inheritance, because it has nothing to hand over to an heir. That doesn’t get in your family’s way, but it puts a duty on your side: access has to be written down. In that setup the document is the guide, not a company. The pillar on crypto inheritance shows how to prepare it, and the for family page describes the scope of our help.