Why PingVaults Exists
The story behind a zero-knowledge digital estate vault — and the problem it was built to solve.
// motivation
The problem we saw
Billions of dollars in crypto assets are permanently lost every year — not because of hacks, but because the owner passed away or became incapacitated without leaving a recovery plan. Hardware wallets sit in drawers. Seed phrases are written on paper that no one can find. Families are locked out of digital lives they didn't even know existed.
We looked at the existing solutions: password managers that don't handle inheritance, lawyers who can't safely store seed phrases, multisig setups that require technical keyholders to be alive. None of them solved the core problem: how do you pass on sensitive digital information to someone who needs it, at the right time, without trusting any third party?
PingVaults was built to answer that question. We designed a system where the platform literally cannot read your data — encryption happens in your browser, the key never leaves your device, and the ciphertext is stored permanently on Arweave. If you go silent for too long, an inactivity switch delivers decryption hints (not answers) to your emergency contact.
// security_philosophy
Security philosophy
Zero-knowledge by default — the server stores only ciphertext it can never decrypt.
No passwords, no seed phrases — keys are derived from personal knowledge your family already has.
Platform-independent recovery — even if PingVaults shuts down, your data remains on Arweave and can be decrypted offline.
Verify, don't trust — the encryption core is open source; CSP restricts outbound requests; DevTools proves what's sent.
Minimal attack surface — we deliberately don't store anything valuable. There's nothing to steal.
// threat_model
Threat model
We designed PingVaults assuming the worst: what if every component except your browser is compromised?
// tech_stack
Technology
Encryption
WebCrypto API — PBKDF2-SHA256 (600k iterations) + AES-256-GCM
Storage
Arweave via Irys SDK (permanent ciphertext) + AWS DynamoDB (metadata)
Authentication
Email OTP + Google OAuth, JWT sessions (HTTP-only cookies)
Notifications
AWS SES (email) + Lambda + EventBridge (inactivity switch engine)
Frontend
Next.js 16 (App Router), TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, next-intl (EN + ZH)
Deployment
Vercel (frontend) + AWS (Lambda, DynamoDB, SES, EventBridge)
// open_source
Open source policy
The encryption core — PBKDF2 key derivation, AES-256-GCM encryption, offline decryptors — is fully open source under MIT license. Anyone can audit, run tests, and verify there are no backdoors. The business logic (UI, inactivity switch engine, API routes) is proprietary, but even if compromised, the server only holds ciphertext it cannot decrypt.
// roadmap
Roadmap
Zero-knowledge vault with Arweave permanent storage
AES-256-GCM + PBKDF2, browser-local encryption, Irys upload
Inactivity switch with configurable ping schedule
AWS Lambda + EventBridge, SES email delivery, emergency contact notification
Offline HTML decryptor (English + Chinese)
Standalone files, no server dependency, WebCrypto embedded
File attachments (documents, images) in vault
Client-side encryption for binary data, direct Arweave upload
Multi-vault support and shared family vaults
Separate encryption contexts, granular access control
// contact
Get in touch
PingVaults is a product of Brightcore Technologies LLC.
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