Meet Your New Guardian: ZK Email Recovery

If you’ve ever tried to help a friend or relative navigate crypto, you know how intimidating the learning curve can be. Today, Clave is thrilled to announce a solution that addresses this challenge head-on: Email Recovery, powered by ZK Email. Now, if you lose access to your account, you can recover it using just your email address. Plus, zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs are at the core, ensuring both user-friendliness and robust security.

Why This Matters: The Bigger Picture

In the crypto space, the balance between security and convenience has always been tricky. While seed phrases and hardware wallets offer strong self-custody, they can be cumbersome for newcomers. Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has long championed flexible, user-centric solutions like social recovery and ZK-wrapped IDs. He recently emphasized:

“ZK-wrapped centralized ID is uniquely ‘noob-friendly.’

For this to work, it needs to be implemented with a streamlined and integrated UI: you should be able to just specify that you want ‘example@gmail.com’ as a guardian, and it should automatically generate the corresponding zk-email Ethereum address under the hood.”

Vitalik Buterin, “What I would love to see in a wallet”

This vision resonates with what Clave aims to achieve: a secure, accessible approach that even non-crypto-savvy friends and family can use to keep your account safe.

Under the Hood: The Tech Behind Clave + ZK Email

What Is ZK Email Recovery?

  • ZK (Zero-Knowledge) Proofs: These cryptographic proofs confirm ownership of an email (or other centralized ID) without exposing any private information onchain.
  • ZK Email Integration: Through this partnership, Clave leverages DKIM signatures and zero-knowledge proofs to validate your email ownership in a “trustless” manner. Clave never directly handles your email credentials; they’re used solely as a recovery key.

Why This Matters

  • No Single Point of Failure: By using email in a zero-knowledge setup, you eliminate the need to trust a centralized service blindly.
  • Enhanced Convenience: Vitalik’s concept of “noob-friendly” guardian IDs means less friction for newcomers who aren’t ready to juggle multiple wallets or hardware devices.

Real Benefits, Real People

  1. User-Friendly Recovery If you lose your device, simply use your verified email to regain access—no complicated seed phrases or third-party guardians are needed.
  2. Inclusivity Non-crypto-savvy relatives can serve as your “email guardian”, drastically lowering the barrier for people unfamiliar with wallet setups.
  3. Flexible Security Already prefer Social Recovery? Great—keep it. Email Recovery simply adds another layer of safety. You can choose whichever approach makes sense for you—or use both.
  4. Trustless Protocol Neither Clave nor ZK Email can read your inbox or seize your keys. This design drastically reduces any single point of failure or breach.

Behind the Scenes: How ZK Email Recovery Works

Visual or Conceptual Explanation

Picture the Email Recovery process like a secure handshake:

  1. Email Guardian Setup: You register your email as a guardian in Clave’s interface.
  2. ZK Verification: Behind the scenes, zero-knowledge proofs confirm you own that email—without revealing it publicly.
  3. Recovery on Request: If you lose device access, you trigger “Recover with Email,” pass a trustless verification step, and regain control of your assets.

How Email Recovery Works

  1. Easy Setup Add your or a friend’s email address as a guardian to your account.
  2. Trustless Process Zero-knowledge proofs ensure the email is valid without leaking its content to Clave or ZK Email.
  3. Verification Once you enter your chosen email into your account settings, verify by replying to the auto-generated message.
  4. Recovery If you lose access, initiate recovery within the Clave app, verify your email, and wait 48 hours to complete the process.

Onboarding Made Simple: Adding an Email Guardian

A) Adding a Guardian to a New Wallet

  1. Download Clave: [getclave.io/download]
  2. Create a New Account: Choose your username and (optionally) enter a referral code.
  3. Set Up Email Recovery: Go to Profile > Backup and click Add Email Guardian.
  4. Select Email: Input the address you want as your guardian.
  5. Email Confirmation: Follow in-app instructions and reply to the confirmation email.
  6. Secure Your Account: Your email is now your guardian for recovery scenarios.

B) Adding a Guardian to an Existing Account

  1. Open the Clave App: Navigate to Profile > Backup.
  2. Add Email Guardian: Click on Add Email Guardian.
  3. Select Email: Use your current email or assign a new one.
  4. Email Confirmation: Complete the verification by replying to the confirmation email.
  5. Secure Your Account: Your wallet is now ready to be recovered using your email if needed.

When You Need It Most: Recovering Your Account

  1. Access Recovery: From the app’s opening screen, choose Recover Your Account.
  2. Enter Details: Provide the username or address you wish to recover.
  3. Select “Recover with Email”: Pick the guardian email.
  4. Verify & Wait: Reply to the confirmation email. After a 48-hour waiting period, your recovery is complete.

Important: Currently, only Gmail or Google-based emails are supported. Always confirm that the sender of the recovery email is recovery@clave.team.

Keeping It Secure: What You Should Know

We’ve conducted thorough audits and testing to protect your account. That said, this feature is still in Beta, and unforeseen issues can arise—particularly because email providers can rotate keys or make changes behind the scenes. As Vitalik warns, “do not store funds in a setup where zk-email breaking means that you lose access to your funds” if you hold large sums. We encourage you to combine Email Recovery with at least one other form of guardian for maximum security.

Take Control of Your Future with Clave

Crypto security doesn’t have to be daunting. With Clave’s ZK Email Recovery, you can maintain genuine self-custody without relying on complicated seed phrases or hardware devices. Ready to give it a try?

  • Get Your Clave Account Today and Experience It: Be among the first to explore Clave’s latest beta.
  • Learn More: Check out our previous blog posts or official documentation for deeper technical insights.
  • Join Our Community: Share feedback and engage with fellow Clave users on social channels.

By offering Email Recovery alongside traditional Social Recovery, Clave makes secure self-custody feel straightforward—even for people who’ve never used a crypto wallet before. Take advantage of this innovative, privacy-first approach and never worry about losing access to your assets again.

Stay secure, stay with Clave.

About Clave

Clave is a simple, secure, and smart mobile wallet designed to make decentralized finance and global payments accessible to everyone. Whether interacting with DeFi, transferring assets globally using usernames or links, or earning interest with better rates than traditional finance apps, Clave helps bridge onchain assets into everyday life with hardware-level security ensuring peace of mind while managing your crypto anytime and anywhere.

Connect with Clave
Website | Download Clave | X (Twitter) | LinkedIn | Farcaster | Discord | Telegram | Marketing Inquiries | General Mail

Disclaimer:

Clave is a self-custodial wallet that doesn’t keep any of its users' assets, unlike custodial/centralized third-party applications. We are building a bridge between your onchain assets and you with a user-friendly UI to make onchain finance accessible and easy for everyone.

Check out our Terms and Conditions page for more information about Clave and our features.