The Tale of the Missing Seed: How to Recover Your Metamask Wallet in case you forget the 12 word seed phrase.

Team Members- Shaan Kumar, Nishtha Bodani, Ankur Patil, Sahil Saini, Aadeesh Oswal, Partik Singh, Aaryan Kumar, Pallav Agarwal Thanking our Mentors - Arpit Shukla, Sanchit Gupta, Eshwar

Preamble-

The idea was proposed and designed for the Inter IIT 11.0 hackathon conducted by Consensys where our team bagged a Silver Medal. We would like to thank Consensys for providing us with an opportunity where our innovation could be valued on a larger scale. The learning and the experience during the course of designing was phenomenal.

Problem Statement-

Extend the functionality of MetaMask. The most popular wallet is now an extensible platform for permissionless innovation. Bring your features and APIs to MetaMask with Snaps. The idea should be innovative, functional and impactful.

Introduction-

Cryptocurrency has been making headlines for the past decade. It has revolutionized the financial industry and the way we perceive traditional currency. Unlike traditional currency, cryptocurrencies operate independently of any central authority and are decentralized.

Metamask is one of the popular cryptocurrency wallets that enables the users to access the Web3 ecosystem of decentralized applications through which one can trade and store a prominent cryptocurrency known as Ethereum. There are more than a million users currently on metamask, out of which multiple of them are exploring other domains of web3 in the market namely:

1. DAO — Also known as Decentralized Autonomous Organization, is a type of organization that is run by rules encoded as computer programs on a blockchain for transparent and tamper-proof decision making by members.
2. Opensea — It is a decentralized marketplace for buying, selling, and discovering unique digital assets like NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain.
3. Etherscan — It is a popular blockchain explorer for the Ethereum blockchain. It provides a detailed overview of Ethereum transactions.

Problems covered-

1. While Metamask offers many features, one important feature that is currently missing is a notification system.

Without a notification system, Metamask users are unable to receive alerts when important events occur, such as incoming transactions, active DAO proposals and offers made on their NFT to name a few. This means that users must manually check their wallet and their respective websites to see if any actions require their attention, which can be time-consuming and inconvenient.

2. Another necessary feature that is currently missing is the ability to recover an account in the event of a lost or forgotten password.

Without an account recovery system, users risk losing access to their funds and assets if they forget their password or lose their private key. This can result in significant financial losses and can be a major source of frustration for users. Moreover, without an account recovery system, users may be reluctant to use Metamask for long-term storage of their cryptocurrencies and may instead turn to other wallets that offer account recovery options.

Technical Details-

Metamask Snaps is a customizable feature that enables users to add or remove modular plugins called “snaps” to their wallet. These snaps can add new functionality or integrations to the wallet such as support for new blockchain networks, DeFi protocols, and gaming applications. With Metamask Snaps, users can easily tailor their wallet to their needs without technical knowledge. Developers can create new snaps that integrate with emerging platforms, allowing users to access new services directly from their wallet. Metamask Snaps is a versatile and powerful feature that advances the adoption of the decentralized finance ecosystem.

Proposed Solution-

Due to limited modifications one can do with metamask snaps, initially we all were scratching our heads and thinking day and night with the hope to make more significant changes to our wallet. We ultimately came up with great impactful ideas within the confines of the available snaps and appreciate the added functionality they provided.

We are introducing a DApp known as SnapX which provide the users with 2 features;

★ Snap Alert — With the help of Snap-Alert, the users can:

• Receive notification whenever a proposal is launched by any of the DAOs they follow.
• Receive updates whenever someone sends Ethereum to their Metamask wallet.
• Receive alerts when a buyer makes an offer on their published NFT on OpenSea.

★ Snap Recovery — In case where the users lose their private key, an additional method is provided to recover the wallet via recovery key, which is even more secure than the seed phrase, because the users can easily make Recovery Key public unlike seed phrase. This is a much more viable approach since it can’t be exploited, as the recovery key is generated with the encryption of the seed phrase and the face ID of the user which has to be set up by the user initially along with a 4 digit pin.

Quick Links:-

If you want to explore more about this project or watch a demo video, kindly visit this link — What does the fox say?