Please Note: If you are restoring your wallet in another language and/or have a different language on your phone, you need to also have English enabled as an additional language in your phone's system settings, as the mnemonic words of the recovery phrase must be typed or pasted in English. Copying and pasting the mnemonic phrase without having English enabled as an additional language on your phone will not work, as the app will not know how to interpret the characters.
What is a recovery phrase (seed)? How does my Arculus™ recovery phrase (seed) work?
A recovery phrase (seed) is a representation of your private numeric keys in plain English. Think of your recovery phrase (seed) as a ‘master key’ to unlock and recover your cryptocurrency. If you would like to learn more about how cryptocurrency keys work, https://iancoleman.io/bip39/#english illustrates the key and address derivation process. Arculus uses a 12-word or 24-word recovery phrase, generated by the BIP39 method.
When creating your Arculus Wallet, Arculus will display your 12 or 24 word recovery phrase once. You must write it down and secure it in a safe place. Arculus will prompt you to enter the 12 or 24 words in the correct order at wallet creation to ensure you have documented the recovery phrase accurately.
It is very important to keep this recovery phrase written down and in a safe place. It is the only way to restore your Arculus Wallet if you lose your card, lose or upgrade your phone, or enter your PIN code incorrectly three times. Keep your recovery phrase safe and never share with anyone or online. Our Support team will never ask you for it.
Arculus does not retain or store the recovery phrase of any customer. If you lose your recovery phrase, we cannot recover or provide it to you.
Issues you may encounter when restoring your wallet using your recovery phrase
From time to time, you may need to restore your Arculus Cold Storage Wallet using your recovery phrase. This could be due to a phone upgrade or replacement, or the purchase of a new Arculus card. Additionally, there is a security feature within Arculus that requires you to enter your 12 or 24 word recovery phrase and restore your wallet if you enter your 6-digit PIN code incorrectly 3 times (don't worry, you'll get a warning indicating this is your last chance to enter the PIN correctly).
In every Arculus box, we include a recovery phrase card to write down your recovery phrase and encourage you to store it in a safe place. In order to restore your Arculus Cold Storage Wallet, you will need to have your recovery phrase available.
If you've entered your 12 or 24 word recovery phrase correctly, the wallet restore process should only take a few minutes. Your asset balances may appear as a $0 balance for a few minutes as the Arculus app syncs with the blockchains.
If you've waited a few minutes and the balances are all $0, you may not have restored your intended wallet. You may have entered the words in the wrong order or you may have spelled a word incorrectly. There are many words in the BIP39 word list that are similar to each other. For example, these are all valid words from the list: air, aim, home, hope, anger, angry, fade, fame, cool, cook. Because of the similarity of some of the words, it is possible to write the word down incorrectly. Because the incorrectly written word is still a valid word from the list, an Arculus Wallet will be restored successfully to your card. Of course, if you incorrectly documented a word that is not on the list and enter that word when restoring your wallet, the "Restore" button will not activate or if using an Android device, you will receive an error indicating the phrase is invalid. The Arculus app recognizes that is not a valid word and will not let you proceed.
If you are encountering any issues restoring your wallet with your documented recovery phrase, there are a few tools that could assist you in determining if you have the correct 12 or 24 words. First, we recommend that you compare the words you wrote down against the BIP39 Word List.
If you've compared the words and you are still unable to restore your wallet, please try using this third-party tool: Mnemonic Phrase Recovery Tool.
If you need any additional assistance, please contact our Support team for guidance.
How do I manage my private keys/recovery phrase (seed)?
Your 12 or 24 word recovery phrase (sometimes referred to as a “recovery seed”) is your only wallet backup for another device or new card if your card is stolen, lost, or broken. Your phrase should be written down, stored in a secure place, and never shared with anyone. The phrase will only be shown once so it must be written down when it is first displayed.