Introduction

Private keys sit at the center of digital asset infrastructure. Naturally, institutions want to know:

“If you’re helping us recover assets… why don’t you need access to our keys?”

It’s a fair question - and a fundamental one.

The short answer: we built it that way on purpose.

Circuit’s recovery architecture is designed to eliminate the operational and security risks that come with handling key material. Instead of reconstructing private keys, we enable recovery through a different mechanism entirely.

The underlying technology that makes this possible is what we call Automatic Asset Extraction (AAE).

AAE isn’t a workaround - it’s a fundamentally different approach to recovery. It replaces key reconstruction with pre-authorized, policy-controlled transactions that allow institutions to recover assets directly, without touching sensitive key material.

This design doesn’t just improve security. It enforces clean trust boundaries, enables faster recovery under pressure, and reduces complexity when every second counts.
‍

Why We Don’t Store, Hold, or Reconstruct Your Keys

Circuit’s role is to help institutions recover assets, not keys.

Traditional recovery models assume that if something goes wrong, the solution is to restore key control — often through backups or shard reassembly. But reintroducing key material reopens the very risks MPC or HSM systems were designed to mitigate.

With AAE, Circuit never stores, reconstructs, or has access to your private keys. In fact, we never need them. Our auto-signer doesn’t have general signing power — it can only approve one transaction: moving assets from your primary wallet to a backup wallet you’ve defined.

That transaction is:

• Pre-specified by you
  
  
• Locked by policy
  
  
• Executed only under recovery conditions
  
  

There’s no broad signing capability. No key access. No exposure of secret material — ever.

‍

Why Key-Based Recovery Introduces Risk

MPC wallet infrastructure is designed to be resilient: private key shards are encrypted and distributed to eliminate single points of failure. But key recovery flows often reintroduce what MPC was meant to remove.

Institutions may back up these shards for emergencies — yet reassembling them, even briefly, collapses the risk distribution that MPC depends on. And worse, it typically happens during moments of downtime, disruption, or operational pressure.

The most dangerous moment in a crypto infrastructure lifecycle is often the moment you try to recover control.

Circuit avoids that entirely — recovery happens without reintroducing key material.

‍

How Automatic Asset Extraction Works

Circuit’s AAE system enables a single, tightly scoped recovery action:

Send assets to a backup wallet — and only that.

This is enforced through:

• A secure auto-signer with limited scope
  
  
• Clear routing to pre-approved backup wallets
  
  
• Institutional policies that define when and how it activates
  
  
• No fallback to secret reconstruction
  
  

So even if your primary infrastructure is down or potentially compromised, your recovery flow stays operational — and isolated.

‍

So, Why Don’t We Need Your Keys?

Because we don’t recover keys - we recover your assets.

Your private key material stays sealed, encrypted, and offline - exactly as your security architecture intends.

Circuit operates independently of your signing infrastructure and recovery backups, providing a narrow, policy-controlled path to move assets when your primary systems are down.

This architectural decision:

• Preserves the integrity of your MPC setup
  
  
• Minimizes insider and operational risk
  
  
• Makes recovery testable, safe, and fast
  
  
• Keeps trust boundaries clean and auditable
  
  

You don’t need to trust us with your keys - because we never take them in the first place.

‍

Built for the Days When Keys Should Stay Locked Away

AAE is designed for the scenarios where reassembling keys is either risky, impractical, or impossible: outages, provider failures, test drills, or infrastructure compromise.

It gives you a fallback path that:

• Works with your wallet architecture
  
  
• Doesn’t compromise key hygiene
  
  

Can be tested, audited, and relied on

‍

Want to See It in Action?

We’re happy to walk you through how AAE fits into your infrastructure and enables recovery - without ever needing your private keys.