Avalanche C-Chain | Zelf Legacy
Zelf Legacy: Biometric Inheritance Infrastructure for Avalanche
Organization: Zelf World LLC (Wyoming, USA)
Executive summary
Zelf Legacy lets you plan crypto inheritance without moving assets to a custodian or locking funds in a vault contract. Access rights transfer to beneficiaries only after verified inactivity and strong identity checks—biometric liveness plus optional ID verification.
We anchor policy state and heartbeat attestations on Avalanche C-Chain (EVM), starting on Fuji for safe iteration, then graduating to mainnet. Mobile UX prioritizes Android while keeping parity with web and iOS.
This page summarizes the Avalanche-focused roadmap: deploy on Fuji, ship lawyer attestation flows, support single and multiparty wills, and release the Android experience alongside wallet integrations.
What is Zelf?
Zelf is built on HumanAuthn: a biometric-bound identity layer that regenerates keys locally with liveness detection—no seed phrase storage on our servers. Zelf is available on Web Extension, iOS, and Android.
What is Zelf Legacy?
Zelf Legacy answers: "What happens to your assets when you die?" without forcing you to move funds into a single contract for safekeeping.
Instead of transferring assets, it transfers access rights after inactivity rules are met and beneficiaries prove who they are. Assets can remain in the original wallets while the policy lives on-chain on Avalanche.
How it works (Avalanche)
Step 1: Create your will
Enable Legacy Mode and designate beneficiaries bound with ZELF ID. Configure single-beneficiary or multiparty rules, optional lawyer oversight, and Shamir-style sharing of recovery material.
- EVM inheritance registry on Avalanche C-Chain
- Biometric beneficiary designation via ZELF ID
- Policy metadata encrypted on IPFS & Arweave
- Configurable multiparty thresholds and lawyer attestation
Step 2: Heartbeat protocol
Your app submits periodic heartbeats to the Avalanche contract so the chain can reason about activity windows without exposing whether a policy exists.
- Privacy-preserving signals
- Signed submissions with liveness detection
- Configurable inactivity and grace periods
- Lightweight attestations suitable for C-Chain gas economics
Step 3: Lawyer attestation & execution
Licensed counsel can review attestations from a dedicated flow, verify vault details, and approve execution after biometric verification—keeping legal oversight aligned with on-chain state.
- Lawyer dashboard and review queue
- Biometric verification for professionals
- On-chain approval events on Avalanche
Step 4: Secure claim
Beneficiaries complete face match, optional ID checks, and zero-knowledge entitlement proofs so credentials release without exposing biometrics on-chain.
Technical architecture (Avalanche)
HumanAuthn and client apps talk to Avalanche C-Chain contracts for policy and heartbeat state. Off-chain storage (IPFS/Arweave) holds encrypted policy payloads; the chain stores hashes, events, and verification checkpoints. The Guardian Oracle bridges expiry signals to notification systems.
Avalanche integration plan
We use standard EVM tooling (Hardhat/Foundry), Core wallet compatibility, and Fuji testnet iteration before mainnet deployment. Snowtrace provides transparency for test and production transactions.
Tranche 1: MVP on Fuji
Timeline: 5 weeks
Deploy the inheritance registry and heartbeat flows to Fuji, integrate ZelfProof verification, and prove single and multiparty policies with lawyer attestation hooks.
Tranche 2: Oracle & claims
Timeline: 6 weeks
Harden the Guardian Oracle, beneficiary/lawyer notifications, and the end-to-end claim pipeline with client-side proof verification.
Tranche 3: Android + mainnet
Timeline: 6 weeks
Ship Android-first UI, SDKs for integrators, demos on Web Extension and iOS, documentation, and mainnet deployment on Avalanche C-Chain.
Why Avalanche?
Avalanche offers fast finality, a mature C-Chain EVM environment, and an active ecosystem for wallets and subnets—ideal for iterating inheritance policies with real users before scaling.
- Familiar EVM developer experience for contracts and audits
- Strong wallet ecosystem (Core, MetaMask, WalletConnect)
- Fuji testnet for realistic staging without mainnet risk
- Low-friction path to mainnet C-Chain with existing Zelf payment integrations
- Room to grow with Avalanche-native programs and community tooling
Risk mitigation
| Risk | Mitigation |
|---|---|
| Smart contract security | Internal reviews plus external audit before mainnet; scoped upgrades via timelocks where applicable. |
| Oracle reliability | Multi-signal design; no single notifier can unilaterally trigger inheritance. |
| ZK performance | Hybrid verification paths with on-chain checks where gas allows; attestations where needed. |
| Regulatory uncertainty | Access-rights framing; jurisdiction-aware policy UX; clear disclosures for users and counsel. |
Open source commitment
Avalanche-facing contracts, deployment tooling, and integration examples ship under permissive licenses suitable for ecosystem developers; ZELF ID core cryptography remains SDK-governed.
Disclaimer
Roadmap items are planning references and may change as engineering progresses. Always verify on-chain addresses and official communications before interacting with contracts.
Fuji deployment, Android UI, single and multiparty wills, lawyer attestation, oracle + claim pipeline, then mainnet on Avalanche C-Chain.
Don't let your crypto die with you.