01Who we are
Shards is a product of Mindcraft Inc., a Delaware corporation with its registered office at 3 Germay Dr, Unit 4 #2316, Wilmington, DE, USA. References to "Shards," "we," "our," or "us" in these Terms refer to Mindcraft Inc.
3 Germay Dr, Unit 4 #2316, Wilmington, DE, USA
Email · [email protected]
Telephone · +1 (800) 988-8129
02What you are buying
A Shards kit is a physical package containing printed materials, archival shard cards, instructional documents, and (depending on tier) tamper-evident envelopes, a wax seal kit, and other accessories. The kit is paired with browser-based software that performs Shamir's Secret Sharing on a secret you provide.
You are buying:
- A physical kit assembled by us and shipped to you.
- Access to our browser-based splitting and reconstruction tool at thresholdvault.com.
- Written documentation including the offline recovery manual.
- For Guardian: seven days of email support after dispatch.
- For Legacy: a sixty-minute live setup call, custom written components, and priority support for thirty days.
You are not buying ongoing storage of any data on our servers, custody of your secret in any form, insurance against loss of your secret, or any guarantee about the future behaviour of cryptocurrencies, software tools, or third parties.
03Your account
You do not need an account to use Shards. The browser tool operates without authentication. Purchases require us to collect your name, email address, and shipping address for fulfillment purposes. These are processed in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
04Eligibility
You must be at least eighteen years old and legally capable of entering into a binding contract to purchase a Shards kit. By placing an order, you represent that you meet these requirements.
You may not purchase a Shards kit on behalf of another person without their knowledge and consent.
05Orders and payment
Orders are placed through our website and processed by Stripe, our payment provider. Prices are in U.S. dollars and exclusive of any import duties or taxes that may apply in your jurisdiction.
We may reject any order at our discretion, including but not limited to orders we suspect to be fraudulent, orders for shipment to jurisdictions we do not serve, and orders that violate our acceptable use policy.
If we reject an order, we will refund any payment received in full within five business days.
06Shipping
Kits are shipped from our facility in Orlando, Florida, USA. Our stated dispatch window is up to two weeks from order confirmation. Transit times after dispatch depend on destination and carrier and are not guaranteed.
For international orders, you are responsible for any import duties, customs charges, or taxes levied by the destination country. Refusal to accept a delivery on the basis of customs charges does not entitle you to a full refund; standard return-shipping deductions apply.
Risk of loss passes to you upon delivery to the carrier. We insure shipments where indicated in your tier; for uninsured shipments, loss in transit is the carrier's responsibility under their published terms.
07Refunds
Refund eligibility depends on the status of your order at the time of the refund request. The complete refund terms are set out in our Refund Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference.
In summary: full refunds before dispatch; partial refunds for unopened kits in transit; no refunds for opened kits.
08How the product works
Shards implements Shamir's Secret Sharing, a cryptographic scheme published in 1979 that allows a secret to be split into N shares such that any M of them can reconstruct the original. The split is performed in your browser using software we provide.
What we do
- We provide a browser-based tool that runs the split entirely on your computer.
- We ship physical materials to record the shares.
- We provide documentation explaining the system and the recovery procedure.
What we do not do
- We do not receive, transmit, or store your secret or any of your shares.
- We do not know which secret you are protecting, what scheme parameters you chose, or who you distributed shares to.
- We do not provide custody of your shares.
- We do not contact your holders or coordinate reconstruction.
The integrity of your scheme depends on factors outside our control: the people you choose as holders, the security of the physical environments where shares are stored, the future availability of compatible reconstruction tools, and the continued mathematical viability of the underlying cryptographic primitive.
09Your responsibilities
You are responsible for:
- Choosing appropriate holders. The trustworthiness of the people you select.
- Securing the physical materials. Once shares are printed, the physical security of the cards is yours.
- Verifying generation. Confirming that the shares you generated correctly reconstruct your secret before destroying any other copy.
- Maintaining your records. Knowing who holds what, where they are reachable, and how reconstruction is to be initiated.
- Communicating with holders. Explaining their role and any expectations.
- Updating your scheme. Redistributing shares if a holder becomes unavailable, or if your circumstances change.
We provide documentation to help with each of these. We do not perform them on your behalf.
10What we are not responsible for
To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for:
- Loss of access to any secret you protect using Shards, regardless of cause.
- Loss of value of any asset whose access depends on a secret protected by Shards (including but not limited to cryptocurrency, financial accounts, and digital property).
- Actions, omissions, or breaches of trust by any holder you select.
- Failure of any third-party reconstruction tool.
- Failure of any blockchain, cryptocurrency, or external system whose state depends on a recovered secret.
- Failure of any physical infrastructure (printers, storage, postal services) used to handle your shares.
- Errors in scheme design that you have made.
- Decisions you make based on the recommendations or documentation we provide.
11No financial or legal advice
Nothing on the Shards website, in our documentation, or in any communication from our team constitutes financial, legal, tax, or estate-planning advice. We provide a tool. The decisions about whether and how to use the tool — and what to do with what it produces — are yours.
For matters involving inheritance, estate planning, tax treatment of digital assets, or fiduciary duties, consult a qualified professional in your jurisdiction.
12Intellectual property
The Shards name, logo, website design, written content, kit design, and visual identity are the property of Mindcraft Inc. You may not reproduce, redistribute, or create derivative works of these materials for commercial purposes without our written permission.
Materials inside your kit (the booklets, the letters, the cards) are yours to use for the purpose intended: setting up and managing your own Shamir scheme. Personal duplication for the purpose of your own scheme management is permitted.
13Open source
The cryptographic implementation underlying the Shards browser tool is published as open source software. The license, repository, and verification instructions are available at thresholdvault.com/open-source.
This means: you can verify what the tool actually does; you can use a third-party implementation if you prefer; and if Shards ceases operations, the cryptographic capability remains available to you and your heirs through alternative tools.
14Acceptable use
You agree not to use Shards to:
- Conceal the proceeds of crime, evade taxes, or facilitate sanctions evasion.
- Protect secrets you do not lawfully own or have permission to protect.
- Harass, defraud, or extort any other person, including any holder.
- Reverse engineer our systems for purposes other than the verification permitted by our open-source license.
We reserve the right to refuse service and to report unlawful use to appropriate authorities. We have no obligation to monitor what you protect, but we are not obligated to serve customers we reasonably suspect of unlawful use.
15Termination
We may refuse to sell to you, cancel a pending order, or decline to provide support if you violate these Terms. Because we hold no user data or shares, "termination" in our case typically means refunding pending orders and ceasing communication, not deleting any account.
You may stop using Shards at any time. Once you have received your kit and performed your setup, no ongoing relationship is required.
16Disclaimers
The Shards website, software, kits, and documentation are provided "as is" and "as available." To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.
We do not warrant that the website or browser tool will be uninterrupted, error-free, or available at any particular time. We do not warrant that any specific reconstruction procedure will succeed in the future.
Shamir's Secret Sharing is a well-established cryptographic scheme. We believe our implementation is correct, and we publish the source for verification. We do not, however, guarantee that no software defect exists.
17Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total liability to you for all claims arising from your use of Shards is limited to the amount you paid us for the kit in question.
We are not liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or punitive damages, including but not limited to lost profits, lost data, loss of access to assets, or loss of goodwill, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
This limitation reflects the nature of our product: we sell a tool for a small price. We cannot, and do not, accept liability for the value of the assets a customer chooses to protect with that tool. Customers protecting high-value secrets should consider this allocation of risk before purchasing.
18Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Mindcraft Inc., its officers, employees, and contractors from any claim, loss, or expense arising from your misuse of Shards, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any third party's rights.
19Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-law provisions. Any dispute arising from or relating to these Terms or your use of Shards shall be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Delaware, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.
If you are a consumer in a jurisdiction whose law grants you non-waivable rights, nothing in this section limits those rights.
20Changes to these terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. The most current version is always posted at thresholdvault.com/terms with the "last updated" date at the top.
Material changes will be announced by email to customers who have purchased within the previous twelve months. Your continued use of Shards after a change constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.
21Contact
Questions about these Terms? Write to us at [email protected] or by post to the address above.