Duress PIN
A duress PIN is a secondary passcode that unlocks a decoy view of a wallet when the user is under physical or psychological coercion. Entering it looks identical to a normal unlock, but reveals a curated fake state instead of real holdings.
How it works
A duress PIN is registered separately from the primary PIN and mapped to a distinct wallet state — a decoy account with small, plausible balances. When the wallet detects the duress code, it derives a different KEK, decrypts only the decoy vault, and hides the real vault. To an attacker watching the screen, the two experiences are indistinguishable — same balance surface, same transaction history, same asset icons.
Why it matters
The $5 wrench attack bypasses every cryptographic control a wallet has. Cold storage, hardware wallets, and strong PINs all fail once the owner is forced to unlock at gunpoint. A duress PIN gives the user a survivable answer: hand over what looks like the whole wallet, satisfy the attacker, and preserve the real funds.
Related concepts
- Coercion Resistance — Coercion resistance is a wallet property that limits the loss a user can be forced to authorise under duress.
- Wrench Attack — A wrench attack is a physical-coercion crypto theft in which an attacker forces a victim to unlock their wallet and transfer assets under threat of violence.
- Panic Wipe — Panic wipe is an emergency wallet feature that erases on-device keys and cached state when triggered, leaving no recoverable material on the phone.
- Seed Phrase — A seed phrase — also called a recovery phrase or mnemonic — is a human-readable list of 12 or 24 words that encodes the entropy behind every private key in a wallet.
Frequently asked questions
Is a duress PIN the same as a decoy wallet?
The duress PIN is the trigger; the decoy wallet is the state it unlocks. Together they form Coercion Resistance.
Can an attacker tell the duress PIN was used?
No. The decoy view mirrors the real interface with plausible values you choose.
Does the duress PIN wipe my real wallet?
No. The real vault stays encrypted — recoverable later from your Shamir shards.
In Veyrnox
Veyrnox ships duress PIN as part of Coercion Resistance on Safety Plus. The decoy vault is a real, spendable wallet with a small balance you fund yourself, so transactions succeed under observation. The real vault is unreachable during a duress session.