Terms of service
These terms are the agreement between you and SignBit Ltd for your use of SignBit. Please read them carefully. They explain what we do, what we do not do, and where responsibility sits, particularly for the keys that control your bitcoin.
Summary
SignBit helps you hold bitcoin in a multi-signature vault, which needs several independent keys to approve a payment. You hold your own keys. In most vaults we also hold one key and co-sign transactions that follow the rules you set. Either way, we cannot move your bitcoin on our own.
Because you hold your keys, you carry a real responsibility. If you lose them and their backups, we cannot recover them for you, and nobody else can either. That is the other side of the guarantee that we cannot take your bitcoin.
This summary does not replace the full terms below. If you are a consumer, nothing in these terms takes away your legal rights.
About these terms
These terms are an agreement between you and SignBit Ltd, a private limited company incorporated in England and Wales with company number 17487090, whose registered office is at Suite A, 82 James Carter Road, Mildenhall IP28 7DE, United Kingdom. In these terms, "SignBit", "we" and "us" mean SignBit Ltd.
They apply to the SignBit websites and app, our co-signing service and our support. You accept them when you create an account. If you use SignBit for a business, you confirm that you are authorised to accept them on its behalf.
A "consumer" means an individual using SignBit wholly or mainly for purposes outside their trade, business, craft or profession. Where these terms treat consumers differently, they say so.
What SignBit is
SignBit Ltd develops and operates SignBit, subscription software that helps individuals, families and businesses secure their own Bitcoin. A customer creates a multi-signature vault that needs several independent keys to approve any payment. The customer holds a majority of those keys, on their own devices or hardware wallets, including through Fountain, our free open-source signing app. SignBit holds at most one key, which can never move funds on its own. It co-signs only when the customer asks, and only within spending rules the customer sets, and the customer can always spend without us. The software also provides recovery and inheritance planning.
SignBit does not hold, transmit or exchange customers' bitcoin or money, does not take deposits, and does not buy or sell cryptoassets or give investment advice. Revenue comes from monthly, quarterly and yearly software subscriptions paid by card through Stripe; one vault is free.
We are not a bank, an exchange, a broker or a custodian, and we are not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Nothing we provide is financial, investment, tax or legal advice, and your bitcoin is not protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme or any other deposit protection scheme.
A vault you create with SignBit is a standard Bitcoin wallet. If you cannot reach us, for any reason, your keys and your vault's descriptor still let you spend your bitcoin with ordinary third-party software.
Who can use SignBit
You must be at least 18 and able to enter into a binding contract.
You must not use SignBit if you are, or act for, a person subject to sanctions imposed by the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United Nations or the United States, or if you are in a country or territory subject to comprehensive sanctions.
You are responsible for making sure that your use of SignBit is lawful where you live. Rules on bitcoin differ from country to country, and we cannot advise you on yours.
Your account
Give us accurate details and keep them up to date, especially your email address. It is how we reach you about security, payments and any inheritance claim on your vaults.
Keep your password and your two-factor device secure, and do not share your account. You are responsible for what happens under your account, unless it happens because we failed to take reasonable care.
Tell us straight away if you think someone else has access to your account. We can end its sessions and help you secure it.
Your account is not your bitcoin. Losing access to your account is an inconvenience; losing your keys is what puts your bitcoin at risk.
Your keys and your bitcoin
You are responsible for creating your keys, backing up your recovery phrases, and keeping those backups safe. We never see them and cannot recreate them.
If so many keys are lost that your vault can no longer reach its signing threshold, the bitcoin in it cannot be recovered, by you, by us or by anyone else. Back up your recovery phrase before you put bitcoin in a vault.
You are responsible for every transaction you approve. Bitcoin transactions are final: if you sign a payment to the wrong address, neither we nor anyone else can reverse it.
Check addresses independently before you send. Fountain can show your vault's addresses offline for exactly this purpose, which protects you against a compromised screen showing you an attacker's address.
Our co-signing service
In a vault where we hold a key, we co-sign a transaction only when one of the vault's keyholders asks us to, or under the claims process described below, and only if the transaction follows the vault's spending rules.
We may decline or delay a signature, even within your rules, if we reasonably believe that the transaction is connected with fraud, theft or another crime, that it would break the law or sanctions, or that an account or a key has been compromised. We may also pause co-signing while our information about the Bitcoin network is unreliable, or while we deal with a security problem.
The vault shapes we offer always leave enough keys outside SignBit to reach the threshold. So if we decline, pause or stop co-signing, your vault's keyholders can still spend without us.
We aim to keep the co-signing service available at all times, but we do not promise that it will be uninterrupted.
What we commit to
To operate the co-signing service with reasonable skill and care, and to apply your vault's spending policy honestly, including refusing to sign when a request falls outside it. This obligation applies wherever our signature is required to authorise a transaction. Where the keys you hold are enough to meet your vault's threshold without us, including in a vault in which we hold no key, spending rules are advisory only, because no signature of ours is required to enforce them.
To keep our own key secure. In a vault where we hold no key, there is nothing of ours that can sign, and signing is entirely a matter for you and the vault's other keyholders.
To give you the means to leave. Your descriptor and transaction history can be exported, and how to recover without us is documented rather than obstructed.
To tell you promptly if something goes seriously wrong, including a security incident that affects your data or your vaults.
Inheritance planning and claims
SignBit lets you record beneficiaries for a vault and print a recovery plan. These record your wishes. They are not a will, they do not decide who your bitcoin legally belongs to, and we do not act as an executor or give legal advice.
In a vault where we hold a key, a person who holds some of that vault's keys, such as a beneficiary, another keyholder or an executor, can make a claim to recover it. A claim can only succeed if the claimant proves that they hold one key fewer than the number the vault needs to spend, not counting ours. Our signature can only complete a transfer that the claimant has already signed with their own keys.
No transfer can happen until both of these are true: you have not signed in to SignBit for at least 12 months, and at least 90 days have passed since the claim was made. While a claim is open, we email you about it regularly, and you can stop it at any time with the link in any of those emails. Signing in to your account also prevents a transfer, because you are then no longer inactive.
Our staff review every claim and decide whether to approve it. We may ask for more information, such as a death certificate or a grant of probate. We may decline a claim even when the keys are proven, for example where living people disagree about who should receive the bitcoin, which is a matter for them and the courts. We do not promise that a claim will be approved, or how long a review will take.
An approved claim transfers the whole balance of the vault to the single address the claimant gave, less the Bitcoin network fee, which comes out of that balance. We do not charge for a claim. Once made, a transfer cannot be reversed.
By using a vault in which we hold a key, you instruct us to follow this process. That is why your email address must stay current and your keys must stay safe: someone holding enough of your keys could make a claim, and our emails are how you can stop one that should not succeed. If you would rather this process did not apply, use a vault in which we hold no key, which paid plans offer.
Transactions from outside SignBit
SignBit uses standard formats on purpose, so you can use it with other wallets and tools. A transaction built in SignBit can be signed elsewhere, and a transaction built elsewhere can be brought here. That openness is deliberate, and it carries a risk worth stating plainly.
When you scan a QR code, open a file or paste a transaction, you are trusting whoever produced it, and we cannot tell you where it came from. A transaction built to deceive can show you one thing on screen while committing your signature to another, and a signature, once given, is final.
We check what reaches our servers, and Fountain decodes a transaction on your own device so you can see what it really does before you approve it. Neither check can vouch for something a stranger handed you. Use transactions you started yourself, from a source you trust, and rely on what your signing device shows you rather than what the sending screen claims.
We cannot reverse or reimburse a loss that follows from a transaction you approved on the strength of a payload from an untrusted source. This does not reduce the responsibilities we take on elsewhere in these terms, and it does not apply where the fault is ours.
Fountain and other software
Fountain, our signing app, is free and open-source software, licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or any later version. That licence, not these terms, governs your right to use, copy and change Fountain, and as the licence says, it comes without any warranty. This does not affect your legal rights as a consumer.
You can use SignBit with hardware wallets and other software that we do not make. We do not control them and are not responsible for how they work, how secure they are, or whether they remain available. Their own terms apply to them.
The test network
We also run SignBit on a Bitcoin test network, at testnet.signbit.io, so that you can try it without risking real money. Coins on a test network have no value. These terms apply there too, except that paid plans are not sold there.
The test network version is separate from the main service and has its own accounts. It may change, break or be reset at any time, without notice.
Never use a test network vault or address for real bitcoin.
Plans, payment and cancellation
One vault is free, with no time limit. Paid plans add more vaults, larger vaults and other features, as described on our pricing page when you subscribe, and our Business plan is priced by agreement. We do not charge a percentage of your holdings, and we never take payment in or from your bitcoin.
Paid plans are subscriptions, billed in advance, monthly, every three months or yearly as you choose, through our payment processor, Stripe. Prices are in US dollars and are shown before you pay, together with any tax we must charge. Your subscription renews automatically at the end of each period until you cancel it.
If we change the price of your plan, we will tell you at least 30 days before the new price applies to you, so that you can cancel first if you wish.
You can cancel at any time in your billing settings. Your plan stays active until the end of the period you have paid for, and your account then moves to the free plan. You keep every vault you already have, and your bitcoin is never affected, but you cannot create new vaults beyond the free plan's limit.
If a payment fails, we will try again, and your plan stays active while we do. If we still cannot take payment, your account moves to the free plan.
If a subscription ends, for any reason, before its first 3 months have been paid for, and during it you used something the free plan does not include (more vaults, a larger vault, a vault in which we hold no key, a SignBit Representative or more beneficiaries), subscribing again later costs a one-off reactivation fee: the plan's monthly price for each of those first 3 months left unpaid. We show it before you pay, and charge it once, with your first payment. Quarterly and yearly plans cover at least 3 months up front, so it never applies to them. It does not apply if we refunded that subscription, or if you never subscribe again.
If you are a consumer, you may cancel a new subscription within 14 days of taking it out and receive a refund, by telling us at [email protected]. Because your plan starts as soon as you subscribe, we may keep a proportionate amount for the days before you cancelled.
Apart from that, and any refund the law requires, payments are non-refundable, including for the rest of a period after you cancel.
Bitcoin network fees are separate. You choose them when you send, and they go to the network's miners, not to us.
If you sign up through someone's referral link, your first subscription gets the discount shown before you pay. The person whose link it was gets a credit, shown in their settings, 14 days after you have paid at least the amount of that credit: it comes off their future SignBit bills, is never paid out in money, and is taken back if the payment it was for is refunded below that amount or disputed. A referral does not count when you pay with a card the referrer, or another person they referred, has used, or while either account is limited or closed; each account earns at most 12 credits in any 12 months, and we may withhold or take back credits, or switch off a link, where we reasonably believe the programme is being misused. We may change or end the programme; credits already given stay on your account.
You can change plan at any time from the billing page. A higher plan, or a longer billing period, starts at once, and you pay the difference for the rest of the current period straight away. A lower plan, or a shorter billing period, starts when the period you have paid for ends: until then you keep the plan you have, and nothing is refunded for the rest of that period. A change waiting to start can be undone until then.
Acceptable use
Do not use SignBit for anything unlawful, including fraud, money laundering, terrorist financing or evading sanctions.
Do not attack or misuse SignBit. That includes trying to get around its security, accessing another person's account or data, disrupting or overloading it, and probing our co-signing service. Good-faith security research is welcome: please report what you find to us privately, and give us reasonable time to fix it before you publish anything.
Do not attempt to make us sign a transaction outside your vault's policy. Where our signature is required, this will not work, because the signer checks every request independently against its own copy of your rules. Attempting it is a breach of these terms.
Do not use names, labels, notes, comments or support messages to harass anyone or to share unlawful content, and do not open accounts by automated means or pretend to be someone else.
Our software and your content
SignBit, including its software, design and content, belongs to us or to those who license it to us. We give you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use SignBit in line with these terms while your account is open. You may not copy, sell, modify or reverse engineer it, except where the law allows you to or a licence expressly permits it.
What you put into SignBit, such as vault names, labels, notes, comments and support messages, stays yours. You allow us to store, copy and display it as needed to provide SignBit to you and to the people you share a vault or a ticket with.
If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them freely, with no obligation to you.
Changes to SignBit
We keep improving SignBit, so its features will change. If a change materially reduces what your paid plan includes, we will tell you in advance, and you may cancel and receive a refund for the unused part of any period you have paid for.
If we decide to stop providing SignBit, we will give you reasonable notice, refund any amount you have paid for the period after it stops, and make sure you can export what you need to spend your bitcoin without us. Your bitcoin does not depend on our continued existence.
Suspension and closure
You can stop using SignBit and ask us to close your account at any time, as our privacy policy explains. Before you do, export your vault descriptor and check your key backups, because those are what you need to spend without us.
We may restrict, suspend or close your account if you seriously or repeatedly break these terms, if the law or a regulator requires it, if we reasonably suspect fraud or other crime, or to protect SignBit or its users from harm. Unless the law or an ongoing attack prevents it, we will tell you why and give you the chance to export your data.
Whatever happens to your account, you can still spend your bitcoin with your own keys and descriptor, using standard Bitcoin software. The parts of these terms that are meant to continue after your account closes, such as those on liability and disputes, continue to apply.
Disclaimers
We provide SignBit with reasonable care and skill, but we cannot promise that it will always be available, uninterrupted or free from errors. It depends on the Bitcoin network and on providers we do not control, and we may need to pause it for maintenance or security.
Apart from the promises in these terms and your rights under the law, we make no other promises about SignBit. If you use SignBit for business, we exclude all terms, conditions and warranties implied by law, to the extent the law allows.
The value of bitcoin can rise and fall sharply, and you could lose some or all of it. We do not advise on whether to buy, hold or sell it, and its value has nothing to do with us.
Our responsibility for loss
Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that the law does not allow us to limit or exclude. If you are a consumer, nothing in these terms affects your statutory rights, including your right to a service provided with reasonable care and skill.
If you are a consumer, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking these terms or failing to use reasonable care and skill. Loss or damage is foreseeable if it was obvious that it would happen, or if both of us knew it might happen when you accepted these terms. We are not responsible for loss or damage that is not foreseeable, or for business losses.
If you use SignBit for business, we are not liable for any loss of profit, revenue, business, goodwill or anticipated savings, or for any indirect or consequential loss.
Subject to the first paragraph of this section, our total liability to you for all claims connected with SignBit, whether in contract, negligence or otherwise, is limited to the greater of the fees you paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose and £100.
We are not responsible for the loss of your bitcoin caused by the loss, theft or destruction of your own keys or backups, by a transaction that you or another keyholder approved, or by your own device being compromised. This is not us shifting blame for something we could have prevented. We cannot hold or restore your keys by design, and the same design is what stops us, or anyone who attacks us, from taking your bitcoin.
Where we are at fault, this section does not excuse us. If we fail to keep our own key secure, misapply your spending rules, or lose your data through our negligence, these limits apply to the amount of our liability, not to whether we have any.
Events outside our control
We are not responsible for a delay or failure caused by events outside our reasonable control, such as a failure of the Bitcoin network, an outage at a provider we depend on, or a natural disaster, war or government action. If that happens, we will tell you, do what we reasonably can to limit the effect, and resume as soon as we can.
An interruption to our service never locks your bitcoin, because your vault's keyholders can reach its threshold without us.
Changes to these terms
We may change these terms, for example to reflect a change in the law, in SignBit or in our prices. The date at the top shows when they last changed.
If a change materially affects you, we will tell you by email or in the app at least 30 days before it takes effect, unless the law or the security of the service requires it sooner. If you do not accept the change, you can cancel your plan or close your account before it takes effect, and we will refund any amount you have paid for the period after that.
If you keep using SignBit after a change takes effect, the new terms apply to you.
Complaints and disputes
If you have a complaint, please contact us at [email protected]. We will acknowledge it promptly and aim to resolve it within 30 days. If we cannot resolve it, we will tell you whether an alternative dispute resolution service can help.
These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales.
If you are a consumer, you can bring legal proceedings in the courts of England and Wales, or of Scotland or Northern Ireland if you live there, and if you live in the European Union, in the courts of the country where you live. You also keep the protection of the mandatory consumer laws of the country where you live.
If you use SignBit for business, the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute.
General
These terms, together with the plan details shown when you subscribe, are the whole agreement between you and us about SignBit. Our privacy policy explains how we handle personal data. It is a notice, not part of this agreement.
We may transfer this agreement to another organisation, for example if our business is sold. We will tell you if that happens, and we will make sure the transfer does not reduce your rights. If you are unhappy with it, you may close your account within 30 days of hearing about it, and we will refund any amount you have paid for the period after you close it. You may transfer your rights under these terms only with our written consent.
If a court finds that part of these terms is unlawful or unenforceable, the rest stays in force. If we do not insist on something straight away, we can still insist on it later.
Only you and we have rights under these terms. Nobody else may enforce them, under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 or otherwise.
These terms are available in several languages. If a translation differs from the English version, the English version applies, unless the law of the country where you live requires otherwise.
Contact
Questions about these terms go to [email protected], or by post to SignBit Ltd, Suite A, 82 James Carter Road, Mildenhall IP28 7DE, United Kingdom.
To report a security issue, email the same address with "security" in the subject line, and we will prioritise it.