Multisig quorum failure — hardware wallet (2025)

A 2025 multisig recovery case involved a 3-of-5 wallet where two of the five key holders had each independently lost their signing devices without retaining their seed phrase backups. With only three keys available, the wallet was exactly at quorum—but any single additional key failure would render it unspendable. The holder engaged a bitcoin custody service to sweep the funds to a new, properly configured multisig arrangement using the three remaining keys as three of the required signers for a fresh 2-of-3 wallet. The operation required carefully crafting transactions that would use all three available keys simultaneously to meet the original 3-of-5 threshold.