What happens if MetaMask shuts down?

If MetaMask shut down, your crypto would not disappear. MetaMask is software that holds the keys to your accounts, while the coins and tokens are recorded on blockchains such as Ethereum. As long as you still have your Secret Recovery Phrase, you could reach the same accounts through another wallet.

Can MetaMask be shut down?

MetaMask is made by Consensys, which The Block noted in 2020 also owned Infura, and in theory a company can stop supporting an app. What no company can do is shut down your accounts. MetaMask says it cannot access your Secret Recovery Phrase, cannot move your assets and is not a middleman between you and your funds. Anyone holding the phrase controls the funds, with or without MetaMask. Our guide to what MetaMask is covers how the wallet works.

Your recovery phrase follows BIP39, an open standard. Trezor explains that BIP39 was designed for compatibility between wallets, so a phrase can be entered into any other wallet that supports it. One caveat is the derivation path, which decides which addresses a wallet shows. Using your seed phrase in another wallet explains why balances can look empty at first.

Wallets created with a Google, Apple or Telegram login work differently. MetaMask says the phrase for those wallets is split and encrypted across several servers and rebuilt with your login and password, so that setup leans more on MetaMask's own systems.

What happens if MetaMask goes down?

Short outages have happened. On November 11, 2020, a bug in an older Ethereum client version used by Infura, MetaMask's default provider, disrupted the wallet, and some exchanges paused ETH withdrawals. On April 22, 2022, another Infura outage stopped MetaMask working for most users until a fix was in place that afternoon, The Block reported.

In both cases the Ethereum blockchain itself kept running. Users could not send transactions through the usual connection for a while, but their balances were untouched.

MetaMask talks to blockchains through RPC endpoints. Its support pages show that you can add another RPC URL for a network such as Ethereum and switch to it. MetaMask notes that a custom Ethereum RPC turns off features like its built-in MEV protection.

Is MetaMask down, or is something else wrong?

When transactions fail or balances will not load, check a few things:

• Infura's status page. Infura lists outages and maintenance at status.infura.io.
• A block explorer. Search your address. If the funds appear there, they are safe on the chain, as explained in how to use a blockchain explorer.
• The network setting. A wallet set to the wrong network can show a zero balance.

If you need to restore, MetaMask says you set a new password and re-add networks and tokens manually. Accounts imported by private key, or from another phrase, must be added again too.

The single point of failure is your backup. MetaMask says it cannot recover your funds if the phrase is lost, whether or not the app is still running.