#Set up your PUK

When a wrong PIN has been submitted to a Keycard three times in a row, the Keycard gets blocked.

When your Keycard is blocked you can either:

• Factory reset it and in this case your secret will be removed from the card. So you will need to set up your key pair again with your mnemonic.
• Or you can unblock your card with a PUK. The PUK code is a 12 digit secret code from your Keycard. When your card is blocked a software wallet integrated with Keycard (like Status) or a hardware wallet like Shell can propose you to enter the PUK code. If you enter it correctly then your card is unblocked and your PIN counter is reset. Moreover your key pair is kept in Keycard and you don't need to import it again.

If you want to set up a PUK for your Keycard, you can do it with Shell by inserting your Keycard, entering your PIN (which means your card should not be blocked of course), and go to Settings > Keycard > Change PUK

By default the PUK is set up to a random value when your card is being initialized.