Topic: [2018-02-23]CNBC - Your bitcoin may be lost for good if you die without a plan (Read 199 times)

There are no such things that it will die in no good if you use your earnings to make the most out of your living right? Isn't that why some of us are here, to help our family and most of all ourselves  to support our daily needs, and our loved ones and most of all to buy what we need to buy.

I'm sure that people who own bitcoins have thought of that. It's their decision if they want to plan it in case things like that happen. Entrusting it to your family isn't hard after all.

It seems peoples here don't trust family members with their bitcoins? Very weak trust on family members isn't a good thing, I believe.

However, I have told my wife and my younger brother about all my hodlings and where they are kept..
Even I have printed all my logins to all my accounts and gave it to my wife & brother.
My parents also know what I'm hodling along with my brother and wife. I trust my family a lot, no doubt on that and I can die without any tension by knowing my coins are in good hands. 

Indeed. Which is why freeing them from the necessity of survival means they can go deeper into what really interests them. It might be piffling, it might change the world. It's still a better use of their time and time is the only currency that really has universal weight.

This is indeed a problem since, unlike fiat currency, we can't really just print more bitcoins in case the supply depletes. In time, little by little (or even in a fell sweep), the amount of bitcoins will likely diminish due to the fact of people dying or forgetting their bitcoins or losing their wallets, etc., and result to the total amount of supply to be incredibly insufficient to support the demand. Two things might happen from there, either the price goes up or the use of it dies due to the fact it is unusable. We still have a very long way to go before we even reach 21 million bitcoins and we already have these problems.

Most people have quite boring jobs so they would totally agree with this statement, but I think the word "work" can have more meanings than simply going to office - some people turn their hobbies into work and actually love it, some people enjoy running a business or holding some position, artists can profit from their art and so on. In those cases work can bring a lot of meaning to life and make a person even happier than someone who's rich and don't have to work. So, I totally agree here with 1Referee's sentiment - if I'll ever have kids, they won't get all my coins.

If it were me and I could afford it I'd give it away while still in flushes of youth. That shuts everyone up, avoids fallings out after my death, prevents my premature murder and has tax advantages.

If I weren't planning on that I wouldn't tell anyone anything.

I've never seen the sense in distributing your wealth after you're dead unless it's a young death.

Exactly. I don't get why they are so concerned with your own valuables. I mean I do understand that some people would feel like it would be wasted if it's not put into good use or just use alone, but that's your Bitcoins and you have the right to choose what to do with it when you're living and when you die. At the end of the day, you have the last say on what action you want to partake with your Bitcoins, it's either you would entrust it to someone else or bring it to your grave with you. I just hope people are not entitled to do actions that would be against their will due to the opinion of others.

Well, when I will have a family, I might share with my children my private keys and etc, but by now, I would give the access of my wallets to anyone. That would be too dangerous.

If you have shared the private key with your wife, you should pay more attention to your relationship with your wife I have not shared my keys with anyone yet, I think I will bury it under the ground. I'm serious about this.

Much respect for those words darkangel11.
Its a lot easier when one keeps wealth a secret. We where practically unable to do so before crypto, that's exactly why it is best to utilize this feature of it. No remorse, no second thoughts, tell nobody, don't brag and you will save yourself a lot of sticky situations.
You already spilled your juice? Lie, invent a backstory about some mythical hacker, be sad and off beat and tell how you where robbed.
Trust no one but avoid falling in to paranoia  there are still some good people out there.

If you let them know that you left them everything and it's waiting for them on some trust account, every time they get angry with you they'll see the money and think of your death. Or your wife tells her lover about your fortune and they'll plot to make you overdose your pills or something and live happily ever after at your expense. Being rich and letting your family know that it's all going to them once you're gone is going to put you in a awkward position. You either start giving them all they want or start watching your back.

My actual cold storage wallets are paper wallets (small pieces of paper) sealed in a protective layer of plastic for durability, containing raw private keys. They are hidden everywhere in my house I think no one will ever find them. I don't have a safe either, and probably never will have.


With working hard I didn't mean literally working as in having a 9to5 job. I was more referring to the fact that with the provided capital, you should be motivated enough to work hard and set up your own business. Without an initial starting capital, things can become difficult to achieve, I have noticed that in my own life. I fully agree that working for a boss is something that will never really bring you any further in life. I however have to admit that I am technically working for a boss myself, but can't really complain about my monthly paycheck.

This is what makes bitcoin great whatever you decide to do you are on your right since it is your money, it will be a lot more difficult to go down with your fiat since lawyers could always try to get their hands on your bank accounts, however while I do not have kids I plan to teach them about the economy and the value of money but I do plan to inherit my small holdings to them but I plan to give the most of my holdings to the one that deserves it the most, this may seem unfair but the one with the greatest potential getting the biggest inheritance seems logical to me.

My exact thought. I know it's quite selfish and probably not that stimulating when it comes to keeping coins circulating, but at least I will help making people's coins become more scarce than was the case already.

The only downside of this is that if even 50% of the people think like that, it's safe to say that once all coins are mined entirely, there won't only be no more potential selling pressure on the market, but also far less coin circulation.

With that in mind, coins might at some point become so valuable, that a +$1 million valuation can turn out to become reality. But then again that's assuming people hold the private keys as sole entity.

If nothing changes when it comes to people's mentality, the majority of the people will keep using centralized services to store their coins, which basically means that the exchange ultimately becomes the owner.

Or maybe that regulations will make sure that these funds will be absorbed by the government.......

Pah. Work is such a waste of life that I'd happily make sure anyone I know didn't have to do it if I could facilitate it. Being productive and constructive is good. Licking some supervisor nob end's botty to keep your minimum wage job is not.

I don't have kiddies and hopefully never will. I'm kind of tempted to take my coins with me too just for the hell of it. At present I have no arrangements if I croak.

I really liked your post. Thank you.

Let me ask, where do you store your private keys?
I don't have that much, but i got some, and my wife knows where it is (i told her). But they are unprotected... I don't have a safe or anything like that.... I didn't spent time thinking about it...

They basically advising people to store evidence and informations on themself. The "firm" would appreciate you making their life easier.
Exactly what every sane person would like to avoid. Maybe I should keep my PK in a .txt file with password as a filename?
They really think people are that stupid? Its really hard to believe.
@1Referee mine to  

this is a very serious and very difficult subject to solve, if on the one hand we lose bitcoin in the case of our death, on the other hand we can lose our bitcoin in case we trust in the wrong people, in this case we lose our bitcoin when we still alive. for many years ago money has been one of the main reasons why people kill themselves, so if you say someone who has 10 btc just let that person know that 10 btc =  $100.000, that will be a reason for the person to kill you and stay with 10 btc. I am of the opinion that if someone is sick, the best thing that the person does is remove all btc to the bank

My coins will go down with me, I can guarantee you that at this point already. If I ever end up getting married and have a family of my own, I will set up some sort of a fund that is dedicated to my family, but never will I grant anyone access to all my coins, that's just a no go. It will be a fund containing both fiat and Bitcoins (probably max 25% of my total holdings) to make sure they have enough capital to move on. If Bitcoin by that time has fulfilled everyone's expectations, and I am confident that it will, then that's more than sufficient to live off, pay for education, etc. I am not a walking vault that opens automatically once I'm not there anymore. I want to leave my kids enough capital to give them the motivation to work hard for their money. Bill Gates is doing the same. He allocates just a fraction of his wealth to his kids. Granted, even a tiny percentage of his wealth accounts for a mind boggling sum of money.  

Your bitcoin may be lost for good if you die without a plan for it
As people increasingly live their lives online, the amount of investment, social media and photo storage accounts they own has grown.
You need to plan for how your loved ones will access those assets in the event that you are no longer able to.
Start by taking inventory of everything you have acquired, and decide who should handle them when you're gone.

If you haven't planned for how to pass on your bitcoin or your online investment account, those assets could get lost when you die.

As more and more people live their lives online, so do their assets. That goes for everything from digital currency and investment accounts to social media and photo storage.

That creates a unique challenge for estate planning: How should digital accounts be handled after you pass away?

Many states have attempted to address this by adopting the Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act established by the nonprofit Uniform Law Commission. The law expands a fiduciary's purview to include digital assets in addition to material property.

A total of 36 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands have enacted the bill, according to Suzanne Brown Walsh, a partner at law firm Murtha Cullina.

But even with legislative efforts, the burden still largely falls on individuals to plan for what will happen to those assets.

"It's more difficult, because 20 years ago we didn't have assets that were essentially going to disappear," Walsh said. "We certainly didn't have an asset that wasn't accessible if a private key was lost."

Leave cryptocurrency keys
Private keys are required to access cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, one of the assets that's most at risk of vanishing.

"It's all going to slip through the cracks unless someone knows about it," Walsh said.

If you don't leave the private key, a number that enables the cryptocurrency to be spent, that will create a problem for your estate, she said.

Companies that hold those assets receive inquiries from fraudsters who pretend to represent the deceased. At the same time, an unwitting fiduciary could toss out the cryptocurrency without realizing it. "I don't think people look at thumb drives and automatically think cryptocurrency," Walsh said.

"It's all going to slip through the cracks unless someone knows about it."
-Suzanne Brown Walsh, partner at Murtha Cullina
Unlike traditional bank or securities accounts, most wallet services that hold cryptocurrencies don't have you name beneficiaries.

Leaving instructions on how to access those private keys will help prevent the loss of those assets.

Everplans, a digital estate planning company, recently added a section where users can leave instructions on where their private keys are and how to access them.

Take inventory
Most people don't realize how many digital accounts they actually have, according to Lee Poskanzer, founder and CEO of Directive Communication Systems, a company that helps manage digital assets.

Poskanzer said his clients start by thinking they have five or 10 digital accounts and ultimately realize they have more than 80. That includes everything from investment accounts, utilities and telecommunications to emails, social media and real estate properties.

For online accounts, there are two directives you can make. One is to take action to delete or remove accounts or transfer assets, such as loyalty points in rewards programs.

The other instructs what should happen to information, including Dropbox files or email messages.

"Account holders need to make both wishes known," Poskanzer said. "Otherwise, their accounts can live on in perpetuity."

Include sentimental assets
Certain accounts, particularly social media or photo storage, might not have a monetary value, yet could cause emotional distress if your heirs are cut off from them.

"One of the most important things that I would want to get passed down to my kids is the photos I've taken of them," said Abby Schneiderman, co-founder and co-CEO of Everplans. "It's incredibly important that they know how to access them."

Social media is another area where your legacy lives on even if you don't. That can include reminders of birthdays or anniversaries that can be painful to those left behind.

The experience of seeing his best friend's image on Facebook after he died motivated Jeff Perkins to found TrustedHeir, which provides software to help estate planners plan for digital assets.

You want to leave instructions for what you want to happen to those accounts when you die.

Tips to keep in mind
Maintain an up-to-date list of your online accounts
Include everything from Snapchat to WhatsApp and even any virtual assets you may buy through online video games, said Poskanzer of Directive Communication Systems.

Decide who will handle those accounts
Name the people in your life who will take care of those accounts when you die, Everplans' Schneiderman recommended.

"This is a project," Schneiderman said. "You can do it bit by bit."

Pay attention to the details
The person you name executor of your physical estate may not be the best person to handle your digital assets.

"Your wife may not be as well-versed in technology, so you might want a son or daughter to manage those accounts for you," TrustedHeir's Perkins said.

Rules will vary by site
Facebook, for example, handles as many as 9,000 deaths per day, according to Perkins, and has clearly defined rules for memorialized accounts. Google, on the other hand, has a time-based trigger that will close your account if you don't log in after a certain number of days.

Consider a password manager
Changing passwords and two-factor authentication can make it more difficult for your loved ones to access your accounts after you're gone.

Timothy McGrath, managing partner at Riverpoint Wealth Management in Chicago, recommends that his clients use a password manager such as mSecure or Dashlane to help streamline account management.

You should also leave instructions for your executor on how to access those properties, McGrath said, including your cellphone and password manager.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/your-bitcoin-may-be-lost-for-good-if-you-die-without-a-plan-for-it.html