Bitcoin is private and decentralized, ok but what if someone dies? - page 2.

d5000

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Quote from: asbani on April 11, 2021, 08:50:14 PM

Bitcoin is a lovely concept but I feel it failed to include a system that considers the wealth of someone who suddenly dies and inherits his money to his loved ones "Family". I've always thought about this in my head, what happens to my money when I die.

There is such a system "included" with Bitcoin since Satoshi conceived it, it is called "Locktime". Basically it is a feature that gives access to the value of a Bitcoin transaction after a period of time you define. You can send such a transaction to a trusted family member so the BTC become accessible for them after e.g. 1 year. Before the year has passed, you transfer the BTC to another address, so the old Locktime TX becomes invalid - and you simply send a new Locktime transaction from the new address where the Bitcoins are now.

This feature is unfortunately not well known, and the person wanting to use it for inheritance must use it actively. This means, be in contact with his family and/or an attorney who is in charge.

The two big advantages are, however, that 1) it is totally trustless and 2) you can send a Locktime transaction to a wallet which is totally prepared, you don't have to guard keys in vaults or do some "obfuscation" to hide them. Simply install a Bitcoin wallet in the computer of a trusted family member and send the Locktime transactions regularly to it, e.g. each year, or each time you move your BTC.

There is a tutorial from LoyceV: Using Locktime for inheritance planning, backups or gifts. I don't know if there is an easy to use software for that, but definitively there should be one!

It is too late for the OP's particular problem, but I think everybody who holds significant amounts of BTC should know about this possibility. In fact, I am a bit disappointed that it wasn't mentioned in the whole thread.

mezzaluna

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Its always sad to think about this things happening but it is inevitable and this feature is somewhat already being researched on. I believe that there was a recent post regarding this and most users engage on it with bright ideas. One idea that was memorable for me was using a wallet that would transfer all your assets into someone you personally know if the balanced is unused or if the account is not opened for at least a year or years. Its a great idea but creating things like this would require the time because it involves great unforeseen assets.

ReiMomo

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If that happens, or if someone died with possession of bitcoin, it is just luck if he was able to leave his private keys (mostly hard drives) so he can pass his wealth to his family. Unfortunately, I never heard of companies with services with these types of concerns. Haven’t seen any insurance company that is focused on cryptocurrency. Also, a trustee firm where we can file our last will so just in case we die, our family could claim our wealth.

I'm actually hoping that someone will establish the said service. It’s just that right now, it’s not yet very much feasible. Let’s just wait for bitcoin to be massively accepted then we will see these services being offered.

Silberman

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Quote from: hd49728 on April 11, 2021, 11:55:40 PM

Give the access to your bitcoin (through private keys or mnemonic seeds) to the person you believe in, deeply love and want to give him or her the inheritance right for your bitcoin.

It can be done in your family. If you are a husband, a father and do love your wife, your children, you will want to give them information to get access to your bitcoin wallet. Just in worst case you suddenly pass by.

Make sure to train them which wallet to use, how to import a bitcoin private key/ mnemonic seed to a wallet. If you don't train them, when you pass by, they can ask someone else and probability to ask bad people is not low.

This is another alternative, many couples whether they are married or not have joint accounts, they have their money pooled together in a single account which both can access, if you have someone like that in your life then this is very easy, you share that information with your loved one and train them on how to recover the coins and even teach them how to make a few transactions and once they are comfortable with it then you know that in the case of something happening to you there is always someone that can recover your coins no matter what.

Ucy

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How did i miss the "BItcoin is Private" part.
Is Bitcoin really private or Public ?

Well,it's actually a Public network. A true Public Network for that matter. A true Public Network would typically be Opened to the public without much restrictions. Bitcoin is open to all and its principles like permissionless/trustlessness, transparent, censorship resistance etc prove it's Public.
I guess what op meant by private is the keys and other info own by private individuals on the Public Network

isaac_clarke22

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Sorry to hear that, OP.
There are still a pinch of hope though if he holds those coins in an exchange or an online wallet. You can reach up to support team, but it might take a lot of effort for them to convince that you two are related.
Only thing to worry is if he holds it into a desktop wallet or anything where he holds the private key as that is the only key for you to access his wallet.

xiboothrezi

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Quote from: 0t3p0t on April 15, 2021, 10:11:06 AM

If the person who owns Bitcoin passed away without any letter or something like last will to his love ones I think those Bitcoins will be lost forever. That is why we are going to give our loved ones an idea on what we are doing and what they are going to do if something bad will happen.

we don't know when death will come, it would be better if we tell one of our closest relatives (who we believe) that we have cryptocurrency assets, make a will s or similar records regarding your assets in cryptocurrency.

Think of it as inheritance, instead of just staking away in a wallet and no one being able to use it, right?

it would be better if we already have a life partner, husband / wife. share with him related to what you do in the crypto world, invite cooperation and guide him. this will be very fun, you will get a mate and a friend to work with.

0t3p0t

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If the person who owns Bitcoin passed away without any letter or something like last will to his love ones I think those Bitcoins will be lost forever. That is why we are going to give our loved ones an idea on what we are doing and what they are going to do if something bad will happen.

molsewid

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Quote from: Sanugarid on April 15, 2021, 08:36:28 AM

It's not actually the system's fault, it's your brother's fault to keep it secret even to his own family. When it comes to finances, family or trustworthy relatives should have access to your money or you should at least let them know where you were spending your own money, So I think we consider such possibilities like this to avoid getting in a situation like losing your BTC just simply because no one knows about it other than you.

We can't actually blame the person because he already died and we don't know his reason why he kept it from his family and I also believe that he doesn't expect that the unexpected thing would happen to him. Let's just take it as a lesson learned to trust one of the family member, your wife, your eldest son or daughter that you know can already understand the transactions you have in crypto or even make a note and jotted it down all the important details of your account and whatsoever. I do hope that OP can find a way to retrieve his brother's BTC, his family, his children deserves what he has been working in crypto.

Sanugarid

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Quote from: asbani on April 11, 2021, 08:50:14 PM

Bitcoin is a lovely concept but I feel it failed to include a system that considers the wealth of someone who suddenly dies and inherits his money to his loved ones "Family". I've always thought about this in my head, what happens to my money when I die.

The idea in writing my private key or long word sentence in a well is a method but is not efficient.

Because young people like many of us think we're going to live forever and we don't normally write wells, let's be honest here. Think about banks and real-life situation, here many of us hate the centralization and how government work on things, however, there is some benefit to what they do. When a person dies there's a system that automatically inherits all of your assets and money to your kids, which is a good thing and a plus in my book.

Bitcoin does not consider this! maybe if I am old I will write my private key for my family, but then again what are the chances that they would understand how to get the money? There are so many people who aren't computer savvy, so even if we go the extra mile of writing the sentence or the key in the well, a good chance that family members will not know how to use it and take it for granted. They don't know how much bitcoin worth and will neglect it, of course, given you wrote a well. What if you didn't?

Now, why did I bring this up? My brother who is one year older than me, he's only 40 when he died in a car accident last year. He talks nonstop about bitcoin and crypto so this indicates to me that he was investing. We don't know how much he owns, where he owns it, and how to give it back to his kids as heritage. His kids deserve to get that money but it's gone forever I'm assuming? so don't you think this is unfair, as I said bitcoin has a flaw that needs to be fixed in that sense.

What if my brother owns 4 or 5 BTC which his kids deserve? we will never know! the kids already got all the heritage out of the bank which is why I said the banks and government are a plus in that kind of issues/problems.

P.S. Most of his money goes into crypto and stocks, which is why the kids and his wife did not get much out of the banks, so with this, I don't know where to go to find out. If someone got an idea pls let me know.

It's not actually the system's fault, it's your brother's fault to keep it secret even to his own family. When it comes to finances, family or trustworthy relatives should have access to your money or you should at least let them know where you were spending your own money, So I think we consider such possibilities like this to avoid getting in a situation like losing your BTC just simply because no one knows about it other than you.

Lorence.xD

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That is the least of their worries and if they didn't prepare for the inevitable then their bitcoin will be gone in the void forever. And we should thank them because they are the people that will contribute to the continuous increase of the prices of bitcoin because they will be considered as lost coins if they didn't prepare for your bitcoin inheritance.

yazher

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Quote from: protocon on April 11, 2021, 09:39:10 PM

Probably they might state in their will that they will give their family the coins they have and leave the private key somehow? Grin

There are only two scenarios with this kind of event if it's gonna happen to someone whom they didn't have some relatives to take care of their crypto assets after they suddenly passed away. The two scenarios are either the crypto assets will be lost forever or someone will inherit them. that's just the way it is. So far, I never heard someone found some buried crypto assets by someone. Like I said, either of those two will become possible if that's gonna happen to you in the middle of your long time holding.

Kayum10029

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Bitcoin is a completely online based virtual currency even though there is no documentation. If someone writes down the password of a wallet in a document and gives it to someone at the time of death, then that lost coin can be recovered by someone of the next generation. If this is not possible then Bitcoin will be lost forever after death.

Kayum10029

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Bitcoin is, of course, a well-known decentralized currency. Bitcoin can be controlled by any organization but it cannot be controlled by any country alone. However, it seems that Bitcoin will be recognized as one of the most widely used currencies in the world. Currently the use of coronavirus has increased so much that it is now completely decentralized.

oktana

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The ability of anyone knowing that you had money/knowing what you have depends on you. If you really want them to know, you'd have told them before you passed. This is actually a realistic topic that we face in the crypto space. But like I said, whatever that happens depends on you (even though I know I'm guilty of not really telling no one an indepth extent to what I own...).

ranochigo

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That's where Multisig comes in. You can try making a 3-of-4 Multisig and give two of your children one of the keys each and a lawyer the other, making a total of 3. You can include it in your will so they'll be able to spend if after your death.

An automated system to automatically do so is insecure by nature and would be difficult to implement in the first place. Using Multisig for something like this would be simpler.

Dannaey

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The solution is to write your bitcoin address and private key on paper or digitally and have someone you trust to hold it so when the owner died unexpectedly, someone can take care of it.

But the problem is when the owner hasn't shared his/her private key to someone he trusts then suddenly die. There is no way that we can retrieve or open his Bitcoin wallet. That's how Bitcoin wallet is really a secured one.

asbani

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Quote from: pawanjain on April 12, 2021, 12:02:28 PM

We have already discussed many times on how to inherit bitcoin and we had received very interesting methods of inheritance.

In what way you’ll inherit Bitcoin to your loved ones?
When Bitcoin Must Be Inherited
Bitcoin inheritance
[Tutorial] Making your crypto inheritible
Leaving Bitcoin as inheritance

As for the bitcoins your brother had, he would be definitely having something on his phone or computer which should lead to his coins.
Just check out his phone and computer thoroughly and also check his mails and cloud storage and external storage.
Also, ask his friends if he had invested anything in crypto to be sure of the same.

Many good suggestions in here and thanks for the replies.

We already tried checking the computer and phone, he had a newly Samsung smartphone with a password and face-ID. It was really difficult to try and open it for many reasons. 1) The privacy of my brother and his image. After all his private stuff/secrets need to go with him with respect, this is just my view. However, I tried to open it but it was really hard with the password. I needed to hack his phone but this also was not an easy thing to do, ethically nor technically. The new smartphones are very difficult to crack open even with very good technician guys trust me.

His computer is also the same story, it had a password and I couldn't open it.

So I guess that's it, It's all gone! The issue is he moved all of his money into bitcoin, all of the money that he gathered throughout his career was put it which means his family/kids lost the man who provided for them + his money.

I did not like the idea that you must teach the family how to use bitcoin + give them the secret wors and private keys. I do not think this is a smart solution to the issue. There are many problems associated with this method which I can discuss even further but some of the people above already mentioned them. You'd be surprised at this day and age there are many people who are not really good with technology and computers, I know a man who doesn't know how to register an email. I personally can attest to this, my father isn't good with smartphones or computers, he still living in the past and it is impossible to teach him bitcoins or how to open up a private key and then transfer the bitcoins. This will be impossible. And same with my wife.

An automated way to give all heritage to the family is a must-implementation I think, just like what happens in banks. A guy dies, the court decides who inherits what and at what percentage, then you take the papers to the bank and get the money, simple as that. I'm sure if Satoshi is around he'd find a clever brilliant system to make this work. Cheesy

pawanjain

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We have already discussed many times on how to inherit bitcoin and we had received very interesting methods of inheritance.

In what way you’ll inherit Bitcoin to your loved ones?
When Bitcoin Must Be Inherited
Bitcoin inheritance
[Tutorial] Making your crypto inheritible
Leaving Bitcoin as inheritance

As for the bitcoins your brother had, he would be definitely having something on his phone or computer which should lead to his coins.
Just check out his phone and computer thoroughly and also check his mails and cloud storage and external storage.
Also, ask his friends if he had invested anything in crypto to be sure of the same.

acener

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Ever since I got into Bitcoin I convinced some of my family member into it and teach them about it,
So I don't have any problem like what OP has discussed since they could just retrieve it and use it after I'm gone.

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