Topic: Could inheriting Bitcoin from love ones be that difficult? - page 2. (Read 646 times)

No, there shouldn't be any issue with BTC inheritance, but unless there is a will after a persons death, then it would be down to a countries specific laws, and then we get into the problem of government regulation of crypto, and that's where things get tricky.

here in the UK, inheritance of fiat is very difficult

with fiat all property, value, goes into 'probate' where its frozen and handled by an administrator/executor, who wants to check on death certificates and also search legal claims of wills and contracts. it is then organised and after a lengthy time then distributed.
you wont get access to funds the same day..

however.. with bitcoin. you just need to have a private key stored somewhere. and then just a way to inform loved ones how to locate it. and its theirs...  family can have access to it within minutes of finding the private key. much more easy then wills , probate and 'executor's/administrators..

Wives and children are people we should be able to trust about money. They are the inheritors of all the treasures we will leave behind so it would be fine for me to tell or teach them a bit more about using wallets and making transactions. It makes absolutely no sense to me not to trust them now and in the future about the money or wealth I have even though I haven't fully told them how to actually access the wallet.

I am very positive about my wife and children, they are people I love and care about and whatever we have now is for their sake. So, it is very natural to believe it about any money or assets we have today.

I have seen so many threads and topics about what happens to our Bitcoin when we are no more and if our Bitcoin asset can be transferred from one generation to the other. This is a serious topic we need to look into maybe we can consider a good alternative that can save us from total lose of our Bitcoin when we are dead. Based on my shallow knowledge on Cryptocurrency, I think If you don’t create a copy of that key and put that key in a safe place where the people that you trust can find it and know what to do with it, then the wealth that you’ve accumulated in crypto is just going to sit there. Could there be an advenaced way to get this done?

The nature of Bitcoin just like other cryptocurrencies that makes it complicated to pass down. Bitcoin is usually stored on the blockchain, a digital ledger that’s formed by a network of computers throughout the world that record transactions, including the exchange of Bitcoin. People usually make these transactions by using public and private keys. Public keys work like bank account numbers, and serve as an address that you can use to send other people crypto. Private keys work like passwords, and are made of unique, extremely long strings of characters that unlock your crypto. Unlike other types of passwords, however, private Bitcoin keys can’t be recovered once they’re lost or forgotten. That means that without those keys, people who are entitled to inherit their loved one’s Bitcoin won’t be able to get it.

We can always pass down assets that we already know and love like car, house, clothes etc and they are handled by law but with Bitcoin, it doesn’t really matter what the law says if you don’t actually have access to transfer those assets because there’s no formalized way to pass down Bitcoin, investors are coming up with their own sometimes bizarre protocols to guarantee that their heirs will get their digital assets. These plans can involve everything from locking their keys in secret lockboxes to hiring professional services to manage their crypto for their successors. But other crypto owners are still struggling with what to do, and have yet to find financial advisers who know much about crypto or who can even direct them to someone who does.

what happens to your Bitcoin later?

Families have been locked out of enormous fortunes because they couldn’t find their loved one’s keys. A man named Michael Moody was unable to unlock the Bitcoin that belonged to his son, Matthew Moody, who died in a plane crash in California. Matthew Moody was an early miner of bitcoin, which means his Bitcoin would be worth a lot of money today.

Technically, nothing. Again, Bitcoin is stored on the blockchain, so there’s a permanent record of it. That means your Bitcoin will exist as long as the blockchain exists, and regardless of whether you’re alive or dead. How your loved ones will be able to use that Bitcoin is a different question, one that largely depends on whether they know about it and if they know how to access it.

https://www.vox.com/recode/22971265/bitcoin-wills-estate-planning-cryptocurrency-nfts-death

Perhaps a P2SH timelock or Multisig would be a more suitable alternative [...]

I think this issue (inheritance difficulty) depends on the trust between the owner and inheritor.  Aside from that, the technical knowledge of the inheritor should be considered.  If there is no problem between the transparency and technical knowledge, then inheriting Bitcoin wouldn't be that difficult.

I recently taught my wife to transfer my bitcoin to our bank and she already knew how to do it in just under an hour.

I agree with you, the only way is to completely trust someone, either your wife/husband or kid/s. It's something that must be done little by little, at the end it's not that difficult to access a wallet and move funds but explaining the whole process to someone completely new, well, it's a lot of information, especially because it takes you just one small mistake and you can lose everything.

I agree with you, the only way is to completely trust someone, either your wife/husband or kid/s. It's something that must be done little by little, at the end it's not that difficult to access a wallet and move funds but explaining the whole process to someone completely new, well, it's a lot of information, especially because it takes you just one small mistake and you can lose everything.

Although its quit difficult to trust somebody in this present world. But recently I have started educating my wife about Bitcoin. Before now she taught I was just wasting my time on the forum since she was not seeing any financial benefit. She never knew that I was taking my time to learn and observe from the forum. Just yesterday I enlightened her about wallets. I showed her how much I have and how the market affects my account. I also taught her about passwords and keys. I showed her where I kept the password and keys and told her how to use them in case I am not around. For me she is trustworthy and can handle my finance for the good of the children when I am not around. I just want to make it easy for her because she might not be technically sound to go through any other complex process to retrieve or have access to my wallet.  

Rather than giving them the passphrase to recover the wallet, it is good to educate them the way to access wallets. This will ease the process, and surely they'll look for the paper wallet backing secured on the family vault. I'm not sure about others, I've got a file that is being kept secure on the vault. This file carries every detail about the wallets. So, at any instance one can make use of it after my death in a much easier way.

It'll be a bit of hassle to spend the coins at the same time because the signed TX would have to be re-generated every time a transaction is made.

but I would have some doubts that certain parties won't collude to steal the funds, even if they are only stated to be revealed after death in the will.

But the disadvantage is there's no specific time that they can able to use your Bitcoin because it's like a restriction mechanism that you can only spend Bitcoin with a specific date that you can set.  That's the problem there I think.

Another option is Shamir secret sharing means of encryption.

I tend to agree above that timelock/locktime would be the best alternative solution when you pass away so that your family inherits your Bitcoin.

That is why it's better to teach your loved ones how to access wallets and with the entire crypto market.

It will give them the idea on what they should take care of and what are the essentials that they must do. You're not directly teaching them to inherit your crypto assets.

But you're giving them a new learning about this new fin-tech that everyone must have at least a background of it.