in case of death; mandatory bitcoin deathswitch Dead man's switch - page 2.

d5000

legendary

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Decentralization Maximalist

Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on April 13, 2022, 11:12:45 AM

If you want to set up a multi-sig wallet for inheritance purposes, or pre-sign some timelocked transactions, or leave your seed phrase hidden in your will, or some other inheritance set up, then you are free to choose to do any of those things.

My favourite solution is the timelock dead man switch with nLocktime, which is described in this thread. The problem is that the popular wallets don't make it too easy to create this kind of transactions. You can of course create timelocked transactions with them, but there are some caveats:

- ~~the GUI in Electrum for example lets only enter you the raw nLocktime value, which isn't very intuitive~~ seems to have been improved with newer versions, where you also can enter a date.
- when you move coins, you have to create a new nLocktime transaction.
- before the timelock expires, you have to move your coins, otherwise the other party gets access to them.

So to make the whole process more intuitive a specific GUI would be needed, which lets you input the heirs' addresses and alerts you when to move coins or when to create a new timelock transaction. It's possible that the OP meant this, but they're a bit imprecise with their usage of "dead man's switch".

I'm thinking about a feature request for Electrum, for example. This version is also interesting and a bit easier to implement (it seems it was implemented in a mobile wallet last year).

stompix

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Blackjack.fun

Quote from: fourna on April 12, 2022, 01:24:50 PM

I've been thinking about this for a while now and just randomly ran into https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/u1znfu/man_loses_his_entire_500000_savings_in/
on my front page.

There's already a bunch of coins lost because people didn't understand how wallets worked etc. before the seedphrase/non-deterministic era.

And your solution won't have any effect here because this is not about personal wallets but somebody who had funds on Quadriga, I don't expect any CEX to be playing with such a thing that is way too tempting for everyone to try and abuse and even without that, imagine that exchange had some addresses set and those addresses were obviously controlled by who? Not the same guy?
If he wanted a backup strategy he would have used multi-sig addresses, it's clear he wanted full control so most likely he would have used the addresses of his own pool for recycling.

And let's assume it works all well and so, how do you make sure those keys are not lost? How do you make sure the pool is not hacked, the key is exposed and thousands of bots are waiting to empty that address the moment the coins land in it? And how do you force people to give them back? And a lot of ands!

Quote from: n0nce on April 12, 2022, 02:08:35 PM

Sure, Bitcoin is code, but how would Bitcoin know that you're dead?

Biometric chip implant that is set to send the data to a node the moment your vital signs stop for more than x?
Humans have a tendency to overcomplicate things so this wouldn't amaze me.

Lucius

legendary

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Blackjack.fun-Free Raffle-Join&Win $50🎲

Quote from: n0nce on April 12, 2022, 02:08:35 PM

You could even make a 3-out-of-5 wallet and give your lawyer one key, wife one key and one key in a safe deposit box.

Given that life is unpredictable, and that almost always happens something that seemed least likely, in case I do something like that - my wife would get involved with my lawyer, and a lawyer's cousin would work in a bank where I opened the safe deposit box. By the time I realized what was going on, my BTC would have disappeared, along with my wife and lawyer - and they would have set me up for the murder of the banker who was involved in everything Roll Eyes

Of course, I'm kidding a bit, but when it comes to Bitcoin, I don't share private keys with anyone, no matter how much someone says it's maybe selfish.

o_e_l_e_o

legendary

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I have argued this many times before, but there should absolutely not be a centralized consensus for removing coins from people's wallets and giving them to anyone else or returning them to the supply. I don't care if the coins haven't moved in 10 years or 1,000 years. I don't care if the coins are vulnerable to being hacked or stolen. I don't care if the coins are sent to a burn address.

Your bitcoin should be in your control and your control only. If you want to set up a multi-sig wallet for inheritance purposes, or pre-sign some timelocked transactions, or leave your seed phrase hidden in your will, or some other inheritance set up, then you are free to choose to do any of those things. If you don't want to do any of those things, then you are free to choose that option too. The whole purpose of bitcoin is freedom to do what you want with your own money, and not have the network dictate that your coins will be redistributed if you don't use them in a way that we deem appropriate.

Besides, Satoshi already considered the issue of lost coins:

Quote from: satoshi on June 21, 2010, 01:48:26 PM

Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more. Think of it as a donation to everyone.

Welsh

staff

Activity: 3248

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Quote from: ?? on ??

More importantly, how to do it without rely on 3rd party?

Not easily that's for sure. Although, I get it not everyone cares about relying on a third party, my concern with OP's suggestion was purely on it being mandatory, since that forces the user rather than giving them the choice. There will be people using Bitcoin for different reasons to the third party concerns, and some will be comfortable with it. Personally, I wouldn't be, and I wouldn't advocate it, but I do understand that some people would actually prefer it. If we want mass adoption, then that's the reality of things, and depending on that individuals circumstance, could actually make some sense.

pooya87

legendary

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Quote from: fourna on April 12, 2022, 01:24:50 PM

There's already a bunch of coins lost because people didn't understand how wallets worked

According to your own statement here, a dead man's switch is a terrible idea!

It is pretty simple, if there are people who are not capable of understanding how wallets or bitcoin in general works, there is no guarantee that they are going to understand how the dead man's switch works and that leads to unwanted losses while they are alive!
The best course of action for those who don't understand things is to not use bitcoin in first place.

Welsh

staff

Activity: 3248

Merit: 4110

It should never be mandatory to trust someone else with your Bitcoin, that's the whole point of Bitcoin, we don't automatically rely on third parties as willingly as people who use fiat does. Bitcoin could potentially go through a fork in the future if Bitcoin is still around, and the amount of Bitcoin lost has come such a problem that its becoming detrimental, although I do believe Bitcoin will either be replaced or we'll just use further denominations, which unfortunately could make it a little more complex to use.

At the moment its not a problem, and its likely not going to be a problem in the immediate future, if it ever becomes a problem, then I'[m sure there'll be a bunch of ideas thrown around when it's required.

philipma1957

legendary

Activity: 4116

Merit: 7849

'The right to privacy matters'

I believe that 40 years or so a call to free lost coins will begin.

Any address that has not had a withdrawal in 40 years will be listed as an abandoned account and have 1 year or 2 years to do a withdrawal. It will will then forfeit and go back to the fund of coins left to mine.

I will be dead or 105 in 40 years. So I won't see it but in 2062 blocks will be only 0.0060986328125 coins

2024 3.125
2028 1.56125
2032 0.780625
2036 0.3903125
2040 0.19515625
2044 0.097578125
2048 0.0487890625
2052 0.02439453125
2056 0.012199726525
2060 0.0060986328125
2064 0.00304931640625

with LN really hurting fees there may a call to boost block rewards. who knows

n0nce

hero member

Activity: 882

Merit: 5818

not your keys, not your coins!

Taking care of your funds is your own job. I completely disagree that the creation of every Bitcoin wallet should accept or demand a few addresses. The whole point of this is to let you decide how you deal with your money. If you want to give a few backups to relatives, do it. If you don't, do that instead.
You could even make a 3-out-of-5 wallet and give your lawyer one key, wife one key and one key in a safe deposit box.
There are many ways to accomplish it; it's up to you, to the amount stored, to the circumstances and preferences of the individual.

Sure, Bitcoin is code, but how would Bitcoin know that you're dead? And how would you store 3 addresses per wallet on the blockchain while keeping them private and not bloating up the whole thing?

There are many ways to make sure your coins aren't lost after your death, but it's been discussed many times here; you can find different ideas and schemes by using the search bar.

fourna

newbie

Activity: 14

Merit: 1

I've been thinking about this for a while now and just randomly ran into https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/u1znfu/man_loses_his_entire_500000_savings_in/
on my front page.

There's already a bunch of coins lost because people didn't understand how wallets worked etc. before the seedphrase/non-deterministic era.

It should be mandatory to give (at least) three addresses upon wallet creation. Either from relatives or with a random option of a list/pool that maybe gets updated or selected at random, and triggered via dead man's switch.
Why lose coins when you could recycle them? It's all code anyway, isn't that the whole purpose of automation and self-governance?

thoughts/cons?

Topic: in case of death; mandatory bitcoin deathswitch Dead man's switch - page 2. (Read 448 times)