Topic: Inheriting Bitcoin (Read 927 times)

I have been using their service and I haven't had any problems.

Creating a video is somewhat a very wise option to be done rather than entrusting some wills which would involved some lawyers that might able to know those sensitive infos.
Explaining everything on a single video would already be enough in case you would die to this world.You would really be sure that those assets would be benefited to those love ones you had left.It isnt really that hard to understand or doesnt really require technical knowledge on opening up a wallet.A simple understanding and set of instructions would already be enough.

This applies to holders whose family are far or living overseas, or for holders who's heirs are still young to fully understand how blockchain and Bitcoin works, but in case I prefer to do it manually by teaching my family to understand how it works and to give them all my seeds and private key, so they will be the one to manage all my coins, I will just include the will that they can access the private to a vault where I kept everything.

Passing bitcoin on to our heirs should not be a problem because bitcoin is an asset, and the only difference between it and the regular asset is that bitcoin is a digital asset while others are physical asset, but all are assets that should be documented in our will in the event that we pass on.

Since bitcoin involves the storing of it in a wallet, we should learn to either make use of a hardware wallet which we can save in the safe box in our bank or store it along with the will document that we submit, the only risk with that one is that the lawyer may actually compromise because in my country, I have seen situations where the lawyer actually compromised and then turn the will to favor him rather than favoring the family of the deceased person and having access to the wallet key would not be a difficult thing.

It's good to have a service like this, but I prefer to create a video and a vault where it houses all my private keys from USB, a video explainer that will explain everything about all the coins I'm holding, how to transact trade and open the wallet, your family will be holding a coin it's just right that they know how it works.
It's even better that you teach your family how Cryptocurrency works so when the times comes to inherit all your coins, they know what to do.

It's a great extra layer of security. Just remember that encryption can also lock you out if you're not careful. Consider using a password manager like KeePass (if you don't already) to prevent that from happening.

Well you do have a sold point which is definitely right where someone cant able to access it as long its encrypted.So far i do have 4-5 usb having all the important informations but it isnt encrypted. Yeah i know its a very solid mistake of mine since i got too confident since those sticks are just being hidden withing my vicinity.I do trust up my family members too but its much more better if they're encrypted- Its time to get those usb back before its too late. 

Deep cold storage should be protected by strong encryption, so that shouldn't be an urgent concern.

My mother lives on the other side of the country -- she stores an encrypted wallet of mine in her house. Nobody can access it, and if it somehow gets lost or destroyed, she'll tell me. I don't feel like paying for a safety deposit box and I don't own any other property, so this seems like a happy medium.

One of the rules of backups, in general, is more than two different locations, and the examples given are different houses, different cities, and sometimes even different states or provinces. Different countries generally does not work for a lot of people, as that's too far and too expensive, but that's exactly what big corporations do with their backups, they stuff them in different states and different countries.

It has been called the 3-2-1 rule or the Backup Rule of Three:

1. Have at least three copies of your data.
2. Store the copies on two different media.
3. Keep one backup copy offsite.

To make it clear, here are examples of some things that are NOT backups:

1. Copying your computer stuff to an SD card in the same computer or laptop is not a backup.
2. Backing up to a hard drive that is 6 inches away from your computer is not a backup.
3. Backing up your Gmail to another Gmail account is not a backup.
4. The photos that are still in your camera are not a backup.

The last rule is as simple as just sending extra copies to another house. You do have friends or family or even a storage unit? Some people use bank safe deposit boxes.

And if you use practically any form of encryption, you can even use cloud backups, but treat it as just another location.


As it relates specifically to bitcoin, I make more than one copy of the wallet.dat and just give them two different names. Then I use something like RAR to archive them. I also export either the private keys or the seeds and put them in a text file, then also put them in the same RAR file. I then make more than one copy of the RAR file as these things are small enough to fit into a USB flash drive.

I then put them in 2 separate USB flash drives, but they contain identical data, and stick those together. It's like a low tech form of RAID1 or mirroring. Put them both in some plastic waterproof container or even a tin or something. So cheap you can get from any dollar or thrift store or just use some old box.

Treat this as one unit, then go ahead and create another one just like it. That one, send it to another house. If you don't have another house, or know anyone else you can trust, at least keep it separate from your main house. If you have a yard, bury it away from your house. Don't keep it in the garage or parking unit that is right beside your house.

I'm sure you all guys can think of other ways; be creative. There is no need to bury it under your swimming pool, but I've read someone actually did that, prior to construction.

Go watch John Wick... he buries his gold coins in the basement under the cement floor.

Give me an example of multiple points? You do mean about different locations outside the house or location in terms of places?It do had advantages though but same goes with
disadvantages since you cant monitor it out anytime if those back-ups is still intact or already lost or found by someone.I would be not too confident with such way of storing up keys or phrases.I can risk up to store on my house on different locations as long i dont use up any 3rd party then i wouldnt really worry too much with that.

I still think that educating your heirs on how to use blockchain and investing in Cryptocurrency is  still the best option, not only you are leaving something valuable materially but you are partaking them a technology that they can use in their lifetime and benefit from it, just like it benefits you.

The concept is very risky considering that the family is not crypto oriented. As the OP stated. The risk is, the company that provide this services might steal your bitcoins considering that they know that your family has no idea about this. I prefer to invest in loaded physical coin and put it on my safe box. Then write my last will and testament and give it to my lawyer. Then instruct him to give it when I'm no longer alive.

^ I second that!

dump private key BTC to cryptosteel physical wallet. spouse and childrens were given with pile of those stainless steel cold wallet and know where they were kept hidden in more than a dozen of locations to prevent search and seizure.

1)  Show them how to load that into a appliance (full node) and bitcoin core android wallet to swipe those coins with a QR code generator, and
2)  take your spouse and teenager is to food and other entertainment establishment and travel all over the world regularly
3)  bring no money or credit card with you to where you travel.
4)  Show them and make your spouse and kids to get 2 way BTC ATM to get cash in local currency, and
5)  Repeat steps 2-4 to let your spouse and kids to gain proficiency on getting cash discretely at countries all over the world.

obviously step (4) can be omitted if you have partners that you can trust and regularly referral to in foreign countries.  You also get better rate that way (instead of selling with -7.. -10%, you get to sell BTC at spot and get cash for it)

that's why it's good to have back-ups stored in multiple physical locations. if everything is stored in your house, your house becomes a single point of failure.

This proves that we cannot foresee everything. I wouldn't be worried that a disaster can claim my safe with everything inside because if you make sure the safe is fireproof and build into the wall, such a disaster would claim the whole house. Things like that do happen, but when a plane takes your roof for a runway, you're fucked. It won't matter whether you have bitcoins buried in the garden or hidden under the mattress.


It could be a lawyer firm that archives all the cases in case an employee who deals with a specific case dies. This method has to be used everywhere, because otherwise someone could go free if the prosecutor would happen to have an accident on the way to work, or get a life in prison if the same thing would happen to his defense lawyer.

I'm not exactly sure what the service entails, but it implies usage of a dead man's switch. The original owner would somehow need to provide partial access to his stash, or he keeps something on his person or secret that would be revealed if he's not around anymore.

The simple way to do it would be to use any of the online dead man's switches to send an encrypted email to your family if you do not log on for a certain amount of time. Google has its "Inactive Account Manager" but waits at least 3 months before doing anything.

To prepare for this, your family should have some way to decrypt, preferably something like GPG / PGP. A low tech solution would be a password or passphrase written down and stored somewhere secure where your family can get access to (such as a safe, a physical safe at home) and you regularly back up the wallets or private keys and other required instructions to access the coins.

There is another thread that involves transactions with nLocktime, so you have a premade transaction ready to be broadcast in the future, but won't be available or spendable until after a certain block height or future time.

As for the issue with nLocktime, you can provide the private key to the heirs. It will remain empty until the transaction is broadcast and confirmed, which won't happen until after the specified block has been mined or after the specified unix time.

$400 a month or $5k per year may be too expensive for most, that simply rules out everyone who has less than 10 BTC or so from ever using that service (or less than $100k USD worth of coins.)

the usual answer would be that it's not foolproof for the recipient.

how can you ensure they've adequately secured their private keys? by the time the dead man's switch activates, they may not have control of the wallet anymore. or it may be compromised.

every method has its trade-offs.

Why not just set up a future transaction in the form of nlocktime? It's safer and easier than having a third party having custody over even just one of your multisig keys for any period of time, even though that may sound like it's safe for now.

The absurd costs that they're charging honestly make this very unattractive to any potential user.

$100 and $400 per month is no joke here. That translates to up to $5k a year. You can probably pay for actual inheritance lawyers and have bank safety deposit boxes, among a range of other things for that sort of money.

that's one way, sure. if your loved ones have no idea what to expect then it would be prudent to include very detailed instructions on how to recover the coins. then you'd need to hope the locksmith plays by the rules. there are a couple other potential problems with this approach:

-if you have multiple heirs, there could be a dispute over ownership. that's why people prefer to involve a trusted lawyer in estate matters.
-a safe could be stolen or broken into---i knew someone who had theirs lifted out of their house when they were on vacation. the contents could also be damaged/lost in a bad enough natural/physical disaster.


this still requires trust in a third party---if the lawyer dies or otherwise loses the password, your family will lose everything. ideally, one would want to transfer everything directly to their heirs without this caveat.

You could also have it stored in a safe but without any clues to tell people what it is. When you die your family will have time to give that safe to a skilled locksmith who will open it and give them the things inside.

You could use an escrow. Give the recovery phrase to your relatives and the wallet password to a trusted lawyer. When you die they will be able to contact that lawyer and get the password. He won't be able to steal your money with only that password and they won't be able to do much with the recovery phrase without the password.

The best method is to have someone you really trust and can share your wallet with.