Topic: Please review my inheritance strategy - page 2. (Read 340 times)

This approach is far from ideal:

Sorting your 24-word seed phrase alphabetically is a significant security risk. Your seed phrase is meant to be in a specific order for a reason. By changing this, you're potentially making it easier for someone to access your funds.

The use of a deadman switch might seem smart, but its another layer of complexity and potential failure. What if it doesnt activate properly, or theres a delay? Or worse, what if its triggered by accident?

This is your hard-earned bitcoin we're talking about. Dont play fast and loose with its security. Get expert advice, perhaps from a lawyer familiar with crypto, and formulate a foolproof plan

I have been reading this type of posts all the time and I am now scared about my bitcoins itself. I mean initially I really thought it was seriously not needed because I could just inherit the entire word phrase and ledger to my lovely children and die peacefully on my bed. I did not know people were so much worried about their inheritance of Bitcoin. I mean hardware wallet seems to be the perfect way to inherit and once you do it is their responsibility how manage it and how secure they keep it. If I am going to hold my bitcoin secruly until my final hours then I have already won the inheritance battle on my side. In the end, it's just that I should be sitting at the breakfast table when I will just pass on the info to my son and girl and it should be their duty to keep up with the whole thing. So I am gonna say, hardware wallet + written keys in an envelope + nice breakfast and chit chat. That's how it should be.

Just to add more clarity - and thanks everyone for your comments.

I don't trust lawyers, but not because they're lawyers but because I feel it's a mistake to give anyone access to something which can be taken without interaction with anyone else or easy proof they used it once it's gone.

I don't want to just give it to the people I'm leaving it to, because they're not good at keeping things secure or remembering passwords etc. So if I gave it to them it would either be lost or they'd forget the password to it.  That and the fear that someone else might compromise it in any form which is easy enough for the beneficiary to access it. People outside IT and in particular bitcoin do not have good practices or pay attention to this.

This is why I believe the solution I came up with is workable. The seed phrase in alphabetical order will not help anyone who finds it so can be easily stored or accessed without worry of it being stolen. And the dead man switch (there are a few reliable ways) will provide an index which will mean nothing to anyone else.  You could even put that index in the will. A lawyer can't use it and even when the will is public, 24 numbers will help no one else.

Thanks - it's hard to trust and a trustless solution makes sleep easier.

If you have to do it, you have to do it with trust; you have to give someone a chance. If you can give them family, then there should be a little bit of trust in them. We know anything relating to money can bring complications sometimes, but that does not mean that we shouldn't give it a try.
 
To be truth the method that you have chosen appears to be safe for me, but have you also taught me that if the place where you send the passphrase happens to fail to send it back to your family after the given period, what do you think will be the faith of your family over your fund recovery? They will have to go through hell just for them to be able to crack and assemble this phrase in the right orderly manner, which will be stressful, and their chance of breaking it will really be low to minimal.
 
The best thing to do is to fine-tune your family, either your child or your spouse, and entrust them with total control over the wallet. He or she should know when and where to get all the access they need to recover your fund when you are gone. But if you also don't feel too saved, you can split your wealth into two to three different wallets and hand over one to their custody, then move ahead with your plan so that if they can't have access to it at the end, they will not completely lose out.

There's no need to be difficult to pass on your bitcoin to someone else, just backup your private key in a secure place like an encrypted box or if you want to be more secure you can use a hardware wallet and tell it to someone you trust. It's very simple.
Or you can use a slightly more complicated method, namely by writing your word phrase on paper then storing it in a safe box at the bank and securing it with a letter of inheritance from a lawyer. So people who want to read your word phrase must contact your lawyer, show proof of heirship and your death certificate to unlock the secure box.

If you trust your partner, then you can share your seed phrase, but I don’t know if you will trust anyone else that you just mentioned. But you know anyone who has access to your seed phrase already has access to your bitcoin, so you have to be very careful with anyone with whom you are sharing it. And when it comes to money, you don’t have to trust anyone completely. People do change, especially when there is money involved, and some people might even do crazy things just to make sure the bitcoin belongs to them.

Why can’t you just get an iron steel and carve your seed phrase on it and make sure it is stored in a place that can be easily accessible after you are no longer alive? The iron steel should be stored in a place where you know your family members will be able to see it. I think that’s a better option.

If you write the seed phrase down and backup how it can be arranged in another place, this means the seed phrase is disarranged where you write them down in alphabetical order. If it is 12 words, your seed phrase can be arranged using a computer or GPU with btcrecover. If you want to do something like this, use 24 word seed phrase.

As for me I can not go for this method of backup.

I often think about this topic because the people I care about are not into crypto at all and also they don't give the importance they deserve to topics such as the security of their IT devices and the most basic practices to protect privacy (not that I am an example to be taken on the subject but having frequented this forum for years I can say that I have a slightly higher standard to the average user), so I really don't know where to start with them.
Being that said, I think your solution is the one that fit me best imo , it's more a heartfelt choice than a tecchy one ( where both me and them are lacking)

If you can not trust a family member, the one you love, to know your wallet backups, how do you trust a lawyer?

If you don't trust your loved ones, don't let him/ her know about your wallet and do give his/ her rights to inherit your coins. It's simple and you must accept that when you die, your coins will be lost in the air until a day someone find where you store your seed and get it.

Trusting a lawyer is a terrible idea, should not be used.

I will not also encourage you to start up a new method to safe your seed than the ones i have as recommendation for you maybe you can choose any of the convenient one from the list to secure your seed phrase.

storing seed phrase with washers
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/securing-your-seed-phrase-with-washers-5389446

seeds backup tools
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/list-bitcoin-seed-backup-tools-5263482

additional security to your seed phrase
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/crypto-security-additional-protection-for-your-seedprivate-keys-5230920

Always now that anything that has to do with handling your seeds should be what only you must know and have access to it and you should always remember not your keys not your coins.

Get a lawyer, write a will, go the official way, there is no better advice than this for your situation, that's if you have trust issues but for me, I don't mind, because I have no trust issues, there is nothing that will go back with you when you passed, even if you will all your properties, those who get them might still waste them, such is life.

If you have children, make use of this time and teach them about crypto and Bitcoin, you still have the time, but first, ask them if they have interest, if one doesn't than Fiat is better passed down to such child, because even if you will him BTC he will sell it right away.

If you have no children but a spouse, husband or wife, then pass on the knowledge to them, willing BTC or private keys to them with out them having an idea can make them to throw the BTC away, while trying to sell or move the BTC around they can make bad mistakes or decisions.

Teach them about crypto first, so that they can make good use of your assets when you are here no more, many beginners have make a lot of mistakes because they lack knowledge about Bitcoin wallet and private keys.

If what we are talking about here are 24 seed phrase words, in my opinion, there is no need to have a third party. If you have a trusted person who is a close family member, such as your husband or other relatives, if you don't have a spouse or even a best friend, it is good that you just tell the ones I mentioned if any of them you want to tell the seed phrase.

Because I'm honestly speaking right now, I have seed phrases saved on my USB flash drive, and I plan to tell this to my wife because right now I'm the only one who knows everything I do here in the bitcoin or crypto business. In terms of the crypto assets I hold, such as emails and passwords from the exchange, wallets like Electrum or other wallets, and private keys from different network blockchains, I won't even need a third party for that, instead directly I will tell to my wife.

You mean storing yout seed phrase in the bank vault? I don't know, I personally woulnd't trsut my bank with it.

Lawyer won't help you if you die while no one else has the access to your seed phrase, which is exactly what worries OP so that why he is thinking of contigency plan.

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The way I sorted it out is that I have 2 seedphrases at two entirely different locations (in case of fire, flood and other stuff that can happen to house/apartment) with two sets of people I trust with my money.

Such methods may cause problems for your password. The only thing we need to pay attention to here is trust. It may be difficult to find someone you can trust and you may have trust issues, but resorting to other methods may cause you to lose your password. Losing the second part will cause you big trouble.

I think instead of looking for different methods for passwords, you should tell your loved ones about your savings and explain the situation. Decide how to proceed with them or someone you trust.

"24 word seed phrase" and "numerical index" all to the same person   honestly this is a two edged sword that could mean someone from the receiving parties might have full knowledge of cryptocurrencies and act selfish by choosing to sweep the wallets without the other person knowing because they had no interest with crypto or don't have the knowledge of what to do with the crypto inheritance...which could defeat the initiative!

I think crypto being a valuable asset, why not go with a bank, or use a lawyer to facilitate the inheritance process or better yet educate the receiving parties what they will be receiving and what to do with them without having to rely on thirdparties which is a cost effective option too.

It is simple but it can be problematic if the other party fail to crack what you assigned them to do so your savings will be buried there forever so why not opt for multi-sig which can be useful, especially for inheritance purpose? There are many paid versions available on multiple wallet platforms but if you still prefer the decentralized way then just go with 2 of 3 multi-sig keys and share one with another and one for you then the remaining one goes into the bank vault or someplace like that.

I find this risky because once you lose the 2nd part of your idea, then it would be hard and close to impossible to open or recover your seed phrase which will just cause your efforts to be wasted. All you need to do is trust, trust your partner, give them the ideas and information because accidents could be anytime which I hope it would never happen. Because to be honest, if you'd make a more complicated way for them to inherit your wealth, they might ask another person to open it up for them which can scam and take the wealth. Just put a hardware wallet into a safe where you could simply give them the password and the key, just say only open it in case of emergency. For sure they would eventually understand you and follow your instructions.

There are lots of people doesnt really trust up banks eh? You cant blame them though but i would really be totally agreeing on this set up on which having a will and make it notarized so that if ever there would really be some problems occur then you could really be having a fight or could really make out complaints and instead on making yourself that hassling and stressing about inheritance problem on how you would really be able to pass your coins into your family on the time that you do pass away then it would be that simple and less hassle i would say. This is what im planning too soon but since im not really that holding much coins which are
really worth to be passed on then it would really be better to have those conventional ways like keeping these keys on a USB wallet and tell them about on how to access coins or converting them into cash
once i do pass away but of course those flashdrives would really be keep hidden as much as possible. Of course i dont like for them to access it out while im still living but i might be putting it on a will
because we dont know on what happens tomorrow whether we die or not.

I opted for trusting my daughter... I only have one anyways... I have 2 hardware wallets which i keep in a safe place... They both have the same seed, the same pin and i used the same extension word... My daughter knows where i've locked up my hardware wallets and she knows where she can find the extension word and she knows my pin by heart. She knows how to use my wallets as well. If i die, i don't want her to have to start a big puzzle restoring a seed and importing it into a wallet. I want her to plug in a ready made device, punch in a 8 number pin code, take the piece of paper where the extension word is written on and take control over my money.

If she robs me, she robs me... I'd rather have my only child robbing her father than dying and not being 99% sure she'll be able to spend my hard earned money.