My grown-up kids and wife of decades are educated in the convoluted process of retrieving my coins should I get hit by a bus.
I don’t worry about them conspiring to “rob” me, because if that were to happen my life would have been a worthless sham and my problems far bigger than mere money.
Perspective.
I don't doubt that. Surely, they wouldn't rob you. They love you. But your grown-up kids and wife of decades are only humans. Humans make mistakes. The more people you reveal the seed to, the higher the chances the security of your coins is compromised. Period.
Wife has a dear sister, they love each other to bits, and women like to talk a bit too much. Out in the pub, chatting away, wife casually mentions to sister that she's OK financially, because husband (you) is really smart, he has taken care of it, by owning Bitcoin. Wife's sister doesn't know/understand much. A few days later she casually mentions this to her colleagues at work: "maybe we should buy this thing called Bitcoin, see, my sister's family is set for life, they own lots of them." Word spreads. The wrong kind of people hear about it. Next thing you know, your family is kidnapped and the seed is wrenched out of you (or the wife). Coins gone, even lives are in danger. Just by a simple, innocent slip of the tongue.
But sure, I see your point and I agree, it's just that there's no need to overdo it. Just pick one or two very special people in your life and make sure they understand that they should never ever talk about it to anyone, even those very close to them. Then, as already mentioned, there's
Shamir's Secret Sharing, which is a very good way to secure your coins by splitting the seed to different pieces.
Everything is compromise and context. Unless we're making a profound political and economic statement (hat tip Satoshi) we will want to maintain access to our coins, and need to choose the opsec compromises that work best in our circumstances.
If we lived in a favela or janjaweed encampment I would take different decisions. Here, metropolitan and bourgeois, among our friends we are nowhere near the richest, and among some two-removed we would be considered poor but charming. The WO perhaps doesn't realise just how much money is out there. People build businesses, make shrewd investments, have lucky breaks all the time. People buy the Bentleys and Lambos and Ferraris and Learjets, every day, by the hundreds of thousands per year. No cares that we now fly first, or stay in decent hotels. First and decent hotels are there
because plenty of people can afford them. We may one day be gentlemen, but for now we are still also-rans. As far as my wife's sister is concerned we had some lucky investments, could be bitcoin, could be oil or property, no one cares.
As I see it there are 3 main threats to my coin. In order of likelihood:
1/ My memory gone, either by death or dementia. Mitigation: train my immediate family to be able to start a difficult process to access physical backups (not giving them the keys themselves)
2/ Attack from state by taxation or confiscation. Mitigation: careful coin acquisition, main stash keys fragmented across various jurisdictions, would need international legal coordination to reassemble.
3/ Wrench attack. Mitigation: various levels of plausible deniability and custodianship.
There are a quarter of a million UHNW ($30million plus) people in the world. They manage. It'll be ok.
, or I miss something?
)
