Topic: Who Controls your Crypto Funds after Death? (Read 1108 times)

I think it is better to record video instructions: 1. Entering the wallet 2. How to transfer funds to the exchange 3. How to sell them there. 4. How to withdraw fiat currency to a bank card 5. Write where the keys from crypto-wallets will be stored.

Create a secret place where you will store your private keys. Tell someone you trust to open that place in case you die.

i have been thinking about it too but always erase it in my mind. i could die with it and if no one discovers where in my drive are the passwords and private keys are, its going to be buried along with me. i have a kid also, my wife and her parents insist that we live in their hometown and its where i live now with them. in case something happen to me, they can survive.  i gave her some coins though and told her not to spend it.

Chill dude, don't be so rude to yourself. We're the same, so far I'm not yet thinking about who should I give my holdings before I die. I just live my life right now and enjoying the profits I can make. Maybe when the time I  feel that I'm already getting closer to heaven is the right time to pass my assets I guess . Not thinking the day of your death is normal anyways . I hope it will take few more decades before it happens.

this is very serious question you have raised
shame on me, but I have not thought about it at all!
if anything happens to me, all my crypto active will be lost, I'm afraid
I think I should speak with my wife and teach her about crypto and that is a very tough task, cause she just knows nothing about it ((

sad

You both made a good decision, our family, especially parents, are the right people to have our crypto assets after we die. Also wife, he gave his life to us, I think giving crypto access to him to be handled after we die, that is the best decision too, especially if we have children.

Preparing people who understand cryptocurrency is one of my reasons when I do experience things that I don't want. if possible, your wife or someone you trust knows about a number of funds and also assets owned in digital or others. because if it's not difficult for ordinary people to be able to detect or know it . and if this happens our funds will settle forever

I have typed up instructions for my wife and parents on how to access and use my crypto funds in the case that something happened to me.   It is sealed and put away in 2 fireproof safes. 

Yes agreed, he needs to be more enlightened for people like us with much wisdom to understand

You're not reading it correctly. The friend is the wife. Why he wrote it that way though, can easily be mistaken or misunderstood by anyone else.

Sorry how do you trust a friend more than your own wife?  Any reason?

Are you pained?  You leave your family with no money instead you give to charity?  Why mate

Until someone knows the key, no one can control your funds. I do think that you should disclose those information to the person who you surely trusted with so all your hard earned money would not go to waste otherwise it would be wandering for eternity.

This comes down to estate planning, but your approach can be something as simple as:

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)

There might be some services out there that take care of this. As an example, one could ask a third party (like an escrow) to help forward any unclaimed coins from certain addresses after your death.

On your part, you don't want anyone to just get it, so you set up an encrypted email and activate a dead man's switch that sends that email, if you haven't logged in to that service for 3 months for example. Or maybe even 6 months. (What if you go to jail? Get stranded on some island? You are still alive but can not reset the switch; you may want a lawyer to get some money for future services not yet rendered; to help you.)

The third party would not have the private keys, or they still need some password to get it. The email that gets sent is encrypted.

Now, why would they do this? Because maybe perhaps other family members don't really know how to spend the coins, so you assign it to someone else and they take a percentage; they help exchange the coins to fiat and give that to your family.

It's the same with getting some kind of life insurance policy. You pay premiums, you trust the company will pay a death benefit to your beneficiaries if something should happen to you that is covered by the policy.

I mean, for about $30 per month, you could get coverage between $500k to $1m, depending on your current health and age. If you die, the spouse and children get $500k to $1m.

If your coins are worth the same amount (between $500k to $1m) at the current time, then wouldn't it make sense to find a way to get that value passed on to your family or offspring and pay that service $30 a month too (and they'll probably take a little more). If you had, say 100 BTC kept in cold storage, but you die much later, like another 5 to 10 years, it doesn't matter what the value is by then, it's not much to pay 1 BTC to that third party to make sure your family gets 99 BTC (less conversion and transaction fees and other bank fees.)

The alternative is you trust your own family to figure out how to get and spend the coins, or they never figure it out and your coins are lost forever. (or until someone finds the private key.)


No one wants to die, but one must plan for these kinds of things.


I've gotten a couple of people interested, but we haven't worked out the details.

Everything has been trusted to my friend, when I'm gone I told him to give everything to my children because they are too young to learn about the blockchain technology. I said to her sell every coins that I have and buy bitcoin with it and when they old enough give it to them in full. this is how strong between us and she made an oath that she will fulfill those promises. my friend is no other than my wife who learn about the existence of the bitcoin technology not too long ago.

It is somehow risky to tell people your password for your wallet and account but that is where a confident needs to appear, because if one dies without willing out your account to anyone then, your account will later diffuse. It becomes a waste of time , energy and resources.

This is very hard to answer since the one you can trust is your family. I might save it on my email address acount or create a file and save it on a cloud storage.  We don't have no choice but we need to tell them our funds and tell them about the cryptocurrency so they will know what it is.

We can also just give a hint and provide instruction to prevent deleting the file full of private keys.

I will try as much as possible to give it to my immediate brother, I guess you that it's a good decision,  giving it to my wife is cool but when a lady see such huge amount like that they might try to do the unthinkable to the husband

Me and only me. Yes, I'm so selfish

I have a steel safe with some passwords inside. If someone steals them they won't know what they're for but my family should be able to figure it out especially after spending some time with my computer. If they throw it all away after my death they'll get nothing but if they treat my belongings with respect the belongings will treat them back haha 

Very good question.
Right now only I have all the information.
I should teach my wife how to use my btc wallet but she don't likes cypto and she is also very skeptical about it.
I hope, I will be able to change her mind otherwise all my crypto funds will be lost when I die. 

Im sure the anonymous Satoshi Nakamoto still thinking a brilliant idea how he can pass his bitcoins into his relatives without revealing his identity as the creator of Bitcoin and for me of course my wife and my son/daughter will be the one who will control my crypto funds I dont care if how they will handle it but I just want them to remember me and my hard earned crypto if ever. 

It’s a tough question tho since i have a lot of trustees lol but its gonna be a challenge of course by the time of my death I’ve got more than billions already so the luckiest who will control my crypto fund will be one of my relatives who knew the best of me.

I’ll be staring to note down my journey, how did i  started and to the point on how to get my account in a scribbled way. I’m getting excited whil imagining this omg.

This would be some sort of journey and will make sure that the one who will control my funds is gonna be challenged first before getting my funds coz that’s how it started and should be ended by me.

No one is planning to die early. I want to say since you have taken the step to show them that means you don't have trust issue with them, then you can still go ahead to educate the more knowledgeable one among your family at least.

You can't be too sure of the people you are leaving to teach them after you die. Keeping things like that in trust with some people not your family members can also be risky.

Well I have left my private keys etc to my family, they actually do not know how to access but someone will show them I am sure. I got some friends working with this stuff who would not betray me..

However, I hope we don't die that fast 

Someone should definitely be able to access them after I die, but at the moment, I don't trust anyone.

I have written a medium post published by The Startup on this topic before here https://medium.com/swlh/who-gets-control-of-your-crypto-assets-after-you-die-766b84da361d

You could make a list of your total current holdings, where they’re held (wallets, exchanges, etc) and the current value and yes do this privately.
As for keeping coins on exchange, its not advisable to store funds on exchange for long intervals. The undiluted truth is that if you don’t own the private keys then you do not have control. Funds on exchange should just be for transactions.
It is important to plan around what kinds of storage you’re currently using. What do you like about it? What’s not working for you? How could it be better? Could your heirs access your storage devices and/or passwords if needed?.By using a hardware wallet or a paper wallet, or some other safer means to store your private keys, you can ensure that family has access to it.
Decide who gets what? Do you want one person to inherit all of your crypto? If you want more than one person or organization to get a share, use percentages instead of hard values (10% not 10 Bitcoin).
Also consider the following questions in your planning; Do your heirs understand this technology? Can they create and provide their own addresses for transfer? Or will the assets be liquidated to fiat currency that will be distributed to your heirs?Who will help your heirs through the process?
It might be helpful if you could take your take time to enlighten your relatives on what bitcoin/blockchain technology is all about, how to access crypto wallets and how to move the funds.This would help them when you’re gone because they wont have to over-rely on third parties to access their inheritance as there is a risk of being cheated in the process.
Then lastly, store backups. Store your backups in geographically-diverse, secure, access-controlled locations. I would use facilities such as bank vaults (most banks offer safer custody facilities for such matters), safes at home, and/or attorneys or accountants.

I wrote about this a few months ago and provided information on how to protect yourself - https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.50703294

Yes, this a soul searching question because death is inevitable. I think the people close to you should know about it. Someone you trust, a wife or siblings.


Please, do that quick with a lawyer, you never can tell. Procrastination is a killer of desire  

She only might but chances for her to do it is very small because she loves you foe sure and will not do such crazy thing to harm you. Well, unless you're aware that you married a psychopath gold digger .

Don't be so self-centered mate, your family is your last resort when you die. You can entrust all of your btc savings to them before you die but make sure you teach them first about this technology or at least find someone who is really willing to learn. You know what, you are lucky if you have a family because people who don't have are absolutely dying for it. Actually, if I die right now I would love to give all of my btc to my family but since my mother deceased already, my father got a new family and my siblings are too young for this matter then probably I let my girlfriend handle it for the meantime.
Wise choice, don't worry too much because everyone is interested when it comes to money lol.

LOL, well said. Maybe I should give my decision a second thought and tell the very closest ones in my family about the bitcoin and how the ones that I hold may be accessed.

Thank you, but I'm surprised that you are more generous to me than to the people close to you.

I'm amazed that nobody has quoted the following in this thread till now:


After my death, I lose my coins completely as I don't like to share my private key with anyone other than myself. So consider it as a donation to y'all!

It should be treated as traditional funds. And family members should be believed and trusted. If you think your wife will cheat on you and have fun with her boyfriend with your crypto, I'm sorry to say, you don't have a successful marriage. If I can build a good enough portfolio in future, I'll donate a significant amount to charities and leave a good amount for my offspring (and parents). I'll teach my future kids about technology and other stuffs so they would know how to cash it out lol.

Currently no one in my family who can understand this all but now I am trying to teach my kids about this technology even they are not interested because of age factor and some community activities but now I am trying my hard for this because if they are not able to understand this all then surely this all is going to be waste.

Right now, no one knows of my family for what I'm doing it now. Its hard to explain to them neither to the person to whom I trust about this matter actually. Though, I have a girlfriend so far but I still had a doubt to tell her all the coins I hold and store it into my wallet erc20 which is MEW and even for Bitcoin wallet such as Electrum maybe later.

I would hope someone leaves their private key inside their will. Otherwise the funds will be stagnant and hodled

Reminds me of that story about the owner of a crypto exchange who had a sudden heart attack. Unfortunately, the circumstances being so unexpected, he had never had a backup plan for his death. I don't think they were every able to access the hundreds of millions of dollars locked behind his password protected account. But that's the risk that comes with complete sovereignty, you have COMPLETE control. That's obviously dependent on you being alive, if no one knows how to access your account. Most people I find that have a lot of money in Bitcoin are somewhat paranoid to begin with, decreasing the chances of someone else knowing their keys.

If you die with your money on an exchange, then it is not lost forever because it is held by the exchange, who at some point will hand it over to the heirs, hand it over to the state, or just take it.

Personally, right now, it would be my siblings. I usually tell them about cryptocurrency especially bitcoin. And what's made me sure of it that they'd be my "heir" is that, they're showing interest on it. Whenever they see me post things here in bitcointalk, they ask me things which, fortunately, I can answer. And if I lack the knowledge, I just advise them to consult Mr. Google.

Right now,  they already know my username and password here in this forum. And they know the passcode in my wallet. Lucky for me, I have good brothers who know their limits and not mess with my things unless they're told to do so.

Lots of people I have known since I got into crypto, have died.
NONE of them prepaired for it. Their keys and logins were lost.
Their money still sits on an exchange.. where it will be forever lost.

If you value the space. Print paper wallets and secure them.
Keep only what you can loose/trade on an exchange.
Have others in the family who'll know how to deal with it.

If most your crypto is on the exchange, you're doing it wrong.

Right what you have said about it, but usually
Obviously everything we do is certainly known by at least our closest friends or family, so obviously they will find out if things will happen to us.

Since I don't have a wife yet, I have no idea to whom am gonna tell the secret of what I'm doing with my crypto.
Perhaps, if I have a serious girlfriend I will tell her all the knowledge to full out all my crypto to convert into fiat currency.
So that, anyhow there is someone who benefit of my crypto assets anyway.

At the moment, I think that no one will be able to take care of my funds after my death, but your post has pushed me to the idea of addressing this issue. Because it is really important for the future of relatives..

So far, I'm the only person knows what I'm dong in crypto starting from how I earn here, and how to convert it into cash/fiat. Because its hard to entrust all the coins that I have in my wallet. But of course, as much as possible my options to tell all these is to my fiancee, I am planning this to tell her at the right time.

If we think that way, then maybe one day you'll drink a lot, get black out and who knows what you'll do with your bitcoins.
Well, I agree with you at some point, there are some tasks that are always with us and for some people, bitcoin and their wallet can be included too. Bitcoin needs some changes and one of them really is what you stated, I think that wasn't considered at the moment because who knew if bitcoin would become so famous.
There are two chances what will happen in future:
1. Your coins will be lost, supply will decrease and price will increase to protect demand/supply rule.
2. It will be changed and every unmoved coin will get dead but this will happen for example once in every 100 year or years that bitcoin needs to be fully mined, imagine bitcoin needs 100 year for mining, then every unmoved coin will get dead in every 100 year and they will be mined again.

Very good thread, it's a coincidence, I have been thinking the exact subject
I'm planning to make a USB FlashDrive with all my passwords of banks, e-mails, my smartphone, paid accounts and obviously cryptos (exchanges, wallets etc)
I don't expect to die soon, but can you imagine the difficulty to your relatives if they does't know how to get access to you money, it's a pity if your money is lost and your dear relatives won't have access

I'm thinking how to do this safely, and this involves a person to trust

No one is going to be,because I didn't made any precations to access my wallet details if I am not there anymore so my cryptos will not be accessible forever.But if there is a system in the future to avoid this kind of situation I will share my private key details with my family members only if they can access when I am not anymore.

It still depends on what kind of death we will be dying. If it will be unexpected death then i better do something about it while i still realized i have time but if it will be a slow death, and who knows it will be  ? I can still make everything arranged. To prepare for a sudden death, i would probably leave some notes for my spouse in the vault regarding my holdings and they will surely find out about it after my burial when they will need to dispatch all of my belongings.

I haven't thought much about it. I'm still young and I'm not planning to die soon. But you never know what could happen to you tomorrow - heart attack, car accident, terror attack, plain crash and etc. If I would die tomorrow, all my Bitcoin and crypto assets would be lost forever.
And I have no idea what I should do now. Maybe writting a will sounds like a good idea, but I doubt that I'm going to do that in nearest 20 years...
Probably keeping private keys/recovery phrase with instructions how to claim it in a vault sounds like a best idea. But still, I have doubts about it. Crypto for people without any knowledge about it is very complicated thing. So, these instructions how to take coins should be very clear that my family members would understand everything. Because now I'm failing to explain even some basic things about crypto sometimes.

This is actually a very serious problem I have been thinking about this, and I dont think there is a good solution for this yet.

Because if you give your private keys/login to someone else, it is a risk what if the person loses it, or it gets stolen?

At the moment if u have a lot of crypto I would store it in a safe you own yourself and you tell the person in question about it.
Or you could go to a notary and divide your crypto after your death that way.

In the future I imagine you could just have ur testoment on the blockchain and when u die, it will divide itself to the persons you setup yourself.

There will also be some very rare instances where the entire family might die at once in a car crash or something tragic...

I think there should be safe guards set in place in case anything happens that way the crypto does not just become locked and the supply reduced. I have seen cases where people pass and their crypto is locked for a while but they eventually regain access after finding the private key, paper wallet, recovering passwords, etc.

It is something that everyone should at least prepare for, that way their loved ones can be taken care of after you are gone.

I do fear some will use this tech to kill off entire races. They can even do it with databases like facebook through images.

If you cannot trust anyone , you can atleast have a vault where you keep sensitive materials, certain your wards should have access to such legally should there be some unforeseen circumstances where you are unable to do such, all you need do is to list them as your next-of-kind or will the vault to them 

I think you just do the test each year, or whenever you want and if it comes back as dead, you know the person is dead. (whenever you get blood work)
You as the Father, could push the timer back if you are still alive, so you don`t have to do the test so often.
Paper wallets can be lost and stolen, this is locked on the blockchain, A will locked in blockchain through DNA.

Think about it, if we had everyone's DNA on a blockchain what we could do with that, literally no one could murder each other with a few cams. I mean they could but they would get caught instant.

Just curious, couldn't this be determined if there was a DNA sample left out to "go stale"? Or would there also need to be an implant of some sort to test the host dna at all times?

Pretty crazy idea, maybe just have a paper wallet for when you pass to also pass this down?

I want to make a system with DNA and COSIGNING a contract.

Father wants to leave son farm and a few million in his account.
Both Father and Son cosign the contract with DNA, IRIS SCAN and or FINGERPRINT on the blockchain.
Father creates a contract that when his DNA goes stale (they know he is dead because they compare the dead dna to the alive dna) the contract gets pushed to the son.

There is a few ways to do this, father can have a dead man switch, that he has to renew each year otherwise it gets sent to the son or when father is tested on blockchain once a year for his blood at a hospital they will know he is dead.

This can actually lead to solving every murder.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/bitcoin-20-attention-all-alt-coin-devs-unite-if-you-are-willing-5141142
It is blockPOP

Funny about how you think your wife and family would kill you just for your crypto.
Don't you even trust them?
Your wife would enjoy it with her boyfriend? only if she doesn't really love you and only stays for your money.
But so far I would just split it up to my family and my wife they should be the one to use it since it is my money .

Right now, apart from me, no one else controls my crypto funds.
I trust only my wife but she is very skeptic about bitcoin.
Anyway, I will have to convince her that bitcoin is something serious and valuable and then explain everything to her before I die.

OP if you are not trusting anyone other than you,then don't care about your funds after death because it will be safe forever and not accesible by anyone.

I soon to have my own family, and I want them to have a better life and that is why I keep on working to get more cryptocurrency so they can have the money and continue their life without bothering where to get the money. Yes, we all have different goals and plan for all our cryptos, but my priority is my family and I don't care if they will spend it in a bad way or force me to give it to them as long as I know I was once become a good family to them, and treat them right.

I trust my family, and I hope they will control it after my death.
Yes, we can't trust anyone but we have to create a strong relationship with our love ones so they can be good to us and let them live more better even if without you.

It's better for your loved ones to acquire your cryptos than let the exchange owned it, I don't know why you can't trust your family, your family is the one that will help you and be with you until the end, do not hesitate to give them your inheritance they deserve it, in the eyes of the law and of God your relatives and loved ones deserves your inheritances.

Ultimately, whoever has the private keys controls the coins whether they are alive or dead. If you want someone to gain control of your coins after your death, you must give them access to the keys somehow.

First you have to enlighten your relatives on what  bitcoin/blockchain technology is all about, how to access bitcoin wallet, trade on exchanges etc so when you're gone they don't have to rely on any third party to access their inheritance next you should employed the service of multisig wallet to solve this issue. You should have a special multisig wallet were you keep the bitcoin you intend passing on to your wife and children incase of sudden death.

For example, lets say you decided to make use of a wallet that requires 3 keys to authorise a transaction, you should give one key to your son, another key to your wife and the 3rd key which is yours to hold should as well be attached to your will and willed to the next trusted family member (son or daughter) that's if you have anymore kids but if you dont preferable wife so they can access the fund and how the fund should be shared also has to be stated in the will.

As for coins on exchange, there isn't much you can do as that one is all on you because the community have warned time without numbers, don't store funds on exchange. If you don't own the Private, it isn't your coin. Funds on exchange should just be for quick transactions and if you're to loss those due to death it won't be that much.

Nobody.I want all my crypto funds to be donated for charity purposes after I die.
I will have to talk with a lawyer about this.

For me, Wife is the number one person to be got my account. Because, i have a son, so my asset can be for him someday if i die. My parents, it impossible because they not understand technology even to open my laptops

I will always believe my family, even if they kill me because i have million dollar (not yet fot today lol), god not sleeping. they will punished them.

Funny, strange but yet so real, right?

So if one dies, all the money will get stacked on blockchain and exchanges?

I have about 90% of my funds in crypto and was just wondering over the above?

If you tell your wife, she might kill you and enjoy it with the boyfriend lol &
Hahaha yh and you can't trust even your family....

If they don't kill you probably because they are good siblings...once they know you have much, demand will go high lol

Many will say why not write a will, why not tell a friend etc.. 

But one needs to do this,  I know we all might have our opinions,  let's share and see if we can come to a uniform and decentralized solution....