Bitcoin Forum

I have accumulated some Bitcoin and other alts. Most of my holdings are in a single wallet yet I have a few on different platforms and one left on an exchange. I have tried to explain this to my spouse yet there is not a full understanding. If I died I am confident that all of this would not be recovered.

This weeks project is to write an encrypted note detailing where are the holdings are and how to access them. Even with access, the knowledge is not there to be able to convert the holdings to fiat if necessary.

What is your situation ?



*Edit* I have added "today" to the subject line of the post because we are all going to die.

Many people responded stating that if they knew they were going to die soon or when they are 60 etc.  they would.... You do not know when you are going to die! I had a serious accident not too long ago that almost killed me and I am not old, not even what I would call middle aged.

Many people also said they have hardware wallets, paper wallets ... Do you have backups outside of your home ?

                            My Solution
I have all of my seed phrases, 2fa restoration numbers and passwords saved in Google Drive. Google, although I hate them, will be around forever. I have saved this in the cloud because if my house were to burn down, everything would be lost. Now I am not confident in the security of Google Drive so it is in a folder that is encrypted with Cryptomator. This is an open source program that works with both Drive and Dropbox.I am also going to make a video showing how to restore the wallet using the seed phrase and also how to restore the 2fa to the google authenticate. Along with a detailed list on what coins I have and where they are located. This list I will update each time I purchase a new coin.

I have bitcoins stored in an wallet and when I am gone, no one else will be able to access them and the can be considered as 'lost', this means the more bitcoins are 'lost', the higher the value of bitcoin will be over time.

Same story with my wife, but i'm lucky to have a daughter that finds crypto currency rather interesting. Started her off with some DOGEcoin (since they were really cheap) on an android wallet... Moved up to a self-funded monero coin (thanks smoothie) which she loves and keeps around her room to show off.

Now, i've given her my old ledger HW.1 (bought a new ledger nano S for myself), and i'm paying her in BTC when she does some (very small) chores around the house and when she gets good grades (acutally, i accumulate these earnings untill she has $50, and then i pay her these $50 in one go).

Conclusion: when i die, i hope my kid will know what to do with my ledger nano S (it has a pincode my wife knows btw)...

Never really thought about this, but I am in the same situation and expect that if I were no longer here, any btc or alts that I had would be "lost". Sure, I probably have a backup of a seed somewhere but doubt anyone would realize what it was. I guess it does make sense to store a physical copy or use a hardware device for instances like this. Someone who isn't familiar with bitcoin would still likely have a hard time figuring out what to do with them though.

We are too young to talk about it, however, I have completely protected what I have, so if I die, all money will be lost. No one can find and use it.

Im also rather young, so I will still be around in 20 years, hopefully bitcoin is 6 figures by then so I can retire, if the rat race doesn't kill me before of course, but i'll stay strong.

The bitcoins are for me, people is just too dumb to understand crypto anytime soon, and I can't be bothered to explain it to them. People are drones, not worth the time. It will eventually become mainstream organically, until then i'll keep enjoying being a pioneer and stacking more cheap coins.

In this case you could do a video tutorials to all your heirs explaining what Bitcoin is and how to recover them and convert them to fiat
you should explain to them that Bitcoin is a huge assets without tax,in this way all your coins will not be lost and your heirs can benefit.

Yes, the best way out of this is to explain to your family about the existence of Bitcoin.

I think if I die my bitcoins will be left in my wallet forever even I am explaining bitcoin and bitcoin wallet to my family. They don't really know will they do and even get mad at me when I say if I die. I wonder how much will they sell my bitcoins if I gave it to them the day I die?

Just hand all your crypto related information to the one you trusted, in your case, your spouse. Don't mind being him/her not fully understand. Put all the ways, directions, procedures on whatever writing tools you preferred and hand that to your spouse. In that way, accessibility is still possible because some information have been handed.

The obvious thing to happen here is, coins will be untouchable if it not be handed. But I think in some of the exchanges, if they saw some account that is not active for a required period of time, they will get the funds and questions will just be asked once the real owner came back. So it's better to store coins from a ledger or any hardware wallet. The coins will remained forever there if no one have an accessed to it.

As we will look on the definition of altcoin we can conclude that altcoin serves as choice between trader and helps bitcoin to develop as it becomes an alternative to bitcoin. But if altcoin will die, it may lead to price distress on bitcoin because the demand and the stock may move in an abnormal state. As a choice , it can be develop by decision making so if it happened stability on instability may occur also.

My spouse doesn't understand anything to the technical aspect of btc.
But she know it exists.
And she has access to my electrum wallet.

So if I was to die the coins wouldn't be lost even if I bet she would have to ask around to know how to use them ^^

If ever you would die the BTC coins that you have earned may be present here but it will not be recovered if there is o one that will use it. So if that so someone you trust the most knows your password so that if ever you would not be present in this world for so long your BTC will not be useless. The BTC wallet is not exactly a bank account that can be withdraw by your descendants if you would die, so better let someone know your password so it will not be put into vain.

I have given my family access via the lawyers to my bitcoin addresses and private keys. { I only amended the private keys a bit, and only told

my family about that, so that the lawyers will not be able to steal the coins } I also have information stored in a safe deposit box, so once they

are satisfied that the lawyer can be trusted, then they can feed them with more information to convert BTC to Fiat for them.  ;D

I never thought about this if no one know my password in my bitcoin wallet no one can access it and no one can use it forever i dont know how i will gonna deal with this problem should i share my password with my family or bitcoin friends?If you just die and your not prepare this can happened to you and all of your bitcoin will be lost.

If you happened to die unexpectedly your bitcoin may or may not be useful depending on how you share the information to access you wallet/s. If you didn't shared it to anyone including your family then it will be useless now if you die, but if you shared it to one of your family members then someone can benefit the bitcoins you just earned.

Well it's okay for someone you trust to have some sort of knowledge about your holdings.  For example, if you had a paper wallet, that trusted person could know the location of your key (and the location of a decoy key to cover a 5-dollar-wrench attack).

Fortunately lost Bitcoin can result in natural deflation, and deflation decreases the amount that each person holds because people buy/earn less, therefore reducing the losses in future and meaning that since Bitcoin is infinitely divisible it can never all be lost - so losing Bitcoin is only bad for the person that loses it but not for the whole Bitcoin ecosystem.

This is a good thread. It open my mind to what might happen if I don't left my bitcoin to my family. I'll probably write done details instruction on how to access my wallet just in case. I haven't open to my family regarding bitcoin so this might be a good idea to start right now. All my hard work earning/saving bitcoin will put to nothing if I don't have someone know about it and transfer my knowledge. Good candidate is my wife and my youngest kid who is very inclined to technology. We never know what will happened in future so I'm going to transfer all information moving forward.

I have same situation with Red_Sanford, but maybe I didn't teach my spouse clearly enough for her to understand, just a red line of my savings. Looks like I have to make some smart children to bequeath bitcoin from my wallet. Maybe because I felt my journey in cryptocurrency world has just began and didn't think so much about my savings, in the few years later I will.

Why not have a clear written letter with all instructions written and store it somewhere safe such as a vault or a safe. This way if ever any of us passed away our entrusted relative will be able to able to use our stored bitcoin. Though they do not know what bitcoin is, leaving then an instruction will do the trick. The instruction must have your private keys and anything related to your wallet, how much is in there in terms of fiat, how will they exchange it to fiat, some information about bitcoin , etc. This way our accumulated bitcoin will never come to waste and be lost forever.

Just guide your spouse on how to recover all your holdings in one account than she may start learning herself on how to convert them when you will die. If there will be money involved, human being can learn anything to get it. It's not that hard to convert your cryptos to fiat if you are from 1st or 2nd tier countries.

this type of experimenting is pretty dangerous because if you left a way to reach your wallet after you then people can get that hole for their benefits. hackers are always finding a vurnability to get into your system and you yourself is giving them the way. although on second thought there is a better system which is called multisigned wallet. you can probably use this it needs some kind of voting(signing) so that a group of people can access that balance.

I’m in the same situation if I died my family will be unable to recover my coins since they don’t even know I have them, so I’m planning to leave some paperwork detailing how to recover my coins, and I will leave it near my will so it is easy to find and does not get lost.

I think i'll have to say the same thing. I haven't thought about this kind of situation(dying) because I don't like talking about this kind of topic but we know everyone will experience it. When the time comes for me the coins that I hold will be stuck/lost too. My older sibling is aware that i'm using bitcoin and slgihtly knows about it but doesn't know how to gain access to my bitcoin wallet.

I guess it will be forever lost. My immediate family does not know how to use bitcoin. I am not that much worried though, I have only a few  bitcoins in my possession. If ever there comes a time it reaches a considerable amount, I have to train someone how to access my account.

I have the same exact situation with you bud! What I would do is probably also create a detailed note on how to cash out all the money I have stored in bitcoins and also include a note on things they should avoid in dealing with the bitcoins they will be cashing out, like always keep the private key safe, be careful in sending to the correct address and stuff like that.

If you have a general intention about what should happen to your bitcoins after your death, there might be a solution to do it, that I have long been wanting to realize but I didn't have the time yet:
Some sort of script / application that you can control from your smartphone in regular intervals using a password.
If this confirmation does not happen anymore within, let's say a year, you could define a payout to somewhere (a friend, spouse, donation, whatever).
What you have to make sure is that the server on which the script is running also does so a year after dying, so maybe a vps or something that can be payed ahead (supposing you have enough trust in your vps provider ;) ).
Advantage of this way would be that you would not have to tell anybody of this ahead.

I told my brother where my hardware wallet is and what to do just in case...

Would the price really go up due to these lost bitcoins? How would anyone know they were lost? It could just be assumed they are still stored in a wallet (which they are) and might be spent any day.

Potentially and theoretically the lost bitcoins that are "stuck" in addresses that are lost and inaccessible by anyone does increase the price of bitcoins. For the reason that bitcoins have a set number of coins that can be mined, meaning it will have only a set supply and the demand keeps on increasing. And since bitcoin prices are determined by supply and demand then it is just natural that prices goes up when the supply cannot meet the demands of the users.

It's will be the end of my bitcoin since I'm taking them into my grave since nobody interest and able to operate bitcoin wallet / exchanger.
I'm live where my goverment still not legalize bitcoin yet so it's difficult for people to know more and want to start invest as well

I can help if you want ;D

If you died without someone knowing about your wallet, then absolutely your bitcoin is gone. So its much better to let someone like your wife or brother just someone close to you have the all the necessary steps on how to access your wallet and get your bitcoin and exchange them to fiat

There's an idea here, I wonder if it can be implemented - is there a chance for some sort of legacy transition feature that could be built into the code to ensure that bitcoins are not lost due to death? Or is the security compromise too great for it to be part of the code?

I foresee conventional will writers taking on Bitcoin inheritance... in fact, I wonder if I might start a non-profit idea like this.

Not really given that too much thought, my wife just rolls her eyes when I talk about coins so I guess I would have to wait until my kid grows up and make sure he knows all about it. 

I hope by that time crypto will be common place and the need for me to educate won't exist.

I actually thought about this in the past and I think this should be treated seriously. Decent amount of money is stored in my bitcoin wallet (both online and offline) together with some alts. My fiancee is willing to study about cryptocurrency and I'm teaching her about the basic of it. My plan is to provide her the access for those wallets just in case something bad will happen to me. Providing adequate documentation about it would be very helpful so that she will not have any problem in the future. It would be a waste if I died and my loved ones can't access it because they don't know how.  

i haven't bitcoin or altcoin, i don't like to save it.. if i have a bitcoin i will to convert to real money like dollar
i don't like too save bitcoin in wallet because it's not safety

If I died any moment right now then all my bitcoins and altcoins will be gone since noone in my friends and family knows how to operate bitcoin and earn them. Actually it won't affect much on Bitcoin or any other altcoin since these things commonly happens. For all I know there has been thousands of bitcoin lost due to corrupt data and lost private key.

Maybe I am not too old but as human never knows. For me the best strategy is the most funds in a paper wallet and detailed explanation, like as a step by step guide convert to fiat using an ATM machine. Currently many countries have more than one so I believe that is a good solution in that case. The other one you must find an experienced with cryptos attorney where he will keep a copy of your testament like as your other assets.

That's a great idea. My child just started her first job and I told her that she must invest a portion of her earnings. Along with eye rolls, listens each week as I rattle off how much this currency or that went up. BTC was mentioned as an investment. So along with this comes the knowledge of how to access it.

Well, in case i die my bitcoins will/should be available to my family. i don't want my bitcoins to be lost.
i have a hardware wallet and all it needs is 4 digital numeric pin to open, i could simply write down that in a diary and hope someone reads it at some point.

I think I would save all my accounts and send it to one of my family members,
So if I die they could use the money that I got in the internet.

Well, Before I die, I will make sure to tell my family about bitcoins that I have left, and I will write down anything related to my bitcoin, including my wallet, the amount of bitcoins, and how to cash them if needed. I also hope to educate my family enough about Bitcoin so that they won't cash them, but rather they would continue my legacy  :P.

This is a good question that everyone should answer for themselves, since the chance of dying eventually is, well, pretty high.

In my case, I already have encrypted files detailing (separately) where my funds are allocated, and account information to access them. My wife is able to access the files, which are securely backed up in safe locations. This includes copies held by out-of-state relatives, who do not have the passwords to access them. Those are held by another relative who does not have access to the files. They would have to get together in the event of the demise of both my wife and I, but could then access the information to access my crypto portfolio (and all other financial assets for that matter).

Be safe, but take thought for your loved ones and beneficiaries. Odds are someday it will be important.

Nothing special will happen just take a look at Satoshi may God bless his poor soul, he was killed and his coins still sitting in their deposit addresses until some day some one finds a way either by hacking or finding the private keys.
And you shouldn't say "if" but rather "when" because sooner or later we're all going to die.
Either write a script to auto send them to some charity organization as donation or if the amount is large you could still do the donation part but either hire a lawyer or write script again to do the job or isn't there a post service which will hold whatever mail or package you have and sends in specific date and time to where ever you say?

Or put the instructions into your will, however tell them not to spend bitcoins for at least another 2 decades to have more money by then.

You better make sure they understand how to use them first ^^.

My family know what to do and how to recover my wallets they can just look online anyway. I have backups of the private key and paper wallet for long term storsge.

I wonder how many Bitcoin have been lost from people dying ? xP

I have taught my parents about bitcoins and they very well know how to handle it so even if I die they will be the ones who will be having total access to my wallet and they can use my bitcoins wherever they want so my bitcoins will not go worthless even if I die.

The good thing about my situation is that my
family knows about bitcoin and alts. So if
I die they can easily have access to my accounts.

If I died, my coins would be lost to my family. Nobody would remember that I dabbled in this stuff. Nobody would care.

Good idea. I think I'll write a note and put it in a place they could find it when they start rummaging through my files...

I've been thinking about this situation, that's why I'm trying to teach my parents, brother and sister for this. They are good in technology, they know the updates for now and was able to hold gadgets. But I really don't understand why they are so lazy when I'm teaching them how to bitcoin, but they know how I cash out my bitcoins so they will just inherit it.

In the event that I died, chances are there wouldn't be all that much in the way of BTC and various alts for my family to receive (as of right now), but there are some ways that they could gain access to what I do have. Maybe I should start to tally down what it is exactly that I have and how they would be able to access it.
I don't have much in the way of anything in cryptos to give them, but I hope to change that over time. Going to see what I can add on to my wealth and potentially start a business.

They would go to my wife. Or probably first to my brother as he knows more about and then to my wife. But seriousl, this is a good qeuestion and shouldnt be ignored. I for sure will think further about.

There are too types of death, an accident /murder and slow type of death because of a disease or weakness. But I'll choose to be dead slowly only if I can choose and so that the bitcoins that I've got can be transferred of sold with fiat and I'm going to give to my family and I will put a portion of it for giving to the less fortunate. But when I died by accident and I didn't taught them how to acquire my coins, that will be burned.

when a user can't use the missing bitcoin or vice versa like a dead bitcoin holder this affects the loss of money from the circulation. the missing bitcoin is still in the chain-like blocks of other bitcoins. however the missing bitcoin will remain inactive forever because there is no way that anyone can find a private key that allows it to be used again.

Well if i am dead my bitcoin will be sold by my daughter because i have wrote all of my private key,
password and other related with digital coins on the paper that had been puted in the box
so my family know what have to do if there are bad something to me and it is not problem.

Ive been also thinking this kind of scenario what if i die what happens to my BTC and who will benefit from it.
I guess the only way to resolved this is to teach them how to use BTC before it's late for you or just give some detailed instructions then give it to whom you might give your bitcoins.

Probably my family will use them because they know where I have my paper wallets and I have ordered to do it in a case of emergency because it not makes sense they can't have access to my money because I died.

This is a nice question, actually I think about this also if Im gone and all of my BTC is in an online wallet. So, one of my family knows about bitcoin and had an idea about what Im doing. The problem is no one really knows my account, all of my details to login into my account. Maybe I shoud really inform all of my details whatever happen.

I write all my accounts and passwords in a diary, which I keep safe in my drawer, so most probably after I die, my family is going to be find it and claim the coins. Cheers!

Same, I have a hardware wallet the miss knows how access,. I have some obscure accounts that are old, but have some value to them. She would figure these out, even, given time; she knows what services I use/talk about using.

Wow this is cool. I guess everyone should let it know to the spouse or a family member who understands to how to use the electronic technology. As we all often talk about the risk but we neglect one of the most risky element and that is the death or any other uncertain situation to the individual himself. The most risky thing we have is our life as any manufacturing company will give you the guaranty of the product but no one guarantees life…

Wouldn't that be insecure, if someone reads it before you die?

Well, I hope my family will take it seriously and won't throw away the details of my wallet. Maybe I'll tell my best friend whom I trust.

Before i turned 60 yrs old, i think my children are old enough to know and understand what i'm doing with cryptos so i will try to explain it to them to understand it more and i will give them a copy of all my private keys for my bitcoins and alts so if ever i died, they can get benefit to my savings by withdrawing it and selling or exchanging it into fiat.

I might be a little thinking about this. Because only I know about bitcoin in my family. So they will not know my fortune in bitcoin if I die. This will be unfortunate

Which I will definitely tell my family about the existence of bitcoin
And how to get the coin.

Yes, if it is all about a recovery system this is not an issue at all. If your spouse have a little knowledge of using the computer system she can easily recover it and if not then you need to train her how to use a computer. Also make a video of the whole process to how to access to your wallet and get it done with mining and stuff. The video stuff will be very helpful.

I think that there are already solutions provided for such an possibility, im sure there are websites where you can store some specific data, which is released or sent somewhere after some incident occur: it might be your death or anything else.
Also, you can choose some different solution, such as providing an access to this data to your trusted friend, partner or a family member.
However, to be honest I would never have given data to access my bitcoins to my friend, I just simply do not trust anyone ( except my family ) so hard to give him such a sensitive information.
In my opinion, it is just not worth it to risk your money for something like that.

When I die all my bitcoins and alts would be lost. Because anyone in my family don't know about it and they don't even have any idea what cryptocurrency is. People can't control their death so they don't know whats the perfect time to discuss about it with their close ones. Share the details with your close people like wife,  son, so they can use them after your departure  :)

Well taking into consideration we dont know what may happen with us at the next hours/ day i had made a detailed writing into paper in case i die for some reason, soo my wife/ parents will have all the keys to acess my funds and exchange them to fiat, the only bad thing, is she doesnt know how to get funds out as well how to sell, but she can search youtube there are a lot videos about how to make.

I never really thought about it since now and I haven't given much thought of what will happen to my BTC's if in any time I would die then I should probably write a letter (old school) and send an email to my daughter explaining to her about bitcoins and etc. Although I have already opened up and explained a little about BTC's so I'm pretty sure it won't get lost.

In most cases, the coins will be lost forever. We need to try to explain the whole concept to someone that we trust and hope that they can do all the steps to recover them. Keep in mind that the process to retrieve the password of a wallet is almost impossible (with the recover phrase) so, don't lose them  ;D

Yeah it's not very complicated
I mean explaining them how it works would be pretty complicated and troublesome for sure
But just giving them the keys to your wallets is easy.

And if they need it one day they'll sure find out how it works ^^

Actually i already though about this and my solution is you need to tell or teach someone in your family to become a bitcoin user's so that he will know that if you died he or she know that you have a bitcoin account. But still the privacy or security was not solve if he cant open your bitcoin wallet he cant use your bitcoin so in your computer leave a save file or a note.

How to give password to my family if they do not understand bitcoin yet. That's why I'm not ready to die lol
Because if I die of course there is no heir of my bitcoin

not everyone who able to do that. we all have different condition , sometimes you are a lonely man have no close friend , no family and nothing just you. and yeah i believe too that few case someone have an anticipation about bitcoin backup in case they died. we can assume it's would just disappeared forever.

This is a fantastic idea, I don’t have kids but I'm saving this comment for future reference so when I have kids I know how to teach them about crypto currencies in a way that is meaningful to them and prepare them to know what to do in case something bad happened to me.

Well, I do not know, maybe it will just disappear, or lodge in my wallet.
Nobody really understands about bitcoin in my house. Can be said, I tried my own make money on the internet, so maybe jtu will only remain on the wallet that I have.

As I use BitGo and a little Blockchain, some desktop apps but they really don't have much on them. My family -- if they cared much about this money would go ahead and find my secret 16 word code somewhere in my house and they'd use it to cash out and sell through Coinbase.

I know most people probably don't have something like this setup but this is probably the best way to do something like this. Leave your family some sort of instructions so they know what they're doing. It's sad to say but any day on earth could be your last so you always have to be ready for the worst.

My family would get it and sell!

Uhh, in my case i have a little sister who i've introduced bitcoin to. She understand and using it aswell. If i died, i believe she can recovered it as i wrote my private key in my diary and she knows about it aswell. The only problem if there's some alt remaining on exchanger so maybe i'll write my portofolio in the diary aswell.

So basically you will be putting a puzzle hoping that your family members will find out in case you die and most probably they wont be cracking the puzzle.The only solution is to give a detailed instruction on where your digital assets are stored and you can lock all these details in a bank locker and when there is an untimely death your family members could retrieve all the accounts without much trouble.

If you are old then it is better if you meet someone who is trusted to make a will. Which contains your wallet password. You can give it to your brother or your child when you're dead

Even not being an old man everyone should does it... Nobody know what can happen on the next day, so you have to give your informations like passwords, logins to someone near you, someone you trust to make useful use of your money if you can't use it (if you die for example). For me it's not a problem as I let all my informations wrote on a notebook, trusted people near me have access to it and I'm sure they will use the money very well if I can't!

I'm sure they will now be eager to learn how Bitcoin qorks if they know how much money you have in there. Kidding aside, since there is no solid provision for Bitcoin like in the banks or anything where your wealth is distributes according to your last will but in this case it is better to withdraw it then store it in a bank if you feel your life is gonna end anytime or you just want to be practical. For now, countries like Japan and Russia are recognizing and legalizing Botcoin and might as well the other nations then they may come up for a provision with your wealth in Bitcoin which for now I don't know how will they do it or maybe you just need to list down your wallet, password or email so the lawyer and the family could consult a person who knows Bitcoin then withdraw the money ypu have there.

I don`t have large amounts of bitcoin to hold and usually i sell my bitcoins to fiat very fast,so i don`t care that much.
You are right,they won`t be recovered after you die,unless you share your passwords with your relatives.

my family would have access to my bitcoin, and use that to continue their life, they are not obscured or hidden in anyway , they know that they are mine and won't touch them

if you can't trust your family then i think you have a problem, and it's better if you spend your bitcoin if you ever think your are going to die because you are ill or something

If you know you might die(expectedly), you should have made your account's list and passwords and make your statent in which you are going to inherit your wealth with description. If you are about to make a list, it's better if you put it on a notbook so that it would be accruate and will be found easily.

In the case of my death I think my bitcoin would be safe. All my passwords is written in a block note and my husband, who also in bitcoin world, knows it. So, my bitcoins wouldn't be lost.

would disappear because no one knows about them

I think no one will be able to access my account since my family are not interested with what im up to. thats why im trying to explain this to my sister because she is the only one i can count on with this matter and if she agreed ill pass my private keys incase something happen to me.

I have two friends that I introduced to Bitcoin and they made a ton of money on the trading side. I have a small black book with detail instructions and passwords and private keys. If something happens to me, my family will take the book to these guys and they will know what to do. < because they are familiar with Bitcoin >

I have the same arrangement with them, if something happens to them. ^smile^

That's good and a perfect planning of the future, because none know what's gonna happen in the future, even the next minute is not assured. My earning goes wasted, because till date I haven't thought about it. Now I have decided to give a detailed information about the same to my sister who is aware of using bitcoin.

This is a very good question because most of us wants to know what happens next when we are gone. As of now I don't know also what will happen as i don't have also future plans with my bitcoins. Maybe I have to educate one of the members of the family regarding with bitcoin and entrust him with private keys or put it in a book the instruction how to recover my bitcoin when I am gone. As I don't have lawyer to entrust, I think that is the best way I can do it.

Almost three month i'm thinking about this, what happen if i'm gone with all my asset in cryptocurrency, and I have an idea to make some video about cryptocurrency tutorial, but it's need a process and before it, i'm decide to teach my sister about cryptoworld and i'm happy because she give nice attention about cryptworld, my next target is teach my nephew after she 12 Years old.

This is one is the best question to answer because in every family everyone will face the situation at one day, so my plan is I will share all my investment information to my wife and everything she will note down in a book so that she can keep track of everything after my death. At the same time, i will store all my investment information in my external hard disk.

Yes I will tell my family about the existence of bitcoin dah site sites that I already know, I hope my family will continue bitcoin that I have made to continue it in order to continue to grow.

It is like other properties，I will tell my family about the BTC and other digital properties.also tell them how to get it if  i dead!

Try putting it in your death will, and disclose the location of the safe in it with instructions. I'm sure she can figure it out if you're clear enough. Don't use a complicated wallet system, just a code to scan on some site to import your key.

I agree with you, do not use any complicated wallet and make sure that wallet can import private key so if the time comes and you died then they can get your money really easy because they just need to scan the barcode then they can get your bitcoins or altcoins and convert it into cash and use it for their own.

Then my family will benefit that because I have a note inside my wardrobe contains all of my accounts in all site that I handle and they can easily find that because my sister know that and my social media account password is not there so they will benefit it. And the last thing is almost all of my earning now is in the bank so I will not lose some now.

Very good thing with bitcoin is that my government didn't officially recognize bitcoin as currency or financial assets.
It means that I don't need to mention bitcoin in my last will and my descendants don't need to pay any taxes on bitcoin.
I will just write personal letter to them, explain about bitcoin and give them all info how to access btc wallet.
Hopefully, at that time, btc price will increase much more and they will become rich :)

If I tied,all my crypto holdings will be gone because I haven't shared my wallet password with anyone neither do I have written them anywhere.

My wife understands the fundamentals of Bitcoin but she has never dealt with wallets. However she knows that I hold some coins. But she doesn't (yet) know where I have stored the private keys.

Your topic is a good reminder for me. I should inform her about the location of my cold wallets / private keys. Once she know this, the rest is just Google in case I'm not around.

Do not you have people in your family who have computer knowledge?

Look for someone in your family who is reliable and knows how to deal with computers and explain to him about bitcoin, if you die your wife can give your password to that your relative who knows how to move computers to access your wallet and transfer your bitcoins to your country.

You to do something simpler:

Create account in one of those wallets that offer Bitcoin debit cards and transfer all your bitcoin to that wallet, in case of death your wife can use your bitcoin with this Bitcoin debit cards.

Let me tell you something:

If you give your wife Bitcoin debit cards, she'll be interested in bitcoin. Just test

Interesting question. Of course everyone will start thinking about this Lol. Because they will not know when they will die. Certainly a person who has a lot of wealth in bitcoin. Do not want their wealth to disappear when they die. They must prepare this

Security comes at the cost of nobody else knowing that you have a wallet and the password to such a wallet. On the flip side, security is also degraded if you reveal the password to someone else.  I've hidden my password to my wallet in a small locked box somewhere in my house, haven't told anyone where it is but I'll keep the instructions to that hidden as well :)

In my situation my other family member knew about my bitcoin business and as well as my girlfriend. They are the one who will benefit on my left btc or alts. Because they are the one who lnew my account that where I put my income every week/month. And ofcourse I will tell them to ise them in very helpful and good way so that the money I left are very useful even when I died.

My family will be the one who will benefit in my btc. I will tell them that I want my money to be used in a way that will help them in many way like business, needs and se funds because I make that btc by my hardwork and I want it to dedicate to my family so that even when I die I can help in my family.

I always keep my Bitcoin savings in a paper wallet and I leave that paper wallet at my girlfriends place (with whom I've been together for 3 years).
I explained to her how to access the funds, so she may do so if something happens to me.

Might have to write down another small tutorial in case she forgot.

Same here, but for different reason. My wife is cool and beautiful, and all, but she says: I don´t need no stupid folders on a computer  :)
How to go about that ?

Guess i have to stay alive and spend it all myself. But one thing is for sure, i will buy her a computer, full with folders.
I know, I´m a bad man . . .  :)

Yes indeed it is. It has made me think of the situation as well. Like me and you we may have some other friends who had never thought of it before. I do maintain a daily diary and write things in it but not in that much detail.

I am going to write in detail about all my bitcoin and alts that I have, also I am thinking of something to make some visuals of it so it may put ease for my family. I am in continuous plans about these, because I could not make any concrete solution as of now. I believe we will be getting any easy methods/tools for solving these problems.

I agree with you, for doing that kind of thing. but what will happen if you and your girlfriend died together in an accident. I think then your bitcoin will be stay in your paper wallet to infinity. In my case, I will share my informations about bitcoin wallet with my parents and brothers to take it when i died.

I guess you need to improve your communication skills, instead of using the word die you should simply tell them “if in case of an emergency I need your help to do it for me”. A little change with picking the words will solve your problem easily. You need to learn a little from the Asian politicians… ;) Sometimes you need to handle the situation diplomatically instead of being straight forward.

Once I had the same thought.

And I also tried to teach my wife about bitcoin/cryptocurrency. But she was not interested due to complication.
My approach to her was, if I die one day then you have to recover my hard earnings.

I think we all should set a nominee, same as we do while we open a bank account.

I will approach again to her.
And this time I will request my younger brother to learn about bitcoin.

I don't want to think about this because it's a negative energy and it may happen if you are going to think about it. But okay, if I died then my bitcoins will be part of those bitcoins that are not being recovered because I don't have choice. And my parents and relatives doesn't know about bitcoin that's why if I die, then I will be dead together with my bitcoins.

better hope she will not steal all your btc when she drives off to mexico with some dude

One family member knows about my crypto, but honestly if my phone got destroyed there'd be no huge loss.  For those who have extensive crypto holdings, making up a will is a very good idea.  I'm not there yet myself.

Same thing with me. We don't pay taxes for bitcoin in my country. I operate an online wallet. All I have to do is give my family. all my personal information as regards to all my cryptos. But the sad news is, they don't want to hear about bitcoin and alts.

If I were to die today I'm sure my wife would know how to at least get on bitcointalk and ask what to do with the paper wallets I have. Any alts on an exchange or otherwise I'm assuming would just be lost unless she or someone else looked through the history on my computer and tried to get on certain exchanges to see if there was a balance.

The other day, i mentioned "wallet" to my wife, and she asked me, where to order one  :)

It´s hopeless.
Guys, PM me, if you want to know my private key, so it would not be lost in universe . . .

My privkey is shared with my family members, mean it's okay if there's something happened to me. Though they don't really know what to do to it but I'm sure by the time being, they'll figure out how to use the privkey and use the money inside, yeah, the power of money will increase your will even you'll be struggling, that's natural law.

probably my bitcoins and altcoins would die with me

unless they figure out the private keys i have written down or try to out smart themselves to figure out where my bookmarks leads them to...all else its a lost tresure :P

I think before you die, you should share your private keys to the person that you are close with or to the people that you trust like your family or to your friends. It is just a waste for you if you don't share your private keys before you die because all your hard earned bitcoins or altcoins or money were just be wasted in just a single event.

My wife knows, there are about a thousand handbags, or shoes, to get. I have it all on paper for her. And, she will finally learn who google is  :)
It´s a shame she can´t do that before i´m gone.

This is a really good thread, because it kicked me in the ass, to print out my private keys (no bluetooth printer, just cable), and hide it in our secret places.
3 copys, i mean, how stupid would that be ? Thank you all, for giving me the nudge !

thats good when you give all your work details to your loved ones. but what if you didnt share it to anyone or you just simply hiding it to anyone? i guess your account would be nothing, a trash that no one will claim, there is no one can use it the way they want.

I will be honest, I have the same condition with op. Even I tell my wife slowly and everyday, she never can get it. She know bitcoin, but she can't use it. And there is just one way to make my btc useful if I die, I give her all my passwords and get she knows where's my bitcoin stored. Because I beleive if she can't use it, she will find somebody to use it for her.

If I died, my coins could be considered "burned" and therefore help the volume, I guess lol. Contributing to community even in afterlife.

Now that I think of it, I could set up a script, that sends a part of it to my loved ones, in case I do not use the wallets for an amount of time.

I have given all the accounts I have to my family. And I've also told you how to earn money from bitcoin.
This is a tough task, but I want to stay alive until all my family is happy.

I just hope, she´ll not find somebody to use it for her before i´m gone  :)

Ok, i just told her: download and open any NEM Wallet, any password, just import all my 4 private keys (on paper, written down 3 times, for sure), then go to any exchange, buy bitcoin, and cash out somewhere. And be bitcoin-king. But still, somehow, it´s not going to happen. Can´t make it any easier . . .

Well, i can do that now for her, but then i would be out of NEM, which i consider a big mistake, let´s hope i won´t have a heartattack tomorrow. Think positive  :)

I've told my girlfriend my wallet passphrase & given her the contact number of a localbitcoins trader that I trust so she'd be able to get access to the bitcoin's I have.

She'd probably sell them all to the guy I know probably & he'd get a fee for helping her.

I have a few btc and some altcoins stored in different wallets but if ever I die in an unexpected situation I'm sure my finally won't be able to recover it coz they don't know everything what I'm doing with bitcoins that is why my plan is to list all my password/keys/seeds  to my coins and stored it in my email and to my wife with encrypted passwords..

Since my family is totally neglecting bitcoin and doesn't even understand the concept behind this technology I never bothered to fully explain it to them.
In case of my sudden death I am afraid that my coins might be lost forever. I would be a classic donation, for everyone else using bitcoin, making your coins worth slightly more.

Actually this thread made me think that I want to create some sort of contingency plan. I probably leave a note about BTC somewhere...

Yeah, we are doing something good, at least, taking those coins off the table. Deflation, guys !

This thread is worth millions and millions, thanks to OP !

They will be lost forever in the void. I don't really share much information to my family or friends about my holdings in bitcoins and other alts but if they know me so well, they would know where would I hide all of those stuff that I do online. Also, little by little I'm telling my younger brothers about bitcoin, which probably is the best move if in case something happens to me since they would know what their older brother is doing would actually mean more as time passes.

make a transaction with a locktime of many years in the future and make a donation to someone you know (can be family members) or it can be one of these big charities accepting donation and sign and publish it to the public so in case of sudden death the coins don't go to waste!
the transaction (because of locktime) can not be mined (redeemed) until the time comes. just make sure to spend the funds if the deadline is near and nothing has happened to you yet :)

As my wife is a better trader and knows more coins than me, I don't have any worries about my bitcoins or altcoins. She'll take care of them nicely and will make good profit from them. It's the other way around too, we know all our financial things.

I have accumulated some Bitcoin and other alts. Most of my holdings are in a single wallet yet I have a few on different platforms and one left on an exchange. I have tried to explain this to my spouse yet there is not a full understanding. If I died I am confident that all of this would not be recovered.
- this is totally true, if any of your loved ones doesn't know everything about in bitcoin, all your accumulated bitcoin and altcoins will be stock only to their wallets. But if your loved ones knows the procedure to encash it there will be no problem at all for sure.

If i die today which is highly unlikely i will loose some of the coins but i have written everything in details and have already informed my wife about what i am doing online and she already knows about bitcoin.But i have written a detailed note on how to recover the private keys and stuffs like that,just in case something happens to me.

This is a nice way to let others know the bitcoin.
First, you need to explain to them the meaning of bitcoin and then explain the process of claiming your bitcoin if you'll die.

If I die today, all my bitcoin and alts will be lost too. The alts and bitcoin that I have on an exchange will probably be used by the exchange eventually I guess, once they see an account being unused for so long. And the ones I have in my wallet will also just stay there as I have not told anyone about it, and no one knows the keys or passwords.
And secondly know one I know, knows of the crypto currencies and the world of bitcoin.
So you raised I valuable point, I guess we all should tell some people who we can trust about these things, especially if we have some decent amount of bitcoin or alt that will be valuable in the real world.

Loss can be prevented if you are ready with it. For better, it should be saved in notebook so that no password is need for your relatives to get your wealth in bitcoin if you have. However, if an incedent occured where in you didn't expect that you will die(let's just hope it won't happen) and you don't even prepared for that, your money won't get recovered since bitcoin is decentralized and there is no identity verification need to acess it but the email and password only.

I store my mnemonics and paper wallets in safe with code to it hidden somewhere in house. There are also instructions printed how to claim BTC and sell them. Without my dad dying that he was curious into BTC, I won't had ever 25 BTC without his death. But in this problem, we had Bitcoin Core installed on his laptop with pretty simple password that no one knowed it but I guessed it. It was only matter of minutes.

Yes, it's a very good idea of which I'm thinking. I do not want my coins to just disappear after I die.

Even if you put all your back-up passwords and accounts in your google drive your wife won't benefit anything at the time of your death because she does not fully understand Bitcoin, or even how to convert it to Fiat which is a basic thing to do. If your wife does not fully understand Bitcoin atleast try to teach her converting Bitcoin into Fiat in which all people are comfortable. Teach her the basic operations of the Bitcoin wallet from how to access it to converting Bitcoin to Fiat. I hope this helps.

I agree with you, teach how to use bitcoin and how to convert it into cash and i think it is best to just use paper wallet because it is easy to manage and easy to withdraw plus it is very secured because it is an offline wallet. Just explain how the things work and how to convert bitcoin then it will help your family to use your hard earned money when you died.

I have explained bitcoin to my wife many times over and she already knows a thing or two about cashing out and converting to fiat. She was pleasantly surprised when we converted our bitcoin into fiat and withdrew it from a local ATM without using any card. I guess my bitcoin (however small they may be) are pretty much in good hands if I suffer an untimely death. Knock on wood.

One thing she does realize is that it is an investment. Something that shouldn't be touched unless there is an emergency. There are life insurance policies for the time of death. I have told my child that hopefully she will inherit everything and will be able to pass it on to her children. Wealth is an accumulation of assets over time. I am a holdr and have instilled this in my financial training of my daughter. Passive income is king but appreciation is a great second place.

This is something that has actually been crossing my mind for a while and sometimes I just wished it away and at other times I give it a deep thought and arrive at a simple conclusion that almost everybody in NY household knows I am involved in bitcoin although they are not interested so if anything should happen, all they need to do is to do an intelligent trace analysis of my activities online, arrive at my security measures and my bitcoin is theirs but if they couldn't then its  gone forever. I guess Satoshi made allowance for such in his white paper.

Although it's a weird question, I'll have to tell everything to my best friend. He will be the only one, knowing everything about my money and stuff like that. In my testament, I will have to leave details about what he is going to know and do to have my btc. It's very odd to write these things because am still alive :p

If the bitcoin you keep does not want to be wasted in the wallet if you die. Then from now on you should make a note that contains the password of your wallet.

Really weird indeed but it is happening there is possibility that it will happen to us also. I will do the same, that is to make a manual or instruction how to recover my btc with my seeds. I will give to my closed family members or to a trusted.

I have a plan to secure my private keys in the place where only me and my family know so that when I die, they will know where to take it and import the private keys to their wallet. Well, they can be rich thanks to me haha

One of the problems with humans is that even if we know that we are going to leave this world behind at some point we always think that is in the future, in a distant future but we never know what could happen to us since there are many things that could happen to us and that will not let us reach that future.

Yeah that's a good idea, because nobody knows when you're going to die. So for the backup plan. You can make a will or tell your wallet password to your brother

Yes I have thought of this and have printed out all
locations, passwords and phrases of my currencies
and told my Daughter where it is, she will be able to
work it out i'm sure should I pass away unexpectedly.

It would be a shame for all my research, work and effort
go to waste, someone should get the benefit of that work etc.

Maybe there are 2 solutions:
1. Automatic execution of transactions that will be sent to specific bitcoin addresses after a fixed days of inactivity. Example: if I have 2 family members, I will make wallets for them and add their addresses to my auto execution list. If I die, all of my bitcoins will be sent there. If we think more deeply, we will make paper wallet with birth certificate after birth of child. So, let's think the time is 90 days. If I am inactive for 90 days, all my funds will be sent to my family member's addresses. And if I don't have any address in my wallet, all of my coins will go to the network.
2. Our coins will be re added to the network after specific times, i.e. 100 years. This may solve this problem too: https://news.bitcoin.com/what-happens-bitcoin-miners-all-coins-mined/