Bitcoin Forum

Matthew Mellon was a man with a reported $1 billion of Ripple (XRP). Sadly he died but nobody from his attorney to his friends to his family are in possession of his keys or passwords to access his crypto:
https://www.tweaktown.com/news/62046/ripple-enthusiast-1-billion-xrp-dies-unexpectedly/index.html (https://www.tweaktown.com/news/62046/ripple-enthusiast-1-billion-xrp-dies-unexpectedly/index.html)

What do you think is the best way to ensure you can leave your crypto-assets behind for your family in the event of your death BUT not let anybody have access to those crypto-assets while you are alive?

I have seen senior members giving many tips about this, most of them emphasized on storing the private keys in paper and keeping them very safe somewhere with very restricted access, so that we can make sure only someone trusted gets them.

It is sad to read this news, but I don't think a man who have 1 billion USD worth XRP is stupid enough not to make sure it does not go waste.

Firstly very sad news a family man (with wife and children died). There seem to be some issues surrounding alleged drug abuse and so on but he was a father, husband and son. I feel for his family and friends.

The idea floated around was that because he was spending money on drugs and was not in the country at the time and was not exactly an old man, that he did not make an up to date will and last testament. It also seems he never gave his crypto keys or their location to anybody.

The only way you can do is to save your private key in a paper or put it in a USB drive then lock it in a volt where you first family knows the location. So in case of death they can destroy the volt and get the private key. You also need to put a note or instructions because some of them doesn't even know the use of the file inside the USB.

This is an issue everyone in crypto needs to address, for family members are basically in the dark due to lack of interest or knowledge, and sometimes because you dont reveal your investments to them. There has to be detailed information on the coins and their keys, locked away on a drive known only to you. You also need to arrange for someone to coach your family so that they can understand how to operate.

Yeah, it really should be addressed seriously or people should start taking such things serious. That is a lot of money to let go to waste just like that. Now, I am sure even his family will not forgive him for making such a grievance mistake and they would wish he comes back from the dead to make amends. ;D

I would actually beat him back to life if I am his son. Jokes apart though, there are ways to store assets, and private keys can be stored in those ways, which I believe a lot of people should start taking into consideration.

The best part of all of this is that we have a close and trusted family whom we share our crypto adventures with. We can't live forever and we can't also live in secret all through our lives. We should have a detailed analysis of our assets and entrust it to someone should incase anything happens to us. No one is praying for sudden demise but caution is good.

This is such a sad news to here, he was a young guy. I think that the best way to prevent this from happening is to store your crypto assets on an offline device( Like Trezor, or Ledger) and keep the paper with the seed in a location where your family will know about(you can inform your lawyer about it) in case such an unfortunate event happens to you.

What do you think is the best way forward allowing people who die to leave their crypto securely and safely to their families and loved ones and at the same time not allowing anyone to access the crypto while still alive?

Yeah, at least with the way things are, and even for the fact that even if you are not going to be trusting your attorney or anyone around you to hold your private key, one can generate a paper wallet or get a cold storage to put the funds in a bank to store just the way people store gold in banks. In that way, anyone can make it accessible to their next of kin in the case where they are deceased or simply write a will to let them know there is something left for them as inheritance somehow. What a waste right now! $1 billion ?

I do not know, this news cause like RIP or promote ripple by confirming there will be demand always for ripple for long days. I am not sure how to take this news mate. There is section on this forum to write news article on the forum called press.
Better you could move your thread to thread. Whatever happened centralized coins will not help the other fellow crypto earners.

I am not sure if ripple is available to do Lock Time transactions? I find this to be the easiest way as you make transaction to other party you trust with your coins in it lets say you put it for next year. When date is coming close you simply pick your stash of coins and move it to another address before lock time transaction triggers itself so you go and make another one. I found this to be the effective way to ensure your money is not lost. It is sad to see that people haven't though about this because as we know everybody can die tomorrow unexpectedly.

It is not the most secure way because you are giving the location of the keys to people during your lifetime. Nothing stopping people getting access to it once they know where they are and what they are worth.

I think it's a great idea. I'd also do charades, the answer to which would be my key. But they were lucky that the lawyers were honest, they could saw through his wallet and no one would have anything and would never have known.

Yeah it's definitely sad but also very interesting in the sense how it might affect XRP or the crypto market.

Will be carefully watching, this is still very interesting regardless of everything else.

First of all sympathy for his family members. He must be cleaver enough to store his key in somewhere. A people who invested $1 billion must have stored his key in safe and secret place.

We have to see both sides of they story, there can be two scenarios here, one is that he just ignored or we can say forgot to share hos passwords and key with his family or the second scenario could be that he intentionally never shared the key, may be he does not want to give his asset to anyone, who knows.

Give them your private keys.
Do you see any other solution? There isn't any.
Either you will give them your private keys or not. Maybe to store them in safe but still they will have to know safe password.

It's possible that he bought them a long time ago when it was peanuts and never thought it would be worth anything. Hence he didn't bother to tell his family because they wouldn't understand how it worked and it wasn't worth much at the time (relative to his wealth).

Securing the keys in a drive and that drive being put somewhere safe cannot be 100% fail safe and secure because a person or people will know its location. Anyone with access to the drive will have access to the keys.

Being your own bank comes with many responsibilities. Same as keeping backups of your wallets you also need to think about someone getting access to all your passwords and keys if something would happend to you.

I agree with most of what you stated. The problem is with entrusting anyone with the keys because they will have access to your funds. There has to be another more secure way.

good sounds like a holder for life  ;D ;D hahaha RIP but still this is what will's are for right? he must have had no one or something i cant see how it's just LOST" or so they say, fake news?
i think so

Yes first and foremost it is sad news a man died, he had a young family and our thoughts should be with them.

Personally I would not leave my crypto keys with a lawyer because it means they are not 100% secure and safe.

One of the disadvantages so far! What is the point holding $1billion worth of ripple and it all ended up in drain with no one to access it? That is crazy! It is high time people started picturing themselves in the aspect where they may not actually be there to spend their digital currency in the long run and at least find a way to transfer the wealth once they are gone. It is really terrible and saddening to see all that go to waste.

Yes it is a waste of $1 Billion, sadly.

I disagree with you when you say you could get a paper wallet or cold storage and put it in a safety deposit box at a bank. Your funds are only secure as long as nobody has your key. If they are written on paper and stored in a box at a remote location then I do not class them as safe and secure.

Something else needs to be done, a better way to secure the keys yet making them accessible to those in your will when death occurs.

That wont really matter! Know why?

Ripple is the currency with non ending emission of this coin. Its in complete authority of the Ripple company itself and thus it wont be hard for this compant to generate all new coins equivalent to the coins that were stuck due to that tragedy. Those coins anyway are locked out forever now and there is no way to recover them, not even ripple themselves can do that due to irreversible mechanism of the blockchain! So it wont affect the market at all, XRP will continue just the normal way.

Thank you for your post. Mods will move any thread to the location they think best.

Sounds impractical to do when the purpose is to keep the private keys away from people.

That is one of the advantages of crypto, which can make it weakness at the same time.
I think making a copy on paper and putting it on a will, or telling people we believe will solve this kind of problem.

I have prepared for this situation. I printed it and kept it where my wife should find it. I think this is very important, because even a person can lose his laptop at any time and if you just store data in one place, then it gets worse.

very sad when reading this news, it's a lot of money and that person can not leave his money to his family, I am also sad that their families do not know and can not access that much money, it is a lesson for people who have a lot of money and keep it in the form of investment crypto, that we must tell access to people we can trust.

Looks like we should now prepare for this possibility, because we never know what will happen.
I mean this is completely different from the bank deposit or any document that can be accessed by our family in certain situations.

Damn. This is sad news and may his soul rest in peace. If he never left any keys or passwords, that money could be lost forever. I highly doubt this is the case though since a man who could earn so much money in his life must be very smart and he would have backed up his keys and passwords in some way or another. The family needs to check everything thoroughly and make sure the wrong people don't get their hands on it.

My condolences to his family.
$1 billion in XRP is like 5% of total market cap  :o
I already anticipated if this case happened to me by telling my pv keys to my mother and she has promised not to do anything to my pv keys until i the day i die.

This is just sad. He worked his way to get that millions but he died without having to leave it to his family. I may not have much to give to my family but i made sure incase i die, i would share to them what i worked hard for. All my private keys are written in what i call my blue book. Everything is in there. How to cash it, how to continue trade it if they want to. I made sure i have it and when i die they will be able to make use of it.

This is a very interesting story and though this is a very serious concern the thing is that we normally don't expect that something will happen to us so we just put this aside until an unfortunate or the unexpected came through. There is a strong possibility that this asset will just go to waste as if also it died along with the rightful owner and heirs may not be able to recover it unless he made a way to leave the keys to the account. If I remember right there was a project or two focusing on this very topic...making sure that heir can have access in case something will happen (death) to the owner of the coin or token.

Is it wise to provide your private key to your partner or family. Or at least let them know how to retrive them.
But most of us think that we are not going to die yet but that can be wrong anytime.

If somebody has $1 billion locked in XRP I doubt that will affect the market because there are so many Bitcoin and altcoin zombie wallets out there and that never seems to affect their price.

sadly, there arent many people interested on this. I am sorry for that man, and i am sorry for the family because they did not have the private keys to recover those amounts of money.

Sometimes people keep saying to themselves "I will do it tomorrow" and never manage to arrange their finances and their wills to protect their investments leaving their family and friends without inheritence.

What happened in this case is sad but it does seem his family do not have access to his crypto private keys

it's advisable to let your closest people know where you store your wallet or back ups of the wallet. That way they could always access it when something happens to you...

According some reports he was addicted to drugs and maybe that contributed to him neglecting his duties about making a proper will and ensuring his family are financially looked after.


You can give private keys to family but that means they can access your funds during your lifetime.


Maybe he did buy them when they were very cheap but he must have known their value after all he was according to reports spending huge amounts of money of drugs (though there is no real evidence about that)

If he had $1 billion worth of XRP then at $0.50 each he must have had around 2 billion XRP. The current total XRP circulation as of today 4th June 2018 is 39 billion so that means he alone was holding over 4% of all XRP. Those are staggering numbers if true.