Bitcoin Forum

I'm getting married. Not in the state sanctioned or religious sense. In the economic partnership sense. It is going to be a contract between my future wife and I, that lays out our expectations and commitments to each other. Thinks like what our responsibilities are in the event of serious injury or illness, what the restitution will be for infidelity, and how we define infidelity. In our opinion, this is far more meaningful and useful than state or church approval. We are going to hold a somewhat traditional ceremony, reception, and honeymoon. We have been saving for it all in bitcoin. We knew all along it was a risk, and started saving when bitcoin was on it's way down from $1000. We are hope it works out to be a solid store of value, but we've also discussed wedding presents to each other based on the price of BTC in the week or so before the wedding in October this year. We've also included a bitcoin donation address (nothing donated, 1MiNM3YbSgv1pS97vpUyW9FNQZn23fLeTv) and a link to "What is bitcoin?" on bitcoin.org, on our wedding website.

We've tried to remove the state entirely from our wedding... but to have a binding contract, we'd like some for of a notary. That's what this post is about. I want to notarize our wedding on the blockchain. I'm under the impression it can be done, but I've never heard of it being done, and I don't know how. I'm sure someone here knows how it can be done. I'd really like to see how we could incorporate it in to the wedding. Basically to replace the part where the marriage license is traditionally signed.

Any help is much appreciated.

on the wedding night reception, please have beyonce singing

"if you like it, you should put a blockchain on it.. oh oh oh , a oh oh oh"

now seriously. if you want success, make some video's. research http://lifeonbitcoin.com/ as a way to validate your donation plea. and then go speak to a lawyer about the validity of a marriage contract that is not state approved (not on their special paper)

Oh my..i'm crying...i'm freakin tear all over. I read your post, stopped, went to youtube, found song, played it, and reread your post...tears just wen on and on, i barely got my breath back from all the laughing.

Anyway, to help up OP....could you maybe use those messages on blockchaininfo or osmething like that?

If you have a birth certificate and a Social Security Number, then you haven't removed the State. No marriage license is, however, a start.

Consider a UCC-1 filing. See http://www.abodia.com/ucc/ to begin your education.

If you already have done your UCC-1 financing statement, keep studying so that you don't wind up accidentally opting back in.

:)

LOL!

Sorry, it was not supposed to be a plea for donations.

We're not interested in the state's interpretation of the validity of our contract, but I'll be happy to take a look at lifeonbitcoin.com.

Just to further clarify. We don't intend on paying for the wedding and honeymoon with bitcoins. That will likely be done with fiat. We'll book what we can through whomever we can (expedia at the moment). We're just storing our funds in BTC.

Timestamp the hash of the contract on the blockchain. Maybe by a transcation from each party.

Could use a service like this http://www.proofofexistence.com/about

First Congrats on your marriage hope it goes well
Second Putting the contract on the blockchain seems like a neat way of recording it forever
IT is a ledger of transactions so I say go for it.
Think this is it an embedded message https://blockchain.info/wallet/website-faq

Hash a document proving all the stuff, hash it with SHA-256, use that as a private key.
Send some BTC to that address and sign a message with it.
If you need to verify in the future, simpy hash the proof again, and they will see that the hash is the same, and you had knowledge of the address and have sent BTC to it.

if your not interested in any legitimacy, im not talking about state, im talking human rights (EG medical, next of kin, child welfare etc) if you dont care about ensuring that no one in the world will recognise you as being legally tied to each other then...............

........... i now pronounce you man and wife. you may now kiss the bride.

oh wait. does what i just said make it official that you are now together? like i said go see a lawyer about what the marriage certificate actually does beyond just the state taxes.. you may learn alot, and while your there ask if any contract that can be produced, be used to 'legitimise' the partnership in regards to protecting you in the future (predominantly guardianship of your child, next of kin after death, you know the real life stuff)

This actually seems like a good idea, might start a "marriage records in blockchain" frenzy :P

Totally digging on this idea.  Kudos on the not needing the "state endorsed" fancy paper!

"if you sent it then you should have put a fee on it" :D

Haha, this made me laugh out loud. Imagine people using the blockchain as contracts for everything. :D

"Hey you, go read your contract in block number 288.593 and remember what your job is!"

Congratulations, OP!  Just out of curiosity, will your children be recorded on the blockchain as well?  Little Bits? 

Congratulations, big plus that your future wife is a bit coiner too.

So, when(sry  ;D) you're divorcing later you will both be hiding FIAT from eachother and not bitcoins..  :o

This procedure is only really as valid as the preponderance of people who at least vaguely understand the legitimacy of publicly uploading a hash digest of a document to the blockchain. There is no legal precedent that I'm aware of that in any way recognizes this kind of notary, but then again this being an experiment in statelessness, I guess it doesn't matter, at this point this is kind of a "are you allowed to swear alone in the woods" situation!

For this you need Peter Todd's replace-by-fee patch and it wouldn't hurt to have 51% of the mining power and then you can just double spend the record out of the blockchain.

 :)

Seriously, franky1 is right, talk to an attorney just so you are aware of the legal consequences of the actions you are taking here.

It proceeds from the premise that they don't need the state's blessing to engage in a partnership. I tend to agree with the premise.

Good idea to put marriage contract in blockchain which is more secure and transparent. suggest someone creates marriage coin that combines all of these concepts together.

That could give new meaning to the phrase pump and dump.  8)

Hold your hand and grow old together with you。https://blockchain.info/zh-cn/tx/e250c6d7ea4c5037fb96de1a2cb169850be792474401bae140fce784940f1dd3?show_adv=true (https://blockchain.info/zh-cn/tx/e250c6d7ea4c5037fb96de1a2cb169850be792474401bae140fce784940f1dd3?show_adv=true)

Getting married by blockchain is pretty awesome.  That is ground breaking, but it seems like to me this will indeed be the rule.  

As much as bitcoiners don't like it.  I can even see each country setting up some kind of account for each citizen on the blockchain at birth, where public records about that person can be stored.  Graduations, marriages, public elections, certifications, criminal convictions...... Once on, they can't ever be erased!  Asking somebody for their bitcoin ID and seeing a picture of them posted on the blockchain every few years, even some biometric data would be an identity that couldn't be faked.  

Scary yes, but once we the community unleashes the block chain on the world for our needs and the governments are stuck with it, surely they will find a way to make it meet their needs too.  If somebody doesn't believe that governments won't someday exploit the blockchain, they are not paying attention to history.  

Great I can see this actually working as a valuable infometric tracking system
The problem with it is that if people can all access everything in a public blockchain then it would be a bit easy to forge as well.
Still a similar system could work

Anyways the marriage through blockchain is a cool way to do it.

congrats on your wedding but...
what?? you will put a contract on blockchain? do you think blockchain could last forever as your wedding?
errhhmmm well i dunno bro the thing about the wedding is sacred i dunno maybe its just me but i will never ever do that thing seems that you are not so serious about getting married it will be safe to put all the funds on the bank

Going to a notary public with a contract that they prepared is equally stateless in every conceivable way. The blockchain quo blockchain is not relevant at all to what makes this exercise stateless.

OMG here comes laughter again...sorry OP but this is just way too funny. I do congratulate you on your partnership with a woman and idea you are trying to pull. I really understand it. If you somehow put it inside blockchain, it's staying there forever (or at least, as long as blockchain is alive and / or not trimmed)

this.

Maybe you could use Ethereum http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRpziAtk61g

Pretty much. I didn't intend on blazing a trail on this, but I'm happy to as long as we can preserve some degree of privacy. Ideally, we (and our agents/lawyers) would draw up the terms of the contract, and only the hash would ever become public. I do believe we will need witnesses to our public keys. Each of us would have a key pair, and independently sign the contract with our private key, and publish the signature with our public key on the blockchain. Has no one done this yet with any sort of contract?

next step: joint savings address (long term) that has 2 private keys that  you give to your families for safe keeping. In other words, it takes the 2 of you cooperating  to  withdraw any value from the address. Put aside a small amount monthly.

It will take years for divorce law to catch up with that one..... :)

Any contract that you enter into is something that may need to be enforced in the future and you would need to use the state to enforce such contract.

The best way to setup smart contracts on the blockchain would be to set up a trust that holds a particular asset then have the trustee direct the "benefit" of the trust to the holders of the BTC address that contains the outputs linked to the contract.

I won't use the state to enforce a contract. I won't enter in to the contract if my only option is state enforcement. It's not an option.

I hold access to the relatively small amount of BTC we have saved. I have the key, and the wallet files. She knows the key, but does not have physical access to the wallet files directly. A good friend of mine has access to the encrypted wallet files, but does not have access to the key. They could collude to access it, it's not likely at this moment. If it becomes likely, the arrangement would have to change. For now, she is likely to benefit from 100% of the stash. She'd benefit from less than 100% if she were to make some deal to access them. I have no reason not to trust her, but my feelings have no place in my security protocol.

On another note, is there a printing shop takes BTC as a payment? We sent out announcements a couple months ago, but formal invitations need to go out soon.

Good Idea.

But I consider it if I have 100 BTC and then it I'll would do it to protect my bitcoin from my wife in case of quarrels or horns  ;D ;D

But isn't the blockchain probably the one piece of data in the world that is the least likely to be lost right now?

it makes perfect sense. if you are getting married, you are basically being chained.. to the block?

Curious if you've done this personally to become a secured party creditor?

Also, I think using the blockchain for contracts such as marriage is a really cool idea and is definitely the future.

How would you enforce a contract without the state?

If one party were to default on their side on a contract you could contact them to try to work things out but if you are unable to reach a resolution you would need to involve the courts to get your contract enforced. If you are not willing to do this then the other party has little incentive to honor their part of the bargin.

Sure didn't take long for this link to get suspended!

On the main page this thread shows up as:  in Re: Marriage as a contra...

I thought it was going to be Marriage as a contraceptive.  Guess I'm a little disappointed.

I've always thought that contacts are for people you don't trust - something that you can hang over their head when they do you wrong. Why would you need a contract with your spouse?

To ensure they are not there to take your money is the first reaction.
Rationale before insanity
That is why people write agreements that say that you keep everything you own before the marriage and split what you acquire after the marriage.
Having a good financial agreement is as important entering into marriage as the love they have for their spouse, since finances tend to be one of the biggest issues a married couple have.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/household-finances/before-saying-i-do-think-about-drafting-a-marriage-contract/article5463592/
 
“Marriage is a partnership, and like in any other partnership, usually it is important to have some kind of an agreement.”

And in case of forking, does that mean u get divorced ?
Just kidding; but nevertheless, i see this like a tatoo-ing, u dont want to do someting that u can undo :D

I like the idea of recording contracts within the/a blockchain. Smart contracts, Next, Etherium: how this will all evolve is equally maybe even a little more interesting than bitcoin as a currency.


Not sure what country you live in CoinDiver (I'm an American).
In America (specifically California) the contract of marriage  comes with certain perks of the license, partnership/agreement...'institution' ;-).

Tax benefits, rights to property/inheritance, not required to testify against each other in court, health insurance, it gives each of you the right/responsibility to make health related decisions for each other and so many other things.

Some of those things can be written into separate contracts (consult with an attorney, health care provider and accountant).\

of course there is one benefit to NOT getting a marriage license and that is... you don't have to get a pain in the a$$ divorce to end the relationship.

Don't know of a specific contract you should use, but make sure you create a 2-of-3 multisig transaction, and hire a reputable arbiter to control the 3rd key. Seed the private keys with the text of whatever you choose as your marriage contract, including any assets you wish to provably and explicitly share. Any liquid assets could be bitcoin in the actual address.

Getting married is forming a contract (a marriage contract)

Seriously....  you should at least see to it that your marriage is officially recognized by at least one jurisdiction   that  your government and locals will see as somehow valid and official.  Or see a lawyer about other options.

The concern is about various situations where not having an officially recognized marriage can be extremely inconvenient or troublesome.

If you can prove marriage; you have additional legal rights in some situations, such as with kids -- guaranteed right of both parents to act as guardians, pick up kids from school, shared property rights, etc,  or if spouse is temporarily incapacitated or in hospital: without proof of marriage/family relationship, or  legal documents,  there is no authority to direct their care.

The blockchain marriage is a cool idea and all,  but I would advise you to not take unnecessary risks in giving up legal privileges couples with the legally recognized state documentation ordinarily have.

yeah,this was really funny
hope, OP was not bothered

Can I double spend and get two wives?

Another issue is that if your marriage is not recognized then you will not be able to reap the tax benefits of marriage

This! I like it. Rights to our assets (in this case, "our" bitcoins) is the incentive to abide by the contract. The 2 of 3 give us enforcement. This doesn't need to be on the block chain (I don't think...), but each of our hashed signatures on the contract should be. I do trust her. I trust that she is working in the same direction I am in life, and will generally be a reliable partner and asset. This is a mutually beneficial agreement.

The purpose of the contract is to establish the terms of the agreement. Otherwise, what is hell is a marriage? Why get married? If people had to actually define the roles in a marriage agreement before getting married, you have a lot less ill-conceived marriages, and a lot more lasting agreements.

There are obviously other agreements that need to be spelled out for the state to recognise in situations where it is inevitable. Those are not what this thread is about, but I'll happily take whatever input down for when we sit down together to sort out the rest of the paperwork.

marriage is not about that.... your talking about pre-nup...

a marriage is to enforce that someone that is not in your bloodline is provably your next of kin and has entitlements to your wealth, can b a part of your health and a guardian of your descendants.

Lol, very nice.

I don't see how this could possibly work unless we started attaching verified genders, ethnicities, and religions to addresses.
Otherwise we wouldn't be able to deprive people of their right to marry, and I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I happen to think we already get enough hurricanes each year.

the legitimacy of marriage.

i glanced over a few legal things: so here goes (read my disclaimer in my footer)

to avoid the whole state/church licence stuff there is a 'banns for marriage' thing which is about publicly notifying your intent to marriage, so that anyone who can see any reason why the parties involved should not be married can be notified.

so before doing a blockchain marriage certificate you should 3 weeks prior, do a public announcement of intent to marry. .. and whats more internationally public than the blockchain :D

the licence thing is normally to shorten this delay.

i have not yet researched the ceremony itself but in general as long as its publicly shown that both parties have committed themselves to each other, then a marriage is valid. (please check local law of your area about requirements of ministers/registrars)

How about this,

Transaction #1: moves some coins from one of your addresses to a new address (the "my end" address), includes a comment in scriptPubKey using OP_DROP (could be your vows for example).

Transaction #2: moves some coins from one of her addresses to a new address (the "your end" address), includes a comment in scriptPubKey using OP_DROP (could be her vows for example).

Transaction #3: takes the two previous transactions as inputs, outputs to a 1-of-2 multisig address (or 2-of-2, depending on your values and the strength of the relationship). The "binding" transaction.

Transaction #1: moves some coins from one of your addresses to a new address, includes a comment in scriptPubKey using OP_DROP (public announcement of intent to wed).

Hmmm... What if you guys both have your own non-shared private key and a single shared private/public key pair. You then each generate your own public key to your private key and have a paper notarized that includes your finger print, ID and public key (from your non-shared private key) on a paper, signifying that you do indeed own that public key. Now you keep a copy of that notarized paper for yourself and give the original to your partner (now your partner has legal proof of you stating you own that public key).

Then a hash of your marriage agreement is made and is known to both of you. You both then send a small fraction of a bitcoin using your non-shared private key/public key pair to the shared bitcoin private/public key pair with the hash of the marriage agreement as a public note, signifying that the marriage agreement is active.

That shared private/public key (which could be a multi-sig key if you wanted) is then used as your joint bank account.


Sounds fun to me honestly. Congratulations on your marriage :)

This is an interesting concept, but nevertheless, congratulations to you both :D

Hahah nice idea there , i like how people try to put their Marriage as the ''forever'' stuff while most of marriages break. Try calling me stupid, but i somehow think everyone should know that getting married doesen't mean staying married, of course i want every marriage to last forever, but todays life speed is not allowing that.

I love all of the different use cases for block chain technology that are being thought of lately.

This is going to be global revolution... decentralize everything!!!

Seriously, governments and corporations of the world are not to be trusted and/or are incapable. Bring control, wealth, and power back to the people.

From what you have glanced over: have you seen anything about the notification requirements? Is there a minimum number of people that generally would see any such notification (like newspaper circulation)?

More for delineation of assets, rights, and responsibilities should things not work out. The best example I can think of is if we have children and she chooses to scale back on a good career to raise them; that is something I believe has value and should be compensated. The compensation, though, should be reasonable and bound to actual economic trade-offs.

I just prefer determining those things privately than through the state. More than anything, this is experimenting with breaking one of many social conventions most people grant as monopoly to the state to oversee.

If you agreed to something in private then how would you enforce it without the state?

In reply to the first User's post. I don't think contracts are for people you don't trust. I see contracts as more as, "the professing of one's love to another, on paper"

Well, the saving in bitcoin was working out... until recently. It's OK, as I would have likely spend some of the savings had it not been BTC. As it sits, we've only lost about $800 of USD value. Hopefully I don't get slaughtered in the next month.

Seems legit. WHat would happen on a breakup tho? Transactions arent refundable in btc  8)

I wonder if the October 5th wedding knows about us...

Interesting[ly stupid] idea. Isn't even legal.

Try it!

Oh man, you mean I don't have permission? Shit. That's exactly what I wanted to have.