Bitcoin Forum

Hello,  my brother passed away last week. Yesterday I heard he had purchased bitcoin a long time ago. What do I need to do to be able to sell his bitcoin as part of his estate.  I have no bitcoin wallet app from him.  Don’t know password. There is no will, although I can obtain an attorney who can legally appoint me as administrator of the estate. He lived in Miami, Florida. Thank you for any help

That makes it impossible for you to recover the bitcoins he bought. I guess that he didn't decide to use an exchange to store his coins. Software wallets usually encrypt the file which contains the private key. It is needed to spend coins, so without the password you won't be able to do anything either. Since Bitcoin is decentralized, there is no authority which could hand you over the access of the bitcoins even if you confirmed your identity.

The only possibility is that he had left his seed (12 or 24 words used for wallet recovery) or a paper wallet with QR codes.

Search your brothers all places where ever he was living and working as he would have kept some records of his work what he was doing in cryptocurrency. If you get lucky then you will sure get not only bitcoin wallet details but some of the other altcoins also if he had invested in them. Apart from that you can do nothing to recover his bitcoins and altcoins. Attorney can only give legal status of administrating his property and other physical movable assets. But for crypto currency you have to get the wallet details without it you can do nothing.

Remembered a topic that speak about the issue of how to transmit the crypto in case of trouble. Unfortunately without knowing where he stored them and the appropriate password it is impossible for you to recover them. Yes you need to search everywhere you could, papers, computers, phone... to find the place and the pass. Also if exchanges wallet and 2fa authentification you need the phone for the code or difficult discussion will begin with support to give the good informations to recover, more or less difficult depending of the exchange.

After this you will be able to try to sell them.

If you have access to his items, start from his phone and pc to track his online activities
if he has mail apps installed, usually it is still logged on and you can check his email
basically search around and do some detective works on his belongings
find something related to bitcoin and cryto currency, bitcoin core, wallet/exchange apps and etc

That cant be possible because wallets where btc is stored have its own private key/password, if ever you knew his private key then you can retrieve it but if you dont have an idea then it is all loss then. But if you are lucky you can search your brothers all places where ever he was living or working as he would have kept some records of his work what he was doing in cryptocurrency. If you get lucky then you will sure get not only bitcoin wallet details but some of the other altcoins also if he had invested in them. Apart from that you can do nothing to recover his bitcoins and altcoins.

Besides of physically searching through all of his stuff looking for a hardware wallet (physical device which holds private keys), paper wallet (printed wallet) or a seed backup (12 or 24 'random' words) which can all grant access to the coins, you could also search through his hard drive to find the software he used to store his BTC.

The general approach would be to first find out the software he used, then the way to access these coins (e.g. password protected file or printend paper backup).
I'd always look for a paper backup (most wallets do use a 12/18/24 word seed). Such a paper backup can restore the whole bitcoin wallet.

Only then you will be able to move the funds out to a new address of yours.

Do you have any idea where he got the coins from? Like the others said, you'd have to go looking for private keys and through his hard drive to see if you can find anything. It's possible you could get hold of the coins if he left it on an exchange as if you become the executer of this estate (don't know why you'd need an attorney to do that when you could do it yourself).

Could you take a screenshot of the screen where you can see the coins if he did have the wallet (there's a chance he didn't fully encrypt it).

If you get lucky then you will sure get not only bitcoin wallet details but some of the other altcoins also if he had invested in them
Unfortunately without knowing where he stored them and the appropriate password it is impossible for you to recover them

If he ran a node, and you have access to his computer, couldn't you just synchronise his wallet, and then transfer the coins. This assumes that he hasn't added additional password protection.

Dear Mariejose2018,
Most of the coins he would own, would still be located on the harddrive, you can search for a wallet file and try to get acces to passwords or documents located on his pc cointaining tags as''Wallet,BTC,Private key etc etc..
Harddrive is a possible location.
you can use a recovery program to search for deleted files on the drive. maybe you can search for the file or document.

Another option is a Paper Wallet. It looks like a entrance ticket or a toilet ticket.. with QR code probably.
Did your brother own a vault. or a desk he was working at ?
Once you obtain the harddrive, you can ask a professional or someone you trust to look after these files..

If you need any help with recovering the files, or have any questions.

It is sad to say that cryptocurrency is not bound by law. Since your brother died unexpectedly and discovered that he invested in bitcoins, there is no law that is saying that it can be transferred to his loved ones. The only way access his wallet is its private key. You cannot blame your brother if he keeps the private key in a safe place because once it is stolen, everything can be withdrawn that is why it is really advised to keep it in a safe place. You can find it in your brother's stuff, just look for it.

Sorry to hear about you brother.  My condolances! As mentioned before try to search his harddrives, phone and look if there are any usbsticks. You could also check mail if you have that credentails to search.

It's saddening, but it's true that there's no way you can get your brother's btc anymore. Crypto-assets like btc is unregulated and decentralized, meaning, your brother alone owns it and have the full control over it, unless he have shared its private key to anyone, which you just noted that he didn't. So it'll be forever there in the blockchain; no one will benefit from it nor get it. So may this be a lesson to everybody to secure your crypto-assets before you die. Death is an inevitable and unpredictable thing. If you want your loved ones to benefit from your hard-earned money online, you can entrust your private keys to a reliable member of your family, just in case something happens to you.

You are all assuming her brother was storing the bitcoins on a software wallet. But it could be stored on a web-based wallet, hardware or smartphone app, or even a paper. Or he may have used/sold long ago. This is a lot of places to search for. She should start by checking everything related to his activities. His computer, email, passwords, and so on.

Mariejose2018, sorry for your brother  :'(

Some of the reply got me ideas by which the word in the field information technology that is "hacking". If got the ideas of small information that could let you know what wallet did he use for the bitcoins safet you could have a chance in which if watch some movies be that person.

1. Yes, like others said look into his things,
2. If you could do find something like a notebook which he could write informations that he could put something and make it sure that it is out of somebody else hand, get that notebook.
3. Yes, go to his laptop of cellphone which he can contain history in the web browser that he is using. Also ofcourse his laptop maybe has an password ask someone to by pass it if you do not know the password.

And also if you fail to make and find the things we have told you this work you will not get your bitcoin.

PS: If you got the bitcoin why not study cryptocurrency and save tgat bitcoin there was a sign that bitcoin value is going up why not be like your brother.

How do you know this? is there one of your brother friends who knows that he have bitcoin? Make sure first that your brother has bitcoin before, after that you can try to get bitcoin your brother back, even though it will be difficult. Usually people who are new to bitcoin then they buy bitcoin they will store everything about their wallet will be stored on the PC or on his smartphone.

In case if he bought bitcoin at the early stages then he might not save it properly because at that time the bitcoin was very cheaper and no one thought it could reach this level.But it is important to know how OP knows he got the bitcoins then only we may get some suggestions that actually works.But if you can't find any credentials for login then it will be untouched forever.

Deep condolences for your brother!😢

I would be shocked if his brother didn't have any sort of password protection.  The fact that he might have ran a node doesn't matter unless you can log into his computer, run his wallet, and know the password OR know the mneumonic seed...

But if I had to take a wild guess, he probably bought coins from coinbase and had it on the exchange and never had a wallet.  So maybe check and see if you find any passwords associated to any exchanges.  If not, you have more of a shot getting the coins back if on an exchange like coinbase if you explain the situation by talking to their customer service

Where did you get that information from?

I'm not going to repeat what a lot of others have said in this thread already but chances are real if those coins were indeed bought early on he might have sold them again sometime in the past. A lot of early adapters sold coins from a long time ago so you might be chasing something which isn't there anymore. 

One thing you can do is to get the passwords from his web browser and try to open the wallet with those passwords. This is not a 100% working method, but if you have luck then he use the same password for some things.

Other thing to do is to take a look to his important files, some people store paper wallets in a printed sheet, if that's the case then you can import the wallet and take the btc.

Hope this tips helps ;) and i'm sorry for your brother always a family miss brings pain  :'(

Web browser is a good idea as most of them have setting saved in their own computer browser so that they can easily login the wallet. Apart from that you can check his computer fully and some of his daily activity area also should be checked, as you can find some information of his work on crypto currency.

The lawyer you want to hire is not able to give you the lost bitcoins - in this he is Powerless. Legal is what he can give you. You can own his fortune if he had no heirs, family, and children.
But even if you will rightfully belong to his bought bitcoins-without a secret key to his wallet, you will never get them no matter what you do! The probability of hacking a bitcoin wallet is very small and it is simply unrealistic, so you need to try hard to find its private keys and records.

Its a challenging situation if he is the type that keeps stuff secretly. If you access it you should be able identify if it is exchange address or online wallet. If he is a trader might have invested in some ICO or buy some coin from the market. In your search you need to get familiar with the crypto world to understand what you are looking for and how to recognize it.

Ask a trusted family member about if you have had no luck with it.

This is the disadvantage of keeping your own coins on your own wallet verse keeping it on an exchange. I still believe exchanges serve a purpose, despite "not owning" them. But the same can be said about owning stocks or bonds, at the end of the day it's an IOU.

keeping the coins in your own wallet is also an advantage when you are alive as no one can get those from you unless they know your password/privatekey. there are coins i kept on exchanges and there are also that stayed on my wallet. its best to just give at least something for those people you left when anything can happen to you.