Bitcoin Forum

This thought have been bothering me for a while and I feel we can discuss it here. Many people that are building their Bitcoin portfolio are doing it to also save for the coming generation. However, how this wealth will be transferred to the heirs and the next generation and how this wealth will be preserved without being lost or causing problems still remain unclear.

I understand for other tangible assets, a WILL can be written to be revealed when the time is right. But for Bitcoin, I don't know how this can be done as it may require revealing the secrete codes of the wallets or storage device. Is there any other way this can be done?

My thought was captured in my comment in this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5132720.msg62676103#msg62676103) but I felt to raise a topic for most discussion. In case this topic have been discussed, I will be glad to be pointed to the thread.

If you want your heirs to have access to your bitcoin only after your death without you having to reveal your private keys (or seed phrase), you can follow the guide provided by LoyceV.
Using Locktime for inheritance planning, backups or gifts (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5180850.0)

You just said a will can be written, WILL contains everything you have, properties, money and so on, if money can be included why not Bitcoin? Anything can be WILL to your offspring.

You don't have to hide your involvement with Bitcoin from your children and wait till you are no more around before they know, teach them about Bitcoin while you are still here and pass them the Bitcoins you want them to have, there are ways you can get this done, I believe we have discussed something like this on this forum.

If your kinds are still very young, wait for them to get to a certain age, you have a wife? Teach her if you trust her, you have to do so because you don't know when your time will be up, if you are not around anymore she will get things done and fulfill your desire.

Get your kids hardware wallets each and send any amount, for example 1 BTC each or lower.

Lawyers can get this done, so is your spouse if you are scared of Death 😁😁

Hmm, interesting well, as you should know the key is to access the assets, and that key cant be shared if you want security. If you've lost the key or anyone doesn't have it he cant access the Bitcoins in the wallet. So you need to pass the key but there is a huge risk haha, as I had mentioned already if anyone has the key he can withdraw all the funds. More interestingly haha in reality people store Bitcoins for their hiers. I use to keep my keys mostly in a place and few of my family members know where. As you know haha Death is the reality and it can be on the head anytime.

Thanks for sharing the link. I will have to study the process carefully as it look so technical. Maybe others can give alternatives suggestions or recommendations.

You have idea how a Bitcoin will can be written without adding the private keys? If no, who can you trust to have access to the wallet and not tamper with the funds?


Death is inevitable and even though we are not afraid of it, you have to prepare for it 😁😁.

Knowing fully that bitcoin is not stored on the wallet we make use of, it is stored permanently on the blockchain, what is needed to have an access to this bitcoin is the unblocking keys needed to decoded the encoded coins on the blockchain through the wallet, that is why we need to have the private keys or the seed seed phrase to have access to the bitcoin on the blockchain, someone like me may hand over the keys to my children if i want an inheritance for them, there's a bitcoin timelock device as well which we can use, some may also finds a means of passing the last key or seed of their wallet to their children through a different sources or written down and archived.

Anyone who bothered visiting the link shared here, will understand why BTC is the future of money. The vision is clear, but one must not fail to keep the private keys safe, because it's 'not your keys, not your coins.'
Also, a good offline wallet should be used for those who already have the knowledge, expertise or resources of a merchant trader.

I know the rates, or market trends  or halving may affect ones capital investment to HODL for the future, let's say 5-7 years or even longer. The surety of BTC wealth being a substantial amount upon withdrawal or passing it over to the next generation/heirs, is one that stands guaranteed.

But I do believe that there would be more husbands or men would be trusting up their lawyers on storing up their funds or having that will rather than on trusting their wives.  :D
Even myself cant really be just that too confident on sharing up my wallets private keys into my wife specially i have saving up in secret and i dont really like for these funds for it to be accessed on the right time.
Not really that on being too selfish but i cant really just that able to freely them able to access my wallet on which these funds been saving up on the right time that they would be able to benefit.
I cant really just that be too confident for now but time will come that it would really be that come in to use. We are all afraid of death and it is really just that right that we should really be making out
those back up plans so that the coins that we are trying to save wont really be coming into waste and this is why its always been ideal on what are the ways that you would really be making use of.

Whether you would really be including it on some will or those recommendations using up LoyceV's suggestion which it isnt really that bad either.

Yeah, anything can be WILL to your offspring, but adding bitcoin demands that you have a certain degree of trust and understanding with the lawyer managing your WILL
Your bitcoin assets are under the jurisdiction of anyone who knows your bitcoin wallet's seed phrase. Anytime he wants, he may exchange it.

What I would do if I were to include bitcoin to the WILL of my offspring, is to purchase a hardware wallet, give it to the lawyer, and give my children access to the hardware wallet's password. My children should meet the lawyer whenever I am no longer alive because I will specify in the WILL how the bitcoin in the hardware wallet is to be shared

Leaving bitcoins to heirs may sound scary, but with the right education, it doesn't have to be. Most adults haven't established an estate plan. It didn't even occur to them to protect their bitcoins and leave them to heirs. You can enter where your Bitcoin backups are stored. You can write that your Bitcoin keys are stored in a family safety deposit box.  Now, this information will not be helpful to strangers or hackers. They will have no idea what the keys are, or where your family safety deposit box is or how to get into it. But a trusted family member will tell this information. That way, you can have peace of mind knowing your bitcoins will be found by the right person.

Well, let's say you have 6 Bitcoins in your Wallet and you also have 3 kids, so perhaps you wish to give 2 bitcoins to each of your children. When you feel you are getting older, and by then your children might have also come of age, you can discuss with them how you want to will 2 bitcoins to each of them, but they can only access them (the Bitcoins) when you have passed on. Then, you can have your private key or wallet phrase divided into four different places and hidden in four different locations (the fourth location is where you will hide the hardware wallet and the last phrase or last key to access the wallet) . then inform each of your kids about the location where he or she can find a piece of the private key, so that when you have finally passed on, the three kids can come together with each piece of the private key so they can combine it together before they can be able to access the location where you have hidden the hardware wallet and the last key to unlock the wallet.


Sometimes, human beings can just feel biassed and do otherwise when the willer has passed on. I remember a movie where a rich man willed his property to his children, but after the man passed away, the wife connived with the law and made the lawyer have some properties willed to her, and the lawyer also took some shares in the property. Some people can be trusted, but In your absence, they can just go against your will.

Willing your bitcoin to your kids need trust from the third party that will do this when you pass on. As human,we know those that we trust and can put them in charge of the will. If my wife is sincere and I have confidence in her that she will do anything to take proper care of my kids when am gone. I will teach her about bitcoin and how to make transaction with bitcoin and the safety of the wallet,and I will instruct her on what to do. If my lawyer is the most trusted person, I will also tell him how he can go with giving my children their inherited bitcoin. The best way is if your kids are grown up,teach them everything they need to know about bitcoin and when the time for your departure comes,you can just give them the seed phrase for them to import it to their own wallet.

Well, it is actually very easy to do this on your own. You can put the secret passphrases and/or Private keys in a time capsule and bury or hide it in a place that only your family members will be able to find it.

Then you leave clues to your treasure with someone you trust or a lawyer (break it up in 2 or 3 templates that can only work if all parts fit together) Once you are gone.... they can get the pieces together and solve the quest to find your coins. (The clues must be something that more than 3 people would be able to know about you)

A lawyer only has one part of the template and the other people only their pieces... so they cannot do anything without the full treasure map.  ;)

I am the complete opposite of you, I will always trust my loved ones more than any outsiders including the law enforcement.  as a human being, everyone will have greed, so I would rather trust my loved ones because they come into contact with me every day, I have no reason to trust people who are working with me for money.  to keep a secret as sensitive as the seed phrase, I think it would be better to choose our loved ones than those who are working for money, they can sell us out at any time.

Strangely, there are couples who eat and sleep together, swear to live and die together before the gods, but only because of bitcoin, they doubt each other.  i have a feeling those people are valuing bitcoin and money more than their spouses and children.

This is a great suggestion and seems feasible. But then, are there no chances that someone can bypass the password of the hardware wallet? If no, then I guess this is a great way to go about it.


This is feasible but leaves huge chances for compromise. In the course of unraveling the the puzzle, what is supposed to be a secret may end up not being a secret anymore because chances are there that some of the children might seek for help in some of the steps. All the same, the idea is good but I feel it need a little fine-tuning.

make a multisig of X+1 surviving relatives..
EG if you have a wife and 2 kids = 3 surviving relatives. have a 4 of 4 multisig

you keep 1 key secret which goes into a will and give other 3 to your family upfront.
they can only unlock at the reading of the will to complete the key set. and the lawyer with access to only one key cant steal the funds alone

Using time lock transaction can be an option, but the simple way is you need to teach your love or child about Bitcoin, how to use it and the seed phrase you leave. So in case they need it, they can directly access your wallet by importing the seed phrase you leaved in secret place.

You shouldn't feel worried if your love and children know your seed phrase and total money you have, it's not really different with using time lock transaction where all of your money is belong to someone.

You have posted a very nice thread, and it's true that most people are holding Bitcoin for their next generation and they really can't tell the secret of their holdings to anyone currently because most of them are planning to hold Bitcoin till 2050's before letting their next generation know about the investment their parents have made to secure their children's future. There can be many things done to protect those Bitcoin and transfer it to the next generation upon need.

It would still be difficult to transfer the Bitcoin to your next generation in its current state and that's why you must have to have someone else on your side who might also know about your investment and would never ever tell anyone about it or misuse it in anyway. It would be hard to trust the lawyers with the private keys of your wallets because they can access and transfer those coins and may change easily change the will details.

The proper way should be to tell your heirs about your Bitcoin investment and also tell them that you have hidden the private key somewhere in the home which they will have to find after your death. I know that such thing seems crazy, but if you can't share the private key the way it is then you will have to share it in this way. You should also leave hints and clues about the place where you have stored your private keys, and it would be better to tell your children about the passwords of the devices where you have stored your private keys, but you should hide the devices from them and would tell them to access it only if suddenly something happens to you. I think this is the only possible way to share details of your investment with your children, and I would also recommend you to avoid telling them about the amount of Bitcoins that you have been holding for their better future.

New generation will probably waste the money buying cars and a lot of things instead of investing, if your going to put that in your last will if that is a large amount of bitcoin, there should be clause and a thing they need to accomplish before receiving it, you also have to find an attorney who is really trust worthy, in a safety deposit box perhaps they will only open it in a certain year like when they reach 38 or 40 years of age.

I believe that the goal of this bitcoin inheritance thing is to avoid the third party involvement like a lawyer, bitcoin has a trustless mechanism so no other party is required in doing the inheritance. At the end of the day it is still the decision of successor on what he/she will do about the bitcoin he recieve. For sure he will be forced to learn atleaat the basic of crypto for him/her to access the inheritance.

There are many services that are concerned with the issue of inheritance, even some of them are decentralized services such as Mixin Safe (Decentralized Multisig+MPC+Timelock solution) and all of them are basically based on the idea of Multisig and Timelock so from a technological point of view, you already have decentralized and centralized services (such as ledger recovery has a feature The presence of a third party or several parties that can access your currencies if something happens to you.)
And even if you do not use these solutions, all you need is to trust the heirs and give them access to your key, or create a multi-signature wallet and leave some expectations in a subscriber's locker that they only have access to by more than 50% of their number.

The secrete codes need not be revealed in your WILL since you can just inherit the information to bank lockers, House, properties, other type of lockers and much more. Now you can simply have these private keys safely written or embossed on something that can be safely kept in those lockers.

I don’t think it is very big deal. The banks are not gonna open your chest, neither there will be any issues with the lawyer as they are also bound by confidentiality agreements. Problem solved!

It depends on each person's method. They can hire a lawyer to make a will for the next generation and leave Bitcoin with someone they trust to give it to the next generation.

Or they can also directly share it with all their children with a fair share so that no one is jealous. But before that, they must teach their children how to use Bitcoin properly and correctly. So that is the last gift their parents give their children in the hope that their children can continue what their parents have done.

Many more ways can be done to pass on the Bitcoin that we have to our children. And it depends on someone's creativity because we have different ways.

Technically, they wouldn't be able to access your bitcoin wealth if they do not know the seed phrases, unless the software where you run it does not shut down in their lifetime – a scenario which, if we think about it, is highly unlikely. The device (such as a phone) that you use to access your wallet will not last forever. Once the device dies, there's no way for them to reopen your wallet account as they would not have the seed phrases. This is why I believe that giving the seed phrases to your heirs is a crucial requirement for transferring your bitcoin wealth to them. Currently, the process doesn't involve complex steps like those needed for tangible assets, making it relatively straightforward.

Edit:
Just learned something new: you can set up a multi-sig wallet that they can access when you're no longer around. Multisig wallet transactions require multiple signatures before they can be approved. You'll need to ask other people to sign it for your heirs. So, once you're gone, they can help facilitate the transfer to them. I'm not sure if I explained it well, but I hope someone here who knows more about the technical and legal aspects of this case will share their opinion.

If you're going to pass your Bitcoin or your portfolio to your children, you should first educate them on how Cryptocurrency works, you can rent a safety deposit box from one of the leading banks in your country or buy a good vault the private keys and the seeds should be in a ledger and the instruction to open it should be only by the heirs with all the instructions on it.

But if you have grown up and matured children you should give it to them while they are still alive so you can see what they are going to do with their inheritance many people are already doing that.

Wills are not always in written form, you can choose another way that makes it easier for heirs to access the Wallet containing the Bitcoin that you will inherit to them. One of the best ways to pass on Bitcoin (no form) and difficult to access for people who have never been involved in crypto before, you can make a step by step tutorial on how to access the wallet in the form of a video to make it easier for heirs to receive your inherited property.
Don't ever think that it is difficult for them (heirs) to access a Bitcoin wallet, they live in an age of increasingly sophisticated technology, always integrating with the Internet every day, they will more quickly find information or find this forum to increase their knowledge about Bitcoin.

For sure, human nature is always at play with everything including the execution of will from someone who is now gone to the other life. It would be a travesty of justice if there can be a connivance from the people trusted to do what is right, maybe thinking that since nobody can be checking them anyway then they can do anything that is harmful to the right beneficiaries. That is why it would be so critical to trust people that are really worthy of your trust so that even if you are dead you can be sure that you are not stabbed in the back.

A parent that is ready to leave down his will for his children to inherit his bitcoin should start and begin the process right when they are alive, the children must have the knowledge about what bitcoin is, developed interest in bitcoin and understand what bitcoin is all about and might also be someone who adopt bitcoin, if not what the father would have left will be squandered or stolen away from the children if they have no idea of what bitcoin is which their father left for them.


Having access to bitcoin wallet is very simple as long as there's a provision for the keys required, i know that parents have a secured means they will pass any sensitive information to their children after their demise, such could involve the wife or among the children to have the completed part of the keys required to have access to the bitcoin on the blockchain, but i may not encourage the use of lawyer in this regards.

Trust is a very costly commodity within the bitcoin system and transferring of bitcoin asset to your heir is not same as you would will other types of assets/properties through a written down document  with the benefactor not been able to access those documents until the death of parent's. But with BTC a private key is to be made available to the knowledge of either your lawyer or the benefactor else in sudden death he can't have access to the bitcoin, and that is where the private keys needs to be given to someone who you truly trust because with his knowledge of the private keys he can always have access to the assets wether you're dead or still alive, leaving you with the risk of him hijacking  it if he so wish.

Transfer bitcoin to an heir the process can be very complicated it's only an issue if trust that can make it look fairly less risky. That's why we need to have children that are brought up under a moral standard of training so they don't have to abuse responsibility when given, cause for a parent to make open his bitcoin wallet private key to his child or children he is invariably placing a responsibility on them waiting for when he might pass on for them to now completely gain full accessibility to the wealth.

Well there's the traditional way of having a will but it's understandable that a third-party is involved if you have that since you need a lawyer to legalize transferring everything you own to your heir. If you want it to be more private there's paperwallet, your btc will be safe if you can physically hide the paper well and only your heir will be able to get it. It's a smart and subtle way of hiding your possession well.

If you are thinking how can you passed down the wealth you've made with BTC why not introduce Bitcoin to them while you are still alive right? Because my wealth is really for the future for my family so I already have discussed to them in case there might happened to me (of course I wish not), I told them that I have some assets in my portfolio and will tell the step on how they could access it. Plus I would include steps writing in case they might forgot what I taught to them. Much better to teach the adult one like your wife about Bitcoin so she know how to manage the money for your family. Actually I've think having a video like disc would be a good idea and just simply label it, "how you could access my assets (Bitcoin)" then they could watch the step.

I see that this problem is easy if the wealth will be transferred to someone you trust, be it your wife or your children, but what will happen if you have several children and these children are different among themselves? Inevitably, a multi-signature address must be created, but then some may refrain from signing the transaction in order to They harm others, and then some of your children may not be able to obtain their inheritance, even a court ruling will not be able to force them. They can say they lost the private keys in a boating accident and then, after several years, say they have found them.

A person who has a lot of bitcoins in his wallet and desires to transfer it to his kids when his dies would first of all know that it is not something that should be taken with leisurely. The person's kids have to be on the same page him on bitcoin and crypto related issues. The choice to reveal the key should be left to the family lawyer and there are many ways this can be achieved.

Any kid who is not should have the option of picking another asset maybe a property or business. If the man knows his kids well, this shouldn't be any issues at all.

That is why when you have to let one person who is trusted in your family to know your seed phrase. And teach the bitcoin how to use wallet and at least buy small unit of bitcoin to to the person for his or her wallet nso the person can learn from there. Just teach him her he to use his own wallet and tell him to keep hodle for sometime then when the price goes up a little bit then tell him to sell and see it he can do that. Learning is a little by little.

There's still a possibility of someone losing their assets in such a situation. Maybe for not-so-large bitcoin assets. The risks drastically increases if huge amount is involved and maybe the person who placed the bitcoin assets in the care of the bank dies. They can just take the seed and remove the assets and never inform the designated inheritance personnel because Bitcoin takes away trust from the system but you're still putting trust and hoping the bank and lawyer will be honest in their dealings. This is very much possible in a centralized world. They can just claim the private key details might have been leaked elsewhere.

So the problem is not solved. A lot could still go wrong.

This juggled up on my thoughts but I didn’t know how to put them and somehow, you laid it out just great.
I recently have a run with a Multisig while doing a review on Mixin Safe and I don’t see how one wouldn’t get to be safe with the idea but, a question awakes within my thoughts though.

Having to assign them keys to X - participants and leaving one in a will seems like an excellent idea.

Yet again, from my experience with the Multisig conducted review, it states that once two of the keys could be used in signing, there could be access to the coins and if that be the case, how do you go about preventing your wards or spouse from making some arrangement to access them coins before the time is right?

I saw somebody say something funny once. A guy online said put your private keys in safe, bolted to concrete floor inside your home. Tell your family where it is but not the code to the safe. You can tattoo that on your ass or something or on the inside of your upper thigh. No dependents are ever going to find that until you’re dead. Tell them where the code is & they can get it when it’s time.

If you're doing the will thing, can't you include the passphrase into it? I think in some countries any will counts, and in that case it shouldn't be an issue. If you're in a country where a will has to be certified by a notary to count, I can see why a person can be reluctant to write the passphrase down for another person to see and potentially copy. Locktime can be good, and in some cases you can simply share access with the person you trust and want to have this money in an event of your death.

Why you need to care about this kind problem, it's all about trust and this is the risk of entrust your Bitcoins to someone else.

If your wards or spouse access your coins before the right time, there's nothing different whtn they access your coins in the right time, they can do anything with the Bitcoins. If you're not willing to give your wealth as an inheritance for your child or your love, you shouldn't give your coins and let it gone like people who lose their seed phrase.

Am not sure you entirely get it though, it’s not about having to entrust anyone with your bitcoin, no, not at all, you ain’t giving them the keys or seed phrases for safe keeping of your coins (that’s what entrust sounds like to me). It’s about leaving them your keys or seed phrase to have that access when your no more or have no further use of them as an inheritance and yeah, trust might be overly about everything as, there could amount situations in a persons life and that which could be due to some disagreements that could change a person to take actions not thought about and I say this with respect to haven’t given your keys to divorced wife/husband or rogued child. If an alliance could form against you and the case is, assembling 2 keys could unlock wallet, your done.

I think not! I think there is a lot of difference in having to access a property scheduled to be inherited before the appointed time. That’s why, there is a will in a persons life as, most life taking incident comes at a time when you aren’t expecting and your strength fails you to give those last few words. The will sums it up to make sure there isn’t any conflict and everyone considered gets their fair share of the left behind.

With that in mind;
Creating the Multisig for the parties is just one way of ensuring it doesn’t get lost like the many coins out there without any access. Yeah, you’ve decided that these coins be used at an eventuality but at the time of your continual existence when it’s still of use to you, it doesn’t have to be touched. You could be using it in trades or still piling the portfolio. That’s where the timing to it becomes important.

Provide your keys in a will. Could always do a multisig as well where the will only has one part of what you need to access the coins, so nobody can get it just by looking at the will, and your family members have other parts of the multisig but not enough to get the coins without the will so they can't access them until the will is presented.

Or provide a partial key in the will and your family already has the other part of the key so they just have to put them together when the person dies.

I believe you can also make a transaction so that after a certain amount of time they coins in the address, if they are still there, get transferred to another given address. You give your family this other address, of course then the coins would officially pass to them whenever that time is up, not at the person's death, so it could be before or after the death.



But I bet every year some bitcoin is lost to owners dying, and I'm sure this will continue in the future, as probably most people aren't setting up how they will transfer their bitcoin unless they are old or sick. For example if I died my family would have no access to my bitcoin (something my mom likes to bring up as a reason why I should give her my keys haha, in her scenario she would spend all my bitcoin on doctors and medical procedures if something happened to me so that I would wake up broke lol).

This is more like it. Well, it seems there is no way around this without integrating latest technology.  So far, your suggestion is great and I will think in that direction. Much appreciated.

Don't you think giving the heirs early might defeat the purpose? Besides, the heirs might not really have a need for it when one is still alive. I feel the best would be to adopt the multi-signature wallet.

That's probably a good way to go about it. No one in the world can be trusted these days, even the closest people to you can deceive you any time when it comes to money because money is everything for everyone these days. So if you don't trust your lawyer, which you shouldn't, you should simply buy a hardware wallet, store the Bitcoins in it, give the wallet to the lawyer, and give the password to the children to keep it somewhere safe as it's important.

Also, tell your children that your lawyer has something with the will which is a device that you guys should get when I'm no more and that device can be unlocked with the password given to you earlier. Any other detail that you want them to know which isn't confidential should be written in the will.

A will ensures the legal transfer of your assets to the people you want to have them after you die. Without a will, things would follow the official succession, which are probably your children or parents if you don't have any children. While a will only makes sure to transfer assets in a legal sense, it also needs the physical transfer of all the assets. It's good to add the main contents of your crypto portfolio to your will, so your beneficiary knows exactly what he needs to look for when looking for the crypto coins. In case you hide your private keys in remote places it might be hard or even impossible for people to find it, that is why I would maybe think about collecting all important things and put them in a bank vault. In my regional bank it's not really expensive to have a small vault and I added my crypto wallet information together with other things. The main reason for that vault was that I have some physical gold and some old coins which I don't want to keep at home. Adding my crypto details to that list was a save way to store everything in one place and if something happens to me, my family can easily find all the things. So in the end it’s a trade-off between security of our private keys and making sure that our family is going to find everything once we are gone.

A will is a good idea but for storing the bitcoins for long-term inheritance planning, you should use Mixin Safe with a hardware wallet: https://safe.mixin.zone

The good thing about this is that they don't have full custody over your crypto assets (like Bitcoin), but it's a 2-of-3 multisig where you own two of the three keys (with a timelock in case the owner of the keys dies or something, I guess).

i think you should use hardware wallet and involve in inheritance of bitcoin assets. This is truly a smart and secure way to ensure that your assets are reliably passed on to the next generation. Working with an attorney to define future digital asset access and management is an important step in ensuring transparency and compliance with your wishes. As you have suggested, providing access to hardware wallet passwords to your children through an attorney is a practical way to ensure that your assets will be kept and used in accordance with their wishes. Friend. This certainly shows the care and smart contingency plan for the future management of digital assets.

Only that is indeed a way to pass on assets to heirs when we are gone, but I do things a little differently, not only giving keys but also providing understanding and knowledge about the Bitcoin investments that I have done, I hope they will have the same goal as me and one day they will be able to continue what I have been doing.
I can because my family members have grown up, and I think they deserve it.

The private key/Seed phrase needs to be properly guarded if it needs to be stored in the safest place like most people store other valuables. Losing the private key will close access to opening the wallet, nothing can be retrieved when the private key is lost. Educating heirs also needs to be done as early learning or introducing Bitcoin to them earlier than expected.
The understanding and knowledge about Bitcoin investment that is obtained from people they believe is more easily accepted than that taught by others, we can explain to them the uses and advantages of Bitcoin. Showing transaction history to them is also needed to increase their interest in learning about Bitcoin investment, heirs need to be given an understanding so they can cash out assets when something happens to us.

I like how you emphasized sharing the knowledge and ensuring they have information about Bitcoin. Granted that you will be able to pass down your Bitcoin assets to your heir, it will all amount to nothing if they do not know how it works and how to make the best use of it. It will be wasted and all the hard-work you did for btc will be nothing to them if you do not share your knowledge as well.

Its recommendable but there are certain individuals which would really be having doubts on sharing up their wallets private keys while they are still living on the sense that they would really be able to have access on the time

that he/she would be deciding on telling them about those keys which it might really be that a selfish act but its totally true that not everyone would really be that confident on telling them so. Even myself havent decided on telling my wife about my wallets PK but in overall sense then it would really be just that right that you should really be telling them about the basic principles of crypto on how things works and how things to be retreived.
So the solution in my part would really be storing up instructions on my pc and the PK is located on a certain hard drive or usb or whatever offline things you could really be able to put on.
Once they do have that kind of awareness or knowledge, then accessing those coins wont really be that much of a problem.

Wealth can and should also be in the form of knowledge. Plan on how your heirs and next of kin should have knowledge about bitcoins and know the benefits, so that asides just leaving them with bitcoins, there will also be the knowledge which cannot be exhausted that you have left and shared with them. It will no longer be your problem how your heirs decide to spend or use whatever they get from you since you will be dead, but at least letting them know the importance of what you have left them because of the knowledge they have will help them make better decisions about what has been left for them. 

It is not only important that they know how essential what they have been left is, but it is also important to instill in them how to make sure that this does not end and continue to grow, since normally parents leave everything they have in their hand accomplished of their children and do not consider if they have had the necessary education to take this responsibility that would allow them to continue with a stable life, so they end up wasting and being in ruins after a certain time, for the simple fact that they not  were teach how to manage financially, it is for this reason that before thinking about leaving them an inheritance as significant as bitcoins would be, it is best that you integrate your children into this world and teach them why it is so important to continue working so that these assets can bring them benefits in their future, and this can be done by giving them the opportunity to generate their own earnings.

This is why its better not to focus yourself on single point in terms of investment but its not bad to include Bitcoin into your lists of assets or investment on which that our children are the ones
who would really be able to benefit out. We know that it isnt something that simple or easy since not all parents would be having the capable on doing multiple investments and sources on which they could really be able to left those things behind when they passed away. Its true that if you do have plans on passing your coin posessions on the time that you do pass away then making it sure to be on a will or something that would really be telling them about on how to access those coins in the right time. Its always been that preferable that you should really be that telling them or explaining to them
on what it is so that on the time comes that you are gone, they do know on what they would gonna do.

I have discussed this before with a thread, and there's actually books that are written that specifically address how to pass bitcoin/cryptocurrency when you die.  The truth is most people aren't going to prepare themselves and will end of never passing their bitcoin to anyone, so don't be that person, and create a will with special instructions to your beneficiaries so that your hard earned bitcoin doesn't go to void.

I agree with you. The reality is that some of us will either not even bother doing the suggested steps to ensure that our heirs will have the bitcoin we worked hard for or will not have enough time to do so. Dead comes unexpectedly for most of us and therefore we cannot blame those who were not ready and do not have a will or a note that states who will have who. However, seeing as many have replied to this post, it shows that we are aware that such scenario will happen, and thus it should push us to prepare as early as now.

Well, you have spoken well but from what I could derived from op statement writing a WILL in form of bitcoin phrase and  hand it over to your lawyer or his lawyer is something unimaginable, why because those asset being bitcoin can be stolen by even your lawyer or your wife without knowing since bitcoin address doesn't show or displays recipient name. To say it's your lawyer or your wife, unlike other WILL's that is being controlled by Third party (Money is easily to managed and WILL to their kinds, which involved the bank and your Lawyer and your wife) So, there is no way bank could initiate any transaction without your wife, your lawyer to take records of all every that is happening. Bitcoin can be easily stolen, lemme just break it down without any hidden truth.

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Do you know if op is already 70 years and his kids are still tender in a way they can't handle bitcoin transaction or they don't have the knowledge of bitcoin. Naturally the best is to teach just as you already said but what in a way those kids can't manage funds properly and this keys (Phrase) are being handed to them how do you think those sets of kid can be able to manage those funds and can they secure their phrase properly because including Third Party is putting funds at a very high risk to say.

What about spouse?
Yes, there are some wife who doesn't care and they always wants their share and sometimes they alway create issues haven known that the man is super wealthy, they could file for a deviors in order for them to have their wealth. My question is, do you still care about such wife giving her your phrase to store for your kids?

The answer is simply No because such person is only wanting to have all control of your assets to her way, what about including a family relatives, I think is another huge problems because the death doesn't speak after laying like a log of wood, and you wouldn't know how those funds are being managed at your absence.
So the best is just to keep eyes on your children for them have the basic knowledge and then come up age that is the only way possible.

People put on a show to regulate the unavoidable chaos of life and death. Think about it: Human history has seen us evolve from hunters to farmers to computer scientists. After the fact, we're protecting our digital assets? So cute!

A bank's safe? How come? Maintaining physical copies of digital asset keys? Writing an email on a stone pad. Banks are what crypto seeks to avoid. Giving them our digital keys is ironic, if not dumb. Work on ways for our loved ones to get to our things when the inevitable happens instead of a bank vault. Modern means coming up with fresh ideas and updating our thinking. However, secure your gold coins with your ledger. Its oddly gorgeous.

One way to access a Bitcoin wallet is to include private keys or seed phrases, without private keys or seed phrases you can never access a wallet. Writing a will containing the wallet address and private keys or seed phrases is then equipped with simple directions to open the wallet and step by step the process of disbursing it into fiat is very difficult to understand if the beneficiary is not equipped with knowledge about Bitcoin.

In my opinion, the simplest way to inherit Bitcoin is by making a short video containing a simple explanation of how to cash out an inheritance in Bitcoin. This way will be more easily absorbed in the recipient's brain than writing in a will.

You just need a trusted person to do the job for you so that once your gone he can distribute your bitcoin wealth to your successor.

Or maybe you can hire an attorney and write a last will and testament about your wealth since for sure with this you can assure that your BTC funds will equally distributed according to what you write on documents handle by your attorney. This maybe bit technical but for sure you can successfully pass your wealth to anyone if you think about selecting those people who can do the job for you.

BTC-community is waiting for the recognition and acceptance of bitcoin, which in turn will entail legal regulation. It is likely that in most countries BTC will be treated as property or an investment asset, like securities. Accordingly, it will be possible to leave a will or testament at bitcoin. So far, the legal basis for this has not been created, but I am absolutely sure that if the governments of countries officially recognize btc, then laws will appear that allow leaving it as a legacy. How exactly this will be implemented is not yet clear, because there is no precedent yet, but it is this that will push for the distribution of the will.

The Bitcoin communities nowadays are significantly bigger than years ago. Each market cycle, each bull run, Bitcoin is more noisy on social media so that it becomes more popular and successfully attracts new people to Bitcoin communities.

I believe we will witness it again with 2024 halving and 2024 - 2025 bull run.

Treating Bitcoin as a commodity, a security, accepting it as legal tender or does not accept it as legal tender, it's fine enough for locals to use bitcoin for transactions. Even laws and governments have yet officially protected Bitcoin investors in some nations, if they have yet prohibited it, you have no legal issues by holding bitcoin or using it.

My belief is Bitcoin will be accepted more in legal aspect and the trend in legality will be better for Bitcoin communities globally. Stay positive and get rid of worry about legal regulations against Bitcoin. Locally there might be some barriers even very serious but globally the picture is better.

TBH, I don't know how investors who doesn't have any people to trust their assets with when they die will give their Bitcoin, and other assets to their heirs. I guess I'm lucky that I know a person whom I can trust my assets with if the worst thing happens, and I die.

Having a person or people where you can trust with is the best solution for this. The problem is, there might be a chance that the one who you trust right now will be the ones that will backstab you, making them a traitor, and has a chance to steal your assets. The chances are low, but it isn't zero right. :D Anyway, trusting a relative, or in this care an heir is very hard thing to do. Maybe just putting it in a hardware wallet, then teaching them how to access it is the best way. Of course you will only give them the wallet when you die, or at least you feel that you will be. In that way, it would be better than just forgetting those Bitcoins.

Transferring assets to heirs is not entirely about trust issues. It so happens that life is unpredictable and one cannot really say when the time is up to leave this word. The reason people device means of transferring assets is to ensure the right people have access to the assets when they are gone.

You might not hand over your assets when you are alive and active unless it is a partial handover and not complete handover. I know some people do this but the chances of handing over everything including your passwords  and secret phrases to your heirs, when you are still alive, is very slim hence, the need to work out motherlities this can be done efficiently.

The best way to transfer wealth to the next generation comes in two different aspects but both operate together and these two fundamental aspects, tools to effectively transfer tour Bitcoin assets to the next generation and this are:

1: disclosure of your wallet balance and transfer of wallet private recovery keys to the next of kin.
2: giving the one that wants to inherit the assets the basic knowledge of cryptocurrency and how to secure their assets guiding their self against any possible attack by maintaining high privacy.

Just like i said above, the only way to transfer Bitcoin holdings is by giving up the private keys to the wallet and in doing that one need to take into accounts some other underlying factors that can expose your privacy and security of the account.


This is the more reason one need to build a food basic knowledge of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies  in the life of those around tou in that way you don't necessarily need to spend too much time or risk too much in attempting to transfer the wealth to your next generation since they already know the way to handle themselves.
;D Well thought out mate and nice to see that you decide to ask such here since it will help all of us to learn how best to transfer wealth in digital formats.

The general consensus is that you'd need not a tool or a mechanism, but a laid out plan of how you're going to pass down your cryptocurrency wealth to your descendants. And I pretty much have an idea of such.

You have to first ensure that you're using a cold wallet, like a trezor or a hardware wallet before you die. That ensures that your funds don't accidentally fall victim to hackings or mismanagement if you keep it in exchanges. Once that's settled, keep your trezor wallet/hardware wallet along with the seedphrase/passcode in a single vault. That ensures safety and security, as well as the convenience of knowing what the authentication is. After which, include these assets in your will and testament, along with the shares that your kids will receive in full explicit detail, so no one mistakes/confuses which or who's got the share of who.

Pretty much easy and it does not involve any form of tool that could fail, or mechanism that could turn against its main purpose.

Pretty good the same as what i thought. Although hardware wallets have expiry i mean they wont work after such a long time say 10 years of not/using it, its battery/screen will simply wont work anymore, same as my ledger problems. So including it on your vault will give a hint to anyone who will get it later and the seed phrases.
Or simply let your family lawyer do the work later on..

I find this Codebear post to be a bit of a springboard for my own post in this thread, and I am not sure if I have much to add in light of my having had posted in DdmrDdmr's thread on May 5, 2023. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5284824.msg62200187#msg62200187)

Also I had not yet read Loyce's thread (already mentioned in this thread) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5180850.0) on related topics or fillippone's thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5213462.0).. and maybe I will put those two back on my "to read" list.

I get the sense that the more that I read through these kinds of topics, the more concerned that I get, even though there surely have been some members, in this thread suggesting that the problem is easy to resolve, which surely does not seem to be the case in terms of how much of a dilemma that we end up putting ourselves in regarding how much information to entrust to various people who we might choose to give them information prior to some kind of an instruction sheet that might be in the form of a will at an attorney's office, and we likely realize that we do not necessarily even have to have an attorney holding an instruction sheet, even though they surely are already used to having responsibility over holding sealed envelopes in which the contents are not read until the person had died.. and they tend to take those responsibilities seriously, but sure they could be a point of failure if they read the contents prior to being authorized to do so.

I don't really like some of the ideas of giving hardware wallets and presumably not sharing the back-up seed, which seems quite problematic if there is a hardware failure, as well as my not liking the idea of putting the harware wallet and the seed in the same place.

I do like ideas of dividing up information while hoping that it is not overly complicated because dividing up information may well end up having the information in one location to be destroyed or compromised, but if the information is just 1/3 of a seed then it is more difficult to use the 1/3 as a way to hack, but if they get 2/3 then it could get closer to being able to hack into the wallets.

And, let's not fool ourselves when it comes to how many places that we might hold bitcoins, so there could be several kinds of pieces of information that might be seeds to wallets and then various accounts that we might have and passwords to the accounts, but if the accounts are known and then there is proof of death, then there should be some assumption that coins held in those kinds of places should be recoverable...

so one thing is recovering the coins and then another thing is making sure that they get to the intended recipient, so yeah there could be some easy ways to do that, if you trust the person not to get into their coins prior to your death , then you could instruct them and pass them privately without going through any kind of dividing of keys or separating the instructions from the keys.  

I don't really perceive the lawyer to be a problem in terms of necessarily jeopardizing the keys (if the keys are not actually given to him/her) - but that could be with anyone who we might trust with the instructions but not given the keys.. but maybe someone else might know that the keys are in three parts and where the three locations are .. but then there also might be two or three sets of the three locations. in case any of the locations might get compromised. which does happen.. houses do burn down, bank safety deposits do get raided (banks are destroyed sometimes too)..

I am not going to claim to know any one particular solution, because some of these matters change through time including which wallets/assets that any of us might hold and how easy it might be to update our information pieces that we are passing on, and surely one of the advantage of physical property as compared with digital property would be that the tangible item is not disappearing at the time of our death, even though the gold bar burried in the yard might not be discovered ever or maybe until 1,000 years later... so yeah the digital information may well die at the time of our death whether it is the private keys or the ways that they are put together, and there may be no way to connect the three pieces of paper with the private key if the instructions are lost.

And Codebears disclosure that even his mother might not be a good place to leave keys if there might be some failures of the person holding such keys to exercise good judgement, and surely judgement might be different whether it devolves into the levels of mal-intentions or just incompetence, negligence or merely differences in ways of considering what is reasonable and what is not reasonable.

You have highlighted an important and complex concern regarding seamless transfer and preservation of Bitcoin wealth to the next generations. I think Bitcoin indeed stands out as a promising asset to pass down to our successors. One approach could be to utilize  multi-signature wallets, that require multiple private keys and digital wallets. This procedure involves two or three wallets and private keys to authorize transactions.

It is good to reason in this way when there are no restrictions in the country on the use and storage of Bitcoins. In my country, this case is very bad. The government passed a number of some laws, but did not allow the use of the crypt as legal tender, but people must pay taxes if they have it. How do you like this circumstance? Impressive insanity of managers? Me very. To be honest, I'm already tired of such antics. It's infuriating that these people in power only care about their own pockets.

Until now, they cannot decide how to properly shove the crypt into the legal field. They want to take tax tribute, but people don't care.

This is a very important point, you may be involved with Bitcoin right now but at any moment you may die due to an accident or any other reason, since death is uncertain and can strike at any time so we should always think of alternatives. You should arrange for someone in your family to use my bitcoins in your absence. The best way to pass your bitcoins down to the next generation is to discuss your investments and bitcoins with a trusted family member. Trusted member can be anyone like your wife your son or daughter your brother or sister or your parents you can choose any one of them who can use bitcoin in your absence. Discuss Bitcoin with a certain person first and make them experienced enough about Bitcoin, after doing all this, when you feel that your family member now has a complete understanding of Bitcoin, you share with him the important things about your account. So that he can take over your bitcoins later in your absence.

That is truly the simplest way and the easiest. However, you need to be sure that you can trust your lawyer, and it is very understandable for people to not go that way and answer. First, again, there is the issue of trust especially if it is something that has to do with hard-earned money and long-term investment. Another thing is the insurance that only your chosen heir will get that bitcoin wealth, sometimes the law can be overturned by some technicality and it can be messy to deal with.

Some may not agree that the plan to submit assets such as Bitcoin to the heirs by giving Seed Phrase Wallet and Passcode to the trusted people that we have been saved in the safest storage. If until now it still hasn't given it, just convey the storage area that we save the key that can access Bitcoin by creating special requirements before trusted people access Bitcoin assets like 'Don't Open As long as I'm still alive'.

Or you doubt if you give Seed Phrase to those who are trusted to receive Bitcoin heritage because there is no one in this world that you can trust, so follow the LoyceV guide that has been included by hosseinimr93

Have a will, the will should have the private key to the wallet where your bitcoin are been stored for the benefits of passing it onto your heirs. What I do is to have separate wallets so I have bitcoin that I can spend or sell to reinvest when the market is experience a dump and I also have another wallet that I send in Bitcoin to the wallet occasionally for hodling and I'll pass that wallet to my heirs when I have one, for now I don't have any children but I'll be open to having some in the future.

You have to get a respected lawyer and be willing to trust the lawyer to pass on the will without stealing the bitcoin in the wallets. Use a recognize firm so they won't want to destroy their reputation by stealing one client wealth knowing it'll affect the trust of the firm.

I don't completely agree with you on this as I feel this might create some psychological problems for the heir. For instance, if you have let's say 100BTC and you reveal this to your heir that is a teenager, there is a possibility that you will damage his psychology. Don't forget that there is amount of money a teenager will be exposed to and his character might changed drastically... some might become lazy, proud, arrogant and there are some that might start habits such as drugs and others.
This is the reason some wealthy men only make their children comfortable without exposing them to so much wealth until they are psychologically fortified to handle large amount of money mostly through will or other means of transfer. 

The real problem with BitcoinBTC is that if you share your private key with your near and dear ones like your wife and kids, there are chances that they may misuse the funds and even withdraw them before you die.

On the other hand, if you choose not to share the private key with them, you never know if you die all of sudden like in an accident or heart attack and nobody will know those private keys and hence that bitcoin will be lost forever.

I think, in the future many rich families will become poor when someone in their family dies suddenly without transferring the secret private key to anyone.

I agree with the fact that the major challenges of Bitcoin is in it security and transferability which have lead to a lot of attempt conspiracy,  take the case of Satoshi Nakamoto for instance,  his wallet holdings have remained untouched since his disappearance and if he never return,  those bitcoins become waste and lost forever,  so in other to prevent such occurrence in our individuals live there is a need to put adequate measure in place to checkmate our securities and how best to transfer our Bitcoin to the next generations without causing any harm to both the receiver and you who is the custodial owner.

The risk of the danger of disclosing your private key to another person, vs. the risk of dying without anyone having access to your bitcoins, has been the major worries of many of us.

You don't actually need a lawyer for that because as far as I know, there's common law and banking law that governs these things. Under common law, you don't have to "report" any cash found at home.
Imagine that you live with your mother and she dies. You are the only child and your father is dead or your parents are divorced. Whatever movables were there at home are automatically yours. If she had cash in a safe and you know the combination, it's yours. Nobody is going to ask you how much money, jewelry, or art pieces she had as long as there are no other heirs that can lay claim to these things.

If she had a bank account however, the bank will not grant you access unless you give them a court order.

With bitcoin there's no third party locking you out. If your mother left you private keys, seeds, or wallet passwords, the money is yours.

You are talking about bitcoin transference to your children so there is two things first and most important thing is that there is no surety that how long bitcoin will persist so if your buy bitcoin for the transference of money to your children then no guarantee that at that stage what will be the cost of bitcoin? Will there be any value of bitcoin? people will still believe on bitcoin?

Future is unpredictable and leaving such an expensive thing the value of which is not known and even existence is unknown is something most risky.
The second thing is that is there any individual who you can trust to share your private key with that? If yes then you can but I don't think that in today's age there is such a loyal personality present who will share the message of your money to your children.

I will suggest that buy some property and make some apartment so you can share these assets with your children easily and without any hazards. Every individual has own perception but I think as Compared to bitcoin this idea is better in order to give them profit as well as having less risks.

I don't see the prevention of shared privacy as a problem because everything that has an advantage must have a disadvantage and the moment will totally accept that the moment will have a way or solution to the disadvantage.
Back to the topic, the best way to transfer Bitcoin wealth to heirs first starts by creating an airgap wallet from a clean computer, getting 2 safe deposit boxes in 2 different locations (put the BTC wallet address and wallet backup file in one) and the last thing is having a good and honest lawyer.
Meanwhile, no one should know what the safe deposit box contains.

I think that's a good suggestion just like the mixin safe wallet currently tested out here in the community though it's a beta version but the idea is very unique in terms of passing out bitcoin to the next because the access to send coins will be fixed to as many that will be involved in the inheritance of the coin(bitcoin).  But on still as there is advantage to this means there are still disadvantages to it too.

Initially, I recorded all my crypto wallet information in a physical notebook. My intention is to educate my future generations about cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, ensuring that when they possess sufficient knowledge, they can access and recover the assets I've set aside for them. It seems like the most effective method to pass on my crypto assets to the next generation.

If you can trust your lawyer for thousands of fiat money, why not your thousands ^{(future millions)} worth of bitcoin. Because i'm sure those who have a last will having bitcoin to inherit have also some thousands of fiat money saved in their bank accounts, company, investments, etc. So a family lawyer is a good choice to trust this kind of scenario, since they will get their part of it as well

Personally, I question the extent to which it is necessary to teach your heirs about bitcoin in order for some kind of plan to be made in which they would benefit from your bitcoin.  For example, you could create some kind of a trust and you could also have some person or some kind of an organization that would be in charge of distributions, and you could also have terms within the trust that might involve some of the needs of your various heirs to educate themselves in regards to bitcoin (or any other topic) if you believe that might be a reasonable condition to set upon their receipt of the bitcoin or to receive distributions that might span out over a number of years or even through their whole life, if you might want to set it up in that kind of a way.

Don't get me wrong.  I surely get the sense that it is a good thing to teach your own kids about bitcoin, yet in some sense your kids also have agency in terms of whether or not they are interested in the topic, and for sure many of us would prefer that our kids listen to us and we are able to instill various values with them, including that they learn about bitcoin, but still we likely need to appreciate that there may well be a lot of differences in how any heirs might learn (including some heirs might actually have hostile views to you and to bitcoin, and that is going to be up to you regarding whether you still believe that they might be an heir that is entitled to some if not all of your bitcoin upon your perishing).

I recall participating in one thread (currently locked) questioning if the wife should know your seed phrase. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5430970.msg61563286#msg61563286)

I participated in another thread in which the question regarded whether "your" kids are aware of bitcoin and at what age (or whether) to teach them about bitcoin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5392260.msg62348775#msg62348775).


Your discussion here reminds me of a little (about 27 minutes) video drama (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf97ofTlZhk) that was posted by another forum member (At this time, I cannot remember which member and/or which thread) that has a kind of funny and interesting plot upon which the nerdy (and not very attractive) bitcoiner marries a relatively attractive younger woman, and then he engages in various attempts to teach the wife about bitcoin, which she seems like she did not really understand it and the husband seemed to be using a Trezor with an extra word password, but she understood that he (the husband) had a lot of money, so the wife was having an affair and she and her boyfriend plotted to take the bitcoin from the husband, and I am not sure if they meant to kill him but various tragedies happen along the way including that all of the keys end up getting lost (or not recoverable).. at least that seemed to have had been the way it turned out.. you can watch it for yourself.. From my perspective it doesn't seem to be a bad use of time to watch it (you can even speed it up).


This is likely not 100% correct, but you still make a very decent point about if no one is going to challenge the matter, then there does have to do with potential controversy that comes from anyone who might challenge the matter in terms of either being equal heirs because there is a hierarchy of heirs, so any heir making a claim would likely have to be on the same level.. but states differ in these kinds of property laws and passing down property.. and so your reference to "common law" sort of presumes that the state does not have a specific law on that topic.. .and in that regard, you may or may not be right in regards to the law of any particular state and whether common law applies to that particular jurisdiction... but still it is a good idea for sure.


For sure, I was about to give you merit because your first two points are decently good, but your advice is stupid, lame and evades the questions presented in the thread in terms of an assumption that someone is going to have bitcoin and is going to want to consider various ways of passing down the bitcoin. 

Surely one of the options could be to liquidate the bitcoins at the time of death or to convert them into some other kind of asset, but the dumb thing about presuming that someone who currently has bitcoin should just sell them all to avoid the dilemma seems to be both an ill-thought out idea and not even dealing with the situation as it has already been presented with an assumption that bitcoin currently exists and another assumption that the holder of such coins could die at any second, and has such person actually sufficiently/adequately prepared for such eventuality.. and if not, then what are the various possible ways that such preparations can be made while still living..

...and surely one of the solutions could be to assign someone to the situation and give such person total discretion about what to do, who may or may not end up selling the bitcoin then present.. or another possibility would be to assign someone, but then to tell them what you want done (whether or not they end up following your direction), which also could include instructions that they sell all the then existing bitcoin.


Careful about saying too much about what you are specifically doing in a forum setting or even in other places on the interwebs (including electronic messages and/or e-mails) - especially if it might end up pointing out a single point of failure .. and surely, I understand that we want to attempt to share various possibilities, and maybe we might want to be a bit vague about some of the details, including if we might have some specific points of failure..

By the way, there may be some assumptions that the more things that any of us have going on, there may well be various kinds of needs to write some of those things down, even including that we could end up locking ourselves out of our own bitcoin if either our head gets hit or death of course, and then maybe we might not even remember where we stored what we wrote, so sure there can be advantages to having some of these things written down.. and also that someone might know some of the logistics.. or these instructions are in this location.. but you cannot access that location unless I am dead or irrecoverably disabled (or head injury).... and if the person who knows all of your information perishes in the same accident that you had, then what's your backup plan to that?  or does such a scenario not matter (or it is not likely?) ?

It is a rule of the bank that when we earn money we deposit that money in the bank and after depositing the money someone from my family can access our money in our absence. But in case of Bitcoin there is no such rule, Bitcoin like Bank will not hand over your deposited Bitcoins to any of your family members in your absence who will have to take access to those Bitcoins themselves. Since access to bitcoins is self-administered, you must discuss your digital currency with someone you trust so that you have someone to use your bitcoins in your absence. You know a lot about Bitcoin and you have a lot of investment in Bitcoin but no one in your family knows anything about your investment or they have no idea about Bitcoin then when you die they will consider Bitcoin as a valuable asset but when they  If you give detailed idea about Bitcoin and discuss Bitcoin with them then they will be able to meet their needs through Bitcoin in your absence. So all of us who are investors should discuss Bitcoin with any trusted person and make them experienced about Bitcoin.

Physical jotting down the critical data to these is what is recommended and obtainable but, method of safety is what remains questionable in most cases.

For this reason, the Multisig always seems the best idea or approach towards inheritance of crypto assets.

While the Multisig might seem like a best idea, the parties involved having to know what they’ve got or how to make use of it becomes a problem. It’s ideal that they know how to make use of it except, you don’t want them to ever posses what you’ve left behind. Maybe you don’t get to let them know it’s a Multisig belong to the same wallet, perhaps you promote the idea that, it’s a Multisig belong to different wallets based on what is set aside from each individual to prevent them from attempting to join force at any time and only state it clearly in the will. That could work!

To transfer Bitcoin wealth to heirs and next-generation is very easy by involving  and teaching, also making them to understand it.involving your spouse and children most especially will free you from financial stress even in death you will be happy with yourself because you have taught them how to make wealth. In the aspect of entrusting  your Bitcoin wealth Will to a lawyer not your spouse or children, I don't think is right  because lawyers cannot be trusted when you are gone,make your  families trust you and you too trust them. An adage says "The enemy you know is better than the angel you don't  know", blood they say is thicker than water . Be wise

I have been contemplating how to handle this issue because the world is full of uncertainties. I have been in certain risky life-threatening situations that could have claimed my life and the only person I trust. I am wondering what will happen to the little Bitcoin I have painstakingly acquired because my other dependents won't have access to it. For me, the solution might be to have a will and appoint a trusted executor or lawyer. Choosing an executor or lawyer will be the main problem because Bitcoin can be easy to steal and men with integrity are scarce. The bottom line is that you have to trust someone or lose your coin. I will also be glad if I can have a suitable option that does not involve a third party.

The title of this topic motivated me to teach my family about Bitcoin and I really feel like telling the kids in my house about Bitcoin. So that they can become more independent in the future when they start working and managing a business apart from receiving an inheritance from their parents, because what you say is in my opinion wise enough to do for a very harmonious family life. Bitcoin is an asset that can be exchanged for any currency and it can also be easier to transfer to other exchanges and wallets because the owner of course already knows how to move all of that to another place.

Well, if it has to be related to our respective families. So what must be done now is to tell and teach those in our own family about Bitcoin so that they can more easily receive inheritance when we are no longer able to work and manage the assets we already have in life. And it's true as you said that involving other people in terms of any cryptocurrency assets or assets is very unwise and we cannot fully trust because parties who are not from our own family can deviate from the plans we have laid out. So it's better not to involve other people in something as simple as this. And by the way, welcome to this forum for you, I hope you can get better here because from the thoughts that you have poured out here, I think you are a pretty smart person.

There is such a thing as "digital heritage". It was created just for such purposes. I don’t know in which countries it is and what conditions, but for a long time it has been possible to leave a digital will so that people after you can use what you leave them.
In general, this is a good question how to leave a password from a wallet with a large amount of money. After all, no matter who you leave it to, there is a chance that a person will use the password and steal all the assets from this wallet. I'm sure people have already solved this problem. I would use several people with parts of the password for each, but until the moment of death, these people do not know about each other

I agree with you that for a case of only one heir, a lawyer is really not necessary but in the case of a person with many heirs, it becomes a little complicated. Those suggesting a will are viewing it from legal perspective which is the formal way of transfer of asset in a situation where there are multiple beneficiaries. There could also be some other traditional way of doing this transfer like customs specified in some part of Africa and Asia... in the advent of death of a father, there is already a motherlity of sharing the assets defined by their customs. However, Bitcoin differs from physical assets and has its uniqueness and sensitive that requires some form of technical know-how.

A lot of great suggestions have actually been made so far and I tend to agree with those that have clear technological feasibility such as multi-signature wallet where the heirs will all be required to sign before access.

Nevertheless, in a case where the multi-signature wallet suggestion is not feasible, I am considering arranging my portfolio in different wallets according to the heirs I want to inherit them. As time goes on and when I guage their level of mental maturity, I could even give them access but with specific instructions never to temper with them until I am no more.  This is because I feel it is better the rightful heirs access the funds than some third parties pulling a fast one on me and my heirs. This is just a possibility and I might still adjust it.

This is a very technical question one has to solve, before it gets too late by lost of Bitcoin after death without transfer the wealth to hair, which has been a Big lost in the family. That's why one need to prepare his or her documents well before the time, which no one knows when death going to knock at door, but a simple to saved private key or password and email used on hardware, and keep save and write and label the next generation names on the notebook, both soft and hard copy in area saved. While let your wife know little about my business when we are on good times discussion, if show interest, I educate her about Bitcoin as well, how it works. That's we helped not to lose everything.

I am sure you will agree with me that to leave Bitcoin for heirs require them having at least the basic knowledge of Bitcoin... this will make them self-dependent, not asking third party for help when accessing the Bitcoin. Of course you know the risk associated with asking for help from third party as regards Bitcoin.

Furthermore, in the early stages, children have the ability to learn and retain many things. So, it is therefore our duty to teach them the real things of life from our wealth of experience. Let their passion decide which to take seriously.

The is another wonderful suggestion that is feasible. This is also elaborate in the sense that it makes their education about Bitcoin a prerequisite for receiving their inheritance.  Choosing a reputable organisation that will have the integrity and longevity to manage such trust is another huddle. As of today, I don't know if there is such and organisation in existence as I have not read or seen anywhere where such services is being talked about. More so, don't you think insurance company might come in and considering that there is yet to be a registered insurance company that handles Bitcoin, will that not be another huddle?

Why not use a hardware device to back up the seed and lock it in a safe in banks or other services where they can keep that piece safe for a certain period of time? Can be done in multiple banks. In those safe, they never see what's in them. Keep the hardware device password protected too. Give the password to whom you want to pass on the wallet, but not the key. When the time is over, only then they can access that locker.

This way we can keep the seed safe while making a way to pass it down to the future generation. If there are other ways to do it, let me know. But this one seems the best way to me because you are not required to share or disclose your private key or seed phrase. Safe and secure if you ask me!

banking on Bitcoin for familial harmony and inheritance? Really? Bitcoin is but a drop in the vast ocean of financial instruments available today.

Your faith in Bitcoin and disinterest in third-party involvement is both impressive and concerning. I's critical to remind ourselves that while Bitcoin offers decentralized asset management, its far from infallible. Dismissing third-party involvement is, frankly, reckless. In this ever-evolving digital ecosystem, third parties can offer invaluable insights, security protocols, and recovery mechanisms.

Take a step back and assess your approach. While Bitcoin is promising, it should be just one piece of a diversified financial strategy. Broaden your horizons, and don’t just blindly latch onto the latest fad. Welcome to the forum, by the way. But be ready; the real world isnt as rosy as your optimistic musings suggest.

Seems majority of the comments here suggest that hardware device is a good option. The only aspect that people seems to be having divergent views is who will be in custody of the hardware, the password and other sensitive information. If those are well clarified, then hardware is truly a good option.


Your argument is valid and fantastic in my opinion. But the area people are raising concern is in terms of security and being able to trust the third-party because someone can anonymously steal the Bitcoin. It could even happen that someone else privy to the wallet or storage medium information can steal the Bitcoin while supposedly under the custody of the third-party.  The whole thing is complex so you should be able to highlight how the third-party can be involved that you think will not lead to problems. I'm truly curious to know your perspective of third-party involvement.

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I am a little bothered by what you seem to be suggesting, at least in terms if a lot of time might pass between giving the instructions, and I suppose I could assume that you are checking the validity of the wallets periodically, such as 1 or 2 times per year, because if several years pass and the keys and the method has not been checked, it could become problematic.. Of course, another way could be to describe the method, but also provide the back up seed (or whatever method is being used), so even if they are having trouble figuring it out, they still may be able to get some technical assistance from some random hacker (hopefully trustworthy) to figure out derivation paths or whatever might be a possible snag in getting at the wallet showing the proper balance of 0.00451376 BTC or whatever the correct amount contained therein might end up being.



I doubt that I am really disagreeing with anything that you are saying in regards to attempting to teach your lil ones (and also at various stages as they become less little), and also maybe it is likely if you have raised your kids well, then they are going to listen to everything that you say and not rebel against you in any kind of active or passive way. 

And if they were to happen to rebel against you, then it would thereby be up to you whether you choose to negatively adjust the amount of the cornz that you had been intending to leave them.


There is a pretty wide practice of the use of trusts amongst rich people in a lot of places around the world, and even if there is likely some jurisdictional variance (and even various hurdles along the way), trusts are considered to be kinds of private conveyances of value/property, that are set up while you are living and you can even have a trusted friend administer once you pass.. or you could already have it going before you pass and you could be the administrator of it while you are still living..

I surely don't know all the nitty gritty between the kinds of trusts (revocable and irrevocable) that could be set up, but you ultimate describe whatever terms that you like within such trust including who the administrator is (and of course who the various beneficiaries are) and usually the administrator would receive some kind of a fee that you would describe within the trust. and I would imagine that you would not want your trust administrator to work for free because they might not carry out what you want if the terms do not fairly compensate them for carrying out the trust terms and maybe even describing how expenses, if any, are paid from the trust.

When we are planning on leaving bitcoin as an inheritance for our children, we should take a look at the time frame from when we will begin the plan and the average age the children would have been by the time they would have been well opportuned to access the bitcoin, also it's a task which is expected from the father to engage his children in having interest in bitcoin, knowing about bitcoin and be ready to utilize every possible potentials that might comes in through bitcoin adoption, what use will an asset if the children it was will for have no value or regards on it, there's alot to secure right before the parents pass on, they have to see that their children are interested in bitcoin and will continue with where they have left it from and pick up hence, there are more means tgiys children can inherit the asset without going through any insurance scheme if properly arranged.

you gotta look into options like crypto wills or trust funds that are crypto-friendly. Also, make sure your fam knows the ins and outs of your digital wallet keeping all the private keys and passcodes safe but accessible is key. Keeping that BTC in the fam is next level, so props for thinking ahead!

This is also another serious challenging issues but as mother or father the only possible is if your family are in a good terms with each others, because you hand it over to your wife or your husband depending on how trusted realistic you two are.. lemme say for instance now, I have to save btc for my daughter for some years the only person that could know about it is my husband since our daughter isn't of age to start swimming on btc phrase, private keys and so on.

So we can't predict tomorrow but we are too sure of something positive would happen, so it is to life as we keep planning to make preservation to our generation we should also try to build some trust within the family member so that such wealth could be handed over to the next generation, such as the way companies are being inherited and they maintained the standard of the company even till the next generation to come could still be benefiting from it. Security plays a very virtal and crucial roles here because if we don't teach our children, family members and relatives about security and ways of preservation they don't mind losing all assets to a cheap scammer.

Well, what I am saying is a kind of simple and direct. Let me put some specifics to my point for clarity sake. Assuming I have 3 heirs that I want to transfer my asset to and I already save like 6 BTC that I want to share equally among them. I could just make 3 different wallets and transfer 2 BTC to each of them. Thereafter, I will give each of them access to the wallets and mandate them to keep the information safe and never to withdraw anything from the wallet until I'm gone as that will be my gift to them. Any further Bitcoin I buy will be shared in similar proportion and sent to those wallets as well. I will set a bench mark of like 16 to 18 years as the age they must get to so I am sure the money will not affect them psychologically. This is necessary because exposing children to certain kinds of money have a way of affecting them negatively like I stated before. Besides, the aim of wealth transfer will be defeated if the wealth affect then negatively rather than be a thing of help to them.


I will still have access to the wallets even after giving them access too and periodically I will be checking the wallets to see that everything is in order. 1 or 2 times per year that you suggested is a good one and enough to know that all is going as planned. Well, I don't completely see how the services of a third-party will be needed because I already stated in my earlier post that I will make it a duty to teach them the basics. If I don't need such services, then I don't see why they should. Remember, money is involved so I am confident they will be will to learn the basics which is enough for them to protect the asset and all the sensitive information as they will do with their normal banking details. But then, looking at it from another angle, I can keep that as contingency plan and in this case, it will be someone I have some level of trust in just like you suggested.


I was actually excited seeing this wonderful suggestion from you. This method could also be very good especially when one want to set aside part of the wealth for charity. Even though it is not still very clear if the established trust that I know can take up digital assets like Bitcoin, but there is still chances it will be possible.

I believe it is the right approach to record all information related to our wallets in a physical note book, and I have also chosen the same method to secure my keys, because I don't prefer to save such crucial information on electronic devices.

Moreover, it is essential to provide our children with solid understanding of Bitcoin and its underlying technology so that they can explore optimum benefits from these digital assets that we will pass down to them. This ground will enable them to take optimum advantages of this digital assets that we intend to pass on to them.

Keeping the physical copy of the data written on paper is not going to be easy peasy. Paper can be easily damaged like spill a glass or water so it needs a safe lock box something water and fire proof. But even if you do that you need to have a key for that box which you need to locate it somewhere and hope the next generation will find it.

That is why locking up for a certain period is the better choice for inheritance.

[Tutorial] Making your crypto inheritible (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5285003.0)

first off, I have to address the 'beehive' typo. Let's just clarify it's 'believe.'

Physical notepad for wallet data? Seriously? Its a decision, but lets look at security and history. Throughout history, written words on paper or stone tablets have been damaged, stolen, or lost. However, your point about distrusting electronics is valid. A digital age paradox: the instruments that enable digital assets can also be their downfall

Discuss the next generation. Teaching our kids about Bitcoin and its technology? Extremely important! The digital domain will host future economic, political, and social struggles. However, your comment regarding optimum advantages and pass on to them is redundant. In conclusion, your old-school way works. Its not foolproof. Make the youngsters Bitcoin-savvy, but give simple, concise messages

Inherit bitcoin or not only of it to their wallets is ideal to hold until they know the use of the bitcoin itself, its quite risky if you will give crypto to the child without knowing what it is or else you will seek a lawyer to your testament regarding with the inherited bitcoin to them so in the future they will use those, its not ideal just giving them a piece of paper written the seed phrase and wait them to unlock so they have those treasure physical paper is prone to destruction find a better safe, if you have the capability to invest with crypto make sure to secure those assets too..

There is a popular saying that anything connected to the internet is vulnerable. This shit always scare me considering that most of my activities and savings are on electronic medium that is connected to the internet always. Physical note book like you said is not bad but have you considered the durability of the note book? Can it stay for a long time without being damaged? Is it possible to protect the content for a long time against others that do have access to your house?




Good thread made on Electrum wallet. The thread actually explained everything clearly and it seems workable. It just require some mastery as whoever is implementing it must be technically sound to avoid mistake. That will not be a problem anyways because whoever the heir is that is to get the inheritance should be able to seek the knowledge needed to scale through.



Another area is also in terms of safety and preservation of the paper where you will write the note as suggested by the author. The aim of the whole thing will be defeated should the note enter the wrong hands. This bring to mind the option of saving part of the sensitive items in a vault with the bank. I think this will work because saving a note at home for 20 years is not an easy thing.

Thanks for the correction, I apologize for my spelling and grammar mistakes, as English is not my first language. Your observation holds true that shelf life of words written on a paper is limited, and they can deteriorate overtime. Nevertheless, utilizing good quality of ink and paper, along with protecting the document from sunlight and moisture, we can consider the option of applying transparent plastic sheet through lamination. By doing so, it is possible to prolong the durability of document for extended period of time.

If you have a few children, you could try using multisig, but then there's that one of your children dies after you, but before they can share the money.
You could also use a time lock, but then, it doesn't mean you'll time it well enough. You're 50 and you have a 10 year old child, so you lock your coins for another 5 years, but you're still alive, so you keep going, finally you lock it again and die a year later, so your child will have to wait 4 years? That's pretty harsh.
I'd put the instructions and seeds in a capsule and hide it somewhere. I'd give the location to someone that I trust, but make it hard for them to break into it. Let's say you have children and you tell them where the capsule is, but it's under a concrete floor in your living room, so they'd have to use an electric tool and need a whole day to uncover it. They won't do it wile you're alive, but should have no problems getting to it when you're gone.

Every traders had their wish to add more bitcoin into their wallets.This was the reason the people use to inverse all their money to the bitcoin from multiple earning.The bitcoin may be brought with various prices,the profit percentage will be double when the bull run was survive for longer period.After making the purchase,it’s most essential to share about the holding.Then only the next generation will use the cryptocurrency assets of their helders people.This holding can be used by next generation on their emergency.

I have considered out on writing or printing my PK on a paper or be written up but i do have that kind of fear that i might really loss it or when the time comes that ink would definitely be faded out on the time that you might
passed away.  :D This is why i have decided that i do make out back ups on my own USB with having that having a lock and not just on single flashdrive but rather having 3 as sort of back up. For now then im telling them about the basic principles of crypto and on how to make recoveries or on how private key works on unlocking a certain wallet. So far they do understood it out specially with my wife which it isnt really that hard to understand since you are really just that explaining them about on how to access and on how to make out conversions to real fiat. So that on the time that you would be passing away then those coins wont really be put up
to waste since they could really be able to access it out and make use of those funds that you had been working so hard. For now im not stressing out myself on what would be my ending but rather im focusing on
accumulating for for the sake of my family in terms of the money that they could be able to make use off specially into my children. We know that life is unpredictable and there's no way that we could tell
on when we would be passing away.

You need secure if this ideas adopting for transferring all your bitcoin assets to family or your children, writing Private Key on the paper or save it on flash drive is good ideas but put it most secure place with higher protecting without any one else get access there. First important thing for cryptocurrency trader must bee transparence with their family between children or wife. Must talk to them with how much bitcoin assets having and where place located save or hold bitcoin until we need guide them from first step access to wallet until how to withdraw become cash money.

All trader or investor in cryptocurrency have unique way for transfer their bitcoin wallet or assets to children or their family, regarding may assets hold in exchange market its not difficult for me to transfer my bitcoin to my children or my wife by giving them all data required for accessing to exchange market account.

The topic is specifically about safely transferring your Bitcoin to your next of kin or heirs and not about trading or investing in Bitcoin.

From some of the replies in this thread, some important points have been raised which are keeping your keys safe to avoid destruction so engraving your keys in a fireproof and waterproof material such as steel might be a good option. The next point is to educate your dependant about Bitcoin if they are of age to understand it. Your wife or grown-up children should know about Bitcoin passwords, keys, recovery, security, etc. Regarding how to transfer these keys options like having a time lock safe, and using a lawyer or an executor have been suggested.  This discussion summarizes that you should look for a suitable means to ensure that your coins are safe and transferred to the right person or persons after your death.

Writing a will should be the first step, because we want to make sure that the right people inherit our money. Without a will the law will determine who inherits and this could also lead to lawsuits within the family. In this will you should definitely write down that there are crypto currencies part of your financial assets and your family needs to access them separately. Instead of putting any private keys into the will you could rent a deposit box at the local bank and store all important documents there. Like that your relatives will find everything in one place and should have no problem claiming your crypto portfolio. Depending on the size of your crypto portfolio the fee for renting a deposit box are quite small in comparison or maybe you already have one for other things. For example, holding some commodities like silver or gold, or family jewelry and watches I would preferably keep at the bank. There they are insured and you don't have to worry about thieves when going on vacation.

This is one of most important point we all are missing i.e. transferring knowledge to your next of kin. Lots of Bitcoin are gone to darkness forever because owners passed away and the next of kin either don't know about the Bitcoins or don't have necessary knowledge to access those Bitcoins. This is one of key limitation of bitcoin, in fiat system your next of kin has complete access to your fiat based assets. So we all need t pay attention to this aspect of Bitcoin.

As there is no inheritance of bitcoins to the next generation, the user has to make sure who he wants to leave his bitcoins to as the next generation. The only way to transfer bitcoins from one person to another is to give the person to whom the bitcoins are to be transferred access to the wallet. That is, whoever has access to the wallet owns the bitcoins. When the user is active he has to decide to whom he will give access to the bitcoins. Parents' property is usually inherited by sons and daughters, since there is no possibility of children automatically getting Bitcoins, so the user should make his children sufficiently experienced about Bitcoins and highlight the importance of Bitcoins to them. When the children understand the importance of Bitcoin then the user can pass his Bitcoin access to his son or daughter only then Bitcoin will reach the next generation.

I guess you have just divulge the weakness of using some of the technologies suggested. A situation where one of the heir dies when his signature is needed to access the wallet will be disastrous for the others. Unless there is any other way out of this. I read where @JayJuanGee suggested integrating the services of a hacker as a contingency plan should anything go wrong when the heirs will be accessing the wallet.

This is pretty amazing! This is feasible and more like a good option because there is very low chances that your children will break the floor while you are still living in that same house. However, it becomes a bit complex when you have that one child that is adventurous and stubborn and who will not blink an eye to break the floor while you are on vacation or something like that  :D :D :D. Anyways, the chances of this happening is minimal since it is expected we raise good and loyal children that are worth keeping inheritance for.

Perhaps you can share the location to two different people that you trust with instructions to only tell your children when you are gone. The information should exclude the amount so that those you trust will not buy the building when you are gone by the time they know the value of what is there.

All the same, this is one of the best suggestion I have seen so far as it eliminates the chances of technological failure and information leakages.

I've actually thought about this subject before now but your approach is really nice. The only problem with this method is the person you would leave the information of the seed phrase to, as he/she might claim the funds. What about generating and giving the different private keys to the children, so that they can come together and access the funds when the owner is no more? The problem with my suggestion is if the children does not have the fear of God they can even spend the funds while the owner is still alive.  


It is advisable to keep your seed phrase safe at a place that's out of reach from water, fire or any sort of damage but if you are scared of using a note book, you can engrave your seed phrase on a metallic steel.

I think we should begin to think like adults now. As giving ideas and then pointing the flaws out of them are not going to help the OP. And to be honest I do not think OP is going to read all the replies but still he is doing then, he should search for a lawyer or a trust party whom he can give the responsibility of dividing heir in his Childs. But the best practice is (if the children are adults) to divide the heir by himself.

But if they are still child as in your examples then he should hire a middleman or a trust lawyer whom he could give the responsibility of diving the heir equally. But sometimes those middlemen turn up as the biggest scammers and they do not do as they are agreed. So, to avoid that, buy a Hardware wallet and give it to that middleman and tell him it is a USB which contains my last message for my kids. You have to give this USB only when I am gone, and they have become adults. To back this story up and put some extra spice he could buy 1 Hardware wallet and 1 real USB and market USB as 1 and HW as 2 and could say the middlemen that he has to give my Childs the instructions that they should play the video by USB first and in that USB, father could save the Video. Now there are many problems to this method too as if middleman watched the video, he will know what is going on here and that middleman might become greedy. So, find a trustworthy man to handover the heir agreements of BTC.

PS: I think now I began to think like child here. But the real problem is when the Childs are young and not old enough to receive the funds, so the best thing is to lock them even the Childs have to wait for 4 extra years. As it will be a good point for the child as in next four years a halving will came and those BTC will have even more value. :D

This is a pretty good point because at the end of the day this is just like a valuable inherited wealth so we should give some teaching beforehand so that we are absolutely sure that we are not mistakenly giving the inheritance to the closest person.
I personally now live with my young child and my beloved wife and fortunately my partner is also now starting to know more about what I do in bitcoin so for the worst case scenario if in the end I am no longer there then I will still give it to my partner as my successor later but of course there are some conditions too because even though my partner, I still don't give access even though he knows I have bitcoin because in the end this is also for the good of my own family and if indeed he wants bitcoin I still advise him to learn more before I can give it comfortably when the worst happens to me.

Haha is an interesting advice, truly in most family or every family there is always one prodigal son that always object to almost everything in the family, so when a father discover he has that kind of son he make sure everything will be well stated on the will to avoid problem among themselves but sometimes will could be tempered if the lawyer is not trustworthy and it will become a game of wealth were the children will be fighting to acquire everything, though it happens more on polygamous family were a man married many wife and has many children the hatred against each other will be extreme.

So just like you mentioned about using USD to record voice message or video, I have  seen were a man backed up his will through a video recorder and he made four videos, giving the lawyer one and writing on the will the all  his wife should check on a particularly place in his room they will see there various messages to proof the authenticity of the will.

It seems that you mostly understood what I was saying, yet the way that you summarize what I said likely needs some clarification.  So, it seems that I was describing a context in which the heirs might lack some technical expertise in terms of figuring out where the coins might be held and/or the various ways to access the bitcoin - especially if there might have had been some technical issues or even problems figuring out what the deceased bitcoin holder was attempting to communicate to his/her heirs.

So there could be a variety of ways in which a deceased bitcoin holder might attempt to set things up prior to his/her death that might involve instructions and also it might involve a list of technical experts (or even businesses) who the deceased person trusts will charge a fair price in order to help the heirs without being a dishonest actor (and sure these things cannot be 100% known, but it is possible that the deceased person may know some people who he believes would be helpful and may even get paid to help.. and such persons do not need to be hackers, but surely having some decently high level technical skills might not hurt when it comes to figuring out something like putting together all the keys or maybe even getting into the deceased persons personal computer and other devices in which some contemporary files and communications and even accounts might be better found out.  We could have several kinds of accounts and there could be traces of those accounts in our e-mails or in our webpage histories, and sometimes family members might not have enough understanding to even realize that the deceased person had 10-20 different accounts and various kinds of wallets that had bitcoins and maybe shitcoins and some other digital assets on them... that could add up to hundreds of thousands or even millions that the dumb heirs might not have had known or been able to figure out on their own and without the help of the bitcoin (or crypto) technical expert (who you referred to as a hacker).

I’m imagining my imaginary children in this imaginary scenario opening up my crypto portfolio and realizing how much of a crypto investor I was with all my bitcoins for their eyes to see.
TBH some people might find it hard to get a lawyer, make a will, or pay an agency for planning their stuff when it comes to their crypto. I understand that this solution isn't perfect, because a sneaky family member or a lawyer who knows about crypto could take off with your private key for the bitcoins, and no one else would even know that these crypto assets exist.

Maybe using centralized exchanges could help. You could have a shared account with your family or set up a beneficiary with the exchange that holds your bitcoin investments. This way, if you have multiple people who inherit your stuff, you can split your assets between different exchanges with this feature. You could also make a shared account that moves the assets to the heir's account after a certain amount of time. This could prevent any fights or problems among the heirs.

Discussions like this is not only for the op but for anyone that's opening to learning because it's an opportunity to learn something. Sometimes from the subject, it could be something that you already knew but someone else might come up with a different perspective that's entirely new or help to spark up an idea in you.

I just don't like the idea of bringing a middle man into the equation. If the middle man will not claim the funds for himself, he might be bribed by one of the heirs. Making a live video and giving out clear instructions on how the Bitcoin should be shared amongst the heirs and also directions on to claim the funds is actually a nice idea.

Coincidentally, I am also using this method. While I know this isn't the safest solution for many people, it's the safest for me and I haven't had any problems in years. I also record information such as seed phrase, password, private key...in the notebook. But that is really dangerous because the paper is quite fragile and easily destroyed, I then bought 3 USBs for backup to ensure the safety of my information. Of course, teaching my loved ones how to use them is indispensable. But I want to add a little more about how to store our phrase. We should take the time to check USB periodically because we all know electronic devices have a lifespan and can fail at any time. Periodic inspection and timely replacement are very important.
By the way, I also just tested them and they are ok  ;D ;D.
https://imgtr.ee/images/2023/08/27/6fe8684b99d22f33e3754fc79ee78933.png

You have a point but I disagree with you on the aspect you mentioned that what if a man could not get a lawyer, I don't really no if you meant getting a good lawyer or affording a lawyer, which ever way you meant, I no most lawyer are not trustworthy but there are also good ones that can handle your will very well, so let's not reason it only in one angle, if I most say there are so many people that has family lawyers which they trust very well, most times people are always the cause of there problem choosing a random lawyer whom they don't no too well and a last either the lawyer scam them or tamper with their will and at last we generalize it to all the lawyers forgetting that in most cases we are actually the cause.

In times of willing Bitcoin to our children one could actually open each Bitcoin accounts for each of the children instead of sharing from one centered account because you don't no if some would like to hold there Bitcoin for something there.

Please pardon me for the wrong choice of words. The right world would have been "Technical expert. I did not intend to quote you verbatim but to give credit to you that you already addressed a situation where the heirs might need the services of a third party in the course of accessing their inheritance.

In some parts of Africa, people have the habit of not keeping a family lawyer and that is very bad. Keeping a family lawyer will enable you build some kind of trust over the years. What is the essence of having a lawyer you cannot trust? I think nn getting a lawyer involved for Bitcoin asset, certain aspect of the information may not have to be given to the law firm. In a situation that you decide to give the lawyer all the information, then the children much be informed that you have asset in the custody of the lawyer for the sake of transparency.

That's one option that can be done but like you said not everyone can accept that as a safe way including me because I still feel that storing in a USB sometimes we have to prepare for the worst where it could be corrupted which makes the data lost so even though it can be done but there must be a backup of the seed that we created.
I personally still like the old-fashioned way where I still write in my notebook and store it in a place that only I can access it (At least for now) but I have told my closest family about my bitcoin storage just for access I still hold back on it and it's enough just for myself for now.

Buddy this is one of the worst idea in my own perspective and i wouldnt advise anyone to do so or even bring it up such a suggestion. What you had to misplace the drive or perhaps it got damaged by fall or accident. How would you pass it on to your heirs?

I think that when you reach a certain age you should openly talk with your sons (and whoever would inherit something from you) about what you have and what it is. In some cases people don't explain, they die, and then there are people who go crazy because they need to put several pieces together with the risk to miss or lose something. Of course I'm talking about people with more money than the average Joe. Same goes with bitcoin: you have them? Make sure your kids know what bitcoin is and how to use it before the get scammed after you pass away.

Truth be told USB is not reliable in saving data because it could be corrupted anytime, to me USB is only good for a back up plan, were as you have actually save the data on other source then using the usb as other alternative way if should incase you loss the other one but cannot be fully reliable. In times of writing it down on the notebook is very good because in note book you don't worry about corrupted data, sometimes is also good saving a screenshot of your Bitcoin phrase and sending a copy to your wife as a back up plan.

You make some good points red4slash, but I still feel like I need to repeat some of my concerns about the notebook being a potential single point of failure, which may be lessened by maintaining more than one notebook with the same contents, and yeah, I know that is likely a pain in the ass, but you could also have three with one off site that you do not update as much, but you would still have some active and latest updates in the two main ones.

Your point about the electronic device being problematic does en up getting somewhat addressed by having the backup keys.. to make it less vulnerable if it were handed down by itself without the seeds or whatever technology that wallet is using for its backups.


Holy shit this recommendation is dumb, irresponsible and contrary to best (or even basically better) security practices..

In other words:  

1) Don't be taking screen shots of your private keys..

and worse yet

2) don't send such private keys (or back up seeds or anything else related to the private keys) electronically to someone who you want to have such information.  

There are better ways/pracitces.

That conduct might not end up 100% causing you to quickly lose your coins, but it is really not a good practice and quite a few historical bitcoiners have been separated from their coins based on various forms of trying to digitize their private key information and using various unsecure methods of transmitting such private keys, similar to your dumb recommendation.  

Have I called you dumb enough?  hahahahaha maybe? maybe not.

You need to try to come up with something better, and surely it is not a very good idea to be recommending bad practices and there are at least two bad practices that you highlighted as your recommendation.

By the way, if you or anyone else has engaged in this kind of behavior historically (either one of them.. you don't necessarily need both in order for you to have had made your private keys overly vulnerable) , and if you still have the coins in such wallet(s), you most likely need to move those coins relatively quickly (if not even before finishing reading this post) to new wallets and don't make the same two mistakes again in terms of your securing the private keys of your new wallet that you make.

Take the steps that I suggest and/or you will thank me later, if you do not figure out some other potentially silly way to lose your coins by the employment of similar kinds of really bad practices/recommendations...

You might even want to delete that part of your post and hope that no one actually ends up following some variation of what you are recommending.

Haha am totally shocked as you are, i wouldn't think of such


OP i have been so interested in this post, thank you for putting something together, especially because it’s such a dark topic but so important! The hindsight of preparing your finances for post death is something that shouldn't be ignored especially for secured funds like Bitcoin. Ever since i have been doing my own research and I found out about Google's Inactive Account Manager (https://myaccount.google.com/inactive/). Perhaps this could help.

1. You need to setup what happens to your account and data when it becomes inactive for a period of up to 18 months.
2. Make sure you apply for auto responders as it send email to the specific heirs when its due time (One good thing is it can be updated frequently because you don't know when its your time)
3. The email should tell them how to get your real things like your laptop, phone, wallet, and stuff like that. Then, tell them about a locked file saved on your computer or USB drive. This file has more info about how to get to your crypto. To keep it safe, you can use a free tool called 7-Zip to make your file secret and archived
4. Wish them farewell and hope they will be impressed with the amount you have accumulated so far in your portfolio.

For better understanding of the google inactive account manager read this source article here (https://www.androidpolice.com/google-inactive-account-manager-setup/)

People die at any time, if we wait for a certain age and if that age does not come in our lifetime how will we openly discuss Bitcoin with our children. Since death is inevitable and death can happen at any time, we should discuss bitcoin openly with children early on rather than waiting for a certain age. We just have to wait until the children are adults and when discussing Bitcoin with them won't have a negative impact on their lives. If Bitcoin is openly discussed with children in advance then surely Bitcoin will reach the next generation, and if we wait for a certain age limit and if that age does not come in our lifetime then our Bitcoin will never reach the next generation and our Bitcoin  Amulya will then remain in the wallet as a currency.

I always print all my wallet data into papers so my family will be able access my wallet after I die. I think something like this must become something that common for any cryptocurrency users. in the past I only save all my wallet data in my smartphone but after it is broken I am so panic but fortunately I remember that I also save those data in a flash disk.

You have likely created another security hole if you save your data on a computer and you print it out..including the printer may save images, too... so at least two points of failure.

Making photo copies may surely have some issues too.. but sure each of us has to balance between convenience and considering how BIG of a security hole that we might have created through the ways that we are creating our digital documents and the extent to which harddrives on printers matter in terms of information that could end up getting found 10 or 20 years down the road, and then your data (bitcoin private keys) ends up getting compromised.

Human death is certain and no one can avoid the guarantee of this death. But no one can say for sure how long Bitcoin will exist in our world. But one thing that is very important is how we will pass on the bitcoins we are currently saving to our next generation. We are also concerned about whether our next generation will be interested in learning about the uses and importance of Bitcoin.
But the backup phase of the wallet I choose to pass on my accumulated bitcoins to my next generation is written down in several places in a notebook. But if I die due to any reason then my close relatives can retrieve it and get access to the wallet. Also I have screenshotted the security system of my wallet and saved it in google drive and sent it to my wife with that gmail.

This is a really interesting topic, but if I do base it on my life and not think of others, I tend to give the keys to my family or something creative, like if ever something happens to me, open this box, etc., but again, that is only applicable to me as that is really the purpose that they can still open it when the time is right. But for others, that is really a problem that even for myself, I dont have a concrete answer, but I thought the will would still be your choice as that will contain all of your properties and assets, and let's say a ledger that has Bitcoin will then be given to the beneficiary.

Another dumbie with bad advice and advice that is contrary to what people should be doing, even if they believe it is convenient... Yeah, it's convenient until all of your coins end up disappearing and you cannot figure out why.

Refer to my earlier post  (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5462812.msg62758509#msg62758509)in which I respond to the same advice given by Roseline492.

By using a multisig wallet.
It can be a way of managing assets simultaneously with multiple keys.
Another way is to provide private keys to those who are entitled to inherit bitcoin assets and some other crypto assets.

The idea of transferring bitcoin assets to heirs is very good in my opinion and even better if it is planned before we die. Later, their heirs can use it as well as we use it well.
Before providing private keys that can access bitcoin assets, teach their heirs ways not to lose them such as how to secure them.

Keeping a note of all your account information in the ledger is a very important task, even if you think about additional security. If we think that it is safe to store various important account information online, then we are wrong because the device may be stolen or the device may be destroyed due to system problems or the important information is stored in a place where you have password. If you forget, but you can't access your account later even if you want, so it is the job of a conscious user to save your necessary information online as well as note it in the account. 

Bitcoin will not be passed on to the next generation if you only keep your important account information in a ledger, if someone in your family has no idea about Bitcoin then they will think Bitcoin is a priceless currency. So apart from keeping the important wallet information in the ledger, one must have a good discussion about Bitcoin with the family members so that they understand the value of Bitcoin.

You would be making a mistake if I'm your lawyer I just steal a little of that BTC wealth of yours . For me lawyers ia a no no ill just pass my private diary of to him or I'll just whisper my private key to him with in my dying  breath  ;D

You didn't read carefully what I said, mate. I write all the information in my notebook and keep it in a safe place, and the USB is just my backup. And as I mentioned, electronic equipment has a lifespan and needs to be checked periodically and if it is too old or damaged we can replace it immediately.


Please re-read what I write, I still store all the seed phrases, private keys, and passwords in my notebook. I also understand the risks of electronic devices, I do not trust them completely.

Any right sensed and a futuristic person would have thought of this, talkless of the fact that many people had died and have lost their coins to both custodial and non-custodial arrangements. People don't plan for death, which is why many didn't prepare before it happened, and by virtue of this, they lost painfully what their heir or family should have been enjoying. This is one of the greatest disadvantages of having money/assets online, yet we could guard against this if we are reasonable and proactive enough. This is why it's good to plan ahead and I've already started mine, but a huge downside of it is how trusting your children or spouse are, if they are not trustworthy, then it will be more difficult to do.

Regardless, the best plan that came to my mind is to document everything with your lawyer but how to gain access should be given to your children or spouse for safekeeping. By this, they will not know what the passes are meant for, while the lawyer will not know the passes to your online wallets. Also with this arrangement, it's good that your will lawyer should never be known to your family for any reason and must be a trusted law firm. You might even code what you gave to the lawyer and let it be the kind of code/puzzle that you and your family are familiar with. This is one of the good ways online assets would not be lost.

But for the Mixin Safe idea you talked about, I advise you to do away with it or similar arrangements, you can't trust those people. When they tell you it's blue, it might actually be back. Many of them are hiding under decentralization but how could a true decentralized arrangement be able to pass your asset to your heir? That is laughable.

How will it be possible for the lawyer you hand over your hardware wallet without the password still little of your bitcoin assets, when it is stated in the WILL the amount of the bitcoin that will be in the hardware wallet given to him? If peradventure he succeeds in doing that(not that is possible), he has destroyed his career and he will persecuted for that.

You are just been funny thinking of passing your private key to a lawyer. Who does that sh*t? You better come off that sh*t in your head that lawyers can still your bitcoin without the password. That can't happen.

---

Let it be known to you that a hardware wallet is not something that one can hack into without having the correct password.

That's still a good option and indeed for now I always record more than one seed because as you said there are some things that might be the worst that could happen if I only copy one.
Although there may still be some people who do just one and memorise the seed but that's another option.
A device like a flashdisk is also possible but in the end I wouldn't choose this option to do because in some conditions I have experienced where I saved it on one of the flashdisks but when the flashdisk is not used for a long time then it is indeed possible that corruption occurs rather than me having to plug and use with conditions that we don't know if there is malware or not it is better for me not to use this option.

I read that mate and don't get me wrong because I've also done that option before but when there are some conditions that I said in my writing before this I prefer to avoid that because at the end of the day it's just going to be your backup about the seed that you wrote in the notes right?
I'd rather go for the traditional option of backing up my notes than storing them on a flashdrive but what you're saying isn't wrong either because you're doing a good thing by looking for multiple options with your backups.
At the end of the day it's just about going back to your own choices.

I think that the idea of Bitcoin is that over time, more and more BTC gets lost, forever unable to be claimed. In a sort of way this is a deflation mechanism which boost the value of the other Bitcoin in circulation due to the fact that the Bitcoin supply decreases more and more over time. So everyone else's coins go up in value and this is a good thing. I personally hate the idea of heritage. It has caused a lot of problems in the fiat world and we can see this with all the disgusting billionaire hoarders. Why the hell should anyone get money that they never earned? Do we need more Rockefellers? More ultra-rich, corrupting the world, financing both sides of each war? Screw that. A person should get what they earn in their lifetime, no more and no less.

That's a pretty good way actually because apart from having written notes, we also have a back up in a flashdisk as a backup that you can have when some conditions such as the loss of notes or the dullness of the notes we make we still have that as a backup of our seed.
Regardless of whether this works for everyone or not, the most important thing in this case is that we should do a backup of the seed whether it is in written form or in the form stored in a flashdrive like you did because at the end of the day this is also important.
We want security in maintaining the assets that we have both in writing and storing in a flashdisk has weaknesses such as fading or illegibility of the writing that we make or a flashdisk that may become damaged but if we have a backup and do not make one then this is a good thing because if one is lost then we still have a backup that can be used as a precaution so that our seeds are not lost and our wallet can still be accessed.

Memorizing, as a back up, sounds scary, even if it might not be the ONLY place that the wallet is kept - even though I could appreciate that memorizing (and writing down) could come in handy when crossing over a boarder because it may well be a short time before it is going to be fed back into some kind of a wallet device.

long term memorizing as a back up could also be problematic in terms of someone hypnotizing you, to the extent that any of us believe that hypnotism is real.


Sure.. there are some kinds of electronic saving that is more reliable than others, and for shorter time frames, none of them would necessarily be bad, but I think in these kinds of inheritance cases we are talking about some kind of a longer term storage.. and/or at least having potentials for longer term, even though the circumstances regarding how long some keys might be stored prior to the heirs trying to access them is likely going to have quite a bit of variance, even if future deceased bitcoin holder might well be checking and verifying access to the electronic devices 1-3 times per year.. depending on level of analness.


That's a bit harsh.

But, hey you are entitled to your own opinion, even if you might be bitter about a "few" things.

 :D :D :D :D :D

I suppose in spite of my trying to be funny, you are making some valid points regarding some of the disproportionate inequalities that come from incumbent rich folks... yet I have my doubts that the solution should go as far as you are suggesting in terms of causing inabilities for the passing down of wealth, and there likely are some families who are ONLY able to get ahead in some kind of a degree based on the efforts of several generations building and building and building (at least the responsible heirs, which the may well be some of those kinds of folks in this world, even if you are suggesting that they are a minority and the inheritance system is mostly a tool of the rich and powerful who don't deserve it).

By the way, remember that 80x trade that you made?

Are you merely bitter because you already spent all of your "profits" from that?

Inquiring minds want to know.


Pray tell!!!!!   >:( >:( >:(

Do you know the reason why most wallets disable mobile screen recording and screenshots from their wallets? This is because it's considered risky, as your mobile phone is not your private phone, you can't guarantee not sharing the phone with anyone on one to two occasions, and you can't also be sure of which third-party apps have access to your wallet.

It's considered very risky, mate. Instead of taking screenshots of the wallet phrase, why not make use of any piece of paper, write down the phrase, and safely give it to your spouse if you may? And if you are not close with each other, you can also use any encrypted message method to send it across to her where she will be the only one to have access to it, or better yet, you can make use of PDF and include an access pin to it where the one with the pin can alone be the one to open it, and then you still make use of any encrypted mailing means to send it across rather than taking a screenshot and sending it through, which means, if I may ask.

As we are protecting our bitcoins today, there's no tendency that we would be protecting it forever and also ripe the benefits of it in the end. so it's better to have someone whom you can rely on and trust for whatever will happen to you, he or she will inherit your crypto assets and will have easy access to them once you are gone. But this is not an easy task because there are lots of people out there whom we know but don't earn our trust. that's why you need to be careful even when you talk about your crypto wealth because if not, you might go in an expected way. you know what I mean right? In that case, I know something called delay email or delay text message or chat message where it automatically sends whenever you are not around anymore probably in 6 months. you can try from that and it might work for you I guess.

Buddy your right and I think if he had eventually tried this act then his bitcoin phrase has been compromised. I would recommend he start over with a brand new seed and send his bitcoin over there if he really cares about his portfolio or passing it to his next generation. These mistakes are exactly how fraudsters steal bitcoin. Then are left with nothing and no idea how it happened, blaming their wife for their own mistakes because they didn't take this seriously.

Maybe if he uses the Trezor wallet, he can use a unique feature called the "advanced recovery phrase." This lets him add his own secret words to his recovery phrase. This means he can keep his recovery code even safer. Even if someone finds it, they can't get to his coins because they won't know his special words.

Many people just want a shortcut and taking a screenshot is one of the shortcuts because they only need to swap the screen of the device and it's done but don't realize it's a mistake because of minimal knowledge and think all the available features can be used to make life easier.

If we want to become Bitcoin as an inheritance then teaching it to the person who will receive the inheritance is the easiest way but not giving it access to our wallet because we still keep all information confidential with high security, and those who receive the inheritance will only get access to it after we die by telling it in the will where we keep all these important things.

Since you know when someone write a will ahead of his or her properties and how the things will be share among his or her children with the witness of his or her lawyer and some of the family members who will testify in case any issues occur in the future is called will. If you want your children to know more about Bitcoin in your home, don't write your seeds phrase on your phone or dairy because it will be easy for them to have access to your Bitcoin when you are still alive. The best way to transfer Bitcoin wealth to your generation is to impact them with the knowledge of Bitcoin so that when you fulfill your days on earth and you are about to die then you can share your Bitcoin among your children to allow peace to rain when you are gone.

The cautious principle works well here. Wallet security is crucial. Its no surprise wallets dont allow screen recordings or screenshots. Our valuable digital assets are protected this way. Even while mobile phones are everywhere, they have become complicated networks of shared information and security risks.

Your notion to write critical wallet phrases on old-fashioned paper is like how people used to store valuables: carefully. As we enter the wild new world of cryptocurrency, traditional security recommendations and new digital ways will aid us.

Sending sensitive information encrypted? Bringing the best of old and new together! A PDF that requires a PIN? The best! Thats an illustration of how fresh ideas dont need to be spectacular to work. Because of our shared human experience, security rules remain the same in the digital age. Save those digital gems!

Yeah that's true, most wallet disable screenshot of your seed phrase because obviously they know the risk behind it, like you said your phone isn't all that personal and since you can for some reasons kinda give it someone who maybe needs to collect some kind of file from it, for example even your kids, siblings can make use of your mobile and by mistake exposing your seed phrase to eye which are not supposed to view and by so tempering with the access to your wallet. We must understand that our seed phrase is way more important than even the pin to your bank apps because you can recover those very easily but your phrase is something else except only you have it backed up but even at that can still lose your coins if it seen by the wrong eyes

Basing up on my real experience when it comes on screenshoting some private keys Ex. Electrum, there's no way that you could really be able to do that on which there's no way that you can able to ss out.
I thought that there's something wrong with my phone which it cant make out some screenshot but to know that it was indeed a feature on which you cant really be able to do so. Its true that its not that ideal on storing up those keys or images on your mobile phone and it should really be that private as much as possible or away from other peoples awareness.You would really be putting yourself at huge trouble
once those keys would really be exposed. This is why storing them would be your outmost priority specially if it does contain your crypto savings or investment which would really be intend and saved up
for your future and with your family. Giving out inheritance then teaching them would be the key, you could store up those keys on a flashdrive or putting it on a will so that on the time comes
that you do pass away then they do at least know on how to access those coins for them to make use of it and wont really be putting up your hard work to waste.

Someone asked, "What's the point of getting married to her if you don't trust her? Let's put trust aside. What we are talking about here is finance, and not just any kind of money; this is digital, where there is no name attached to a receiver's wallet unless the person makes it otherwise. So I would not advise you to share your entire wallet access with your wife (that's your decision, by the way, and I respect it), especially when you are still accumulating.

Instead, you can send a few of the coins or half of them to the wallet, where she can have control over them in an emergency. This is to avoid some kind of complications coming afterward in the family in cases of missing funds. If anything happens to the wallet out of the carelessness of either of you, you being the husband, who will you suspect first of moving the funds in the wallet? If we are to be realistic here, anyone who has access to our wallet that we are aware of becomes our number one suspect in cases of missing funds, no matter what relationships or connections we have with the person, unless the case is proven otherwise and the person in question is cleared of any guilt. So I will advise you to add a little security to the sharing of wallet access with your wife, as there are other better ways of doing it.

I have read through many comments. Someone talked about
✅paper wallet,
✅Keeping a hard wallet with a lawyer and giving access to children after their departure to the land of the silent.
✅Another person also suggested teaching their wife's the know-how.
✅And many more suggestions, this suggestions are good but here are my view on each of them.

👉If a paper wallet is used with reference to a particular block when the bitcoins becomes accessible, my question is that, what happens in a situation where flood swept all the papers, or destroy them totally. If the papers are also kept with a lawyer, what happens if the lawyer pass the paper to their offspring before their death.

👉In the case of teaching the wife the know how of bitcoins is good but many have raised a concern about trust issues, if one have fear of trust on this particular case, then making it known to the wife becomes an unrealistic adventure.
Involving a third party can also open investors to hackers

 👉Having argue on some of this point, as privacy is topmost priority of an investor, it is very obvious that privacy is no longer existing  for user to transfer their asset to offspring since they will involve third person  . The best practice is to share the bitcoins to everyones wallet if they are of age and can manage what they have or make it known to the wife. of what value is it if you have the fear  of loosing all to your wife or lost everything to the air without anyone benefiting.
👉This very topic is serious and I will suggest that, there should be diversification so that bitcoins will not be the only way out in case this leads to family conflict or lost of bitcoins.

You present quite a bit of a dilemma Nwada001 because there can be a lot of variance in regards to the extent that couples might agree to having separate funds. or maybe the separate funds are known.. so there could be separate funds and joint funds, but then again, secrets can always be kept in regards to funds, so it could be a matter of degree how much secret is allowed (or even ends up happening) within any relationships.. whether spoken agreement or unspoken agreement... or if they are just lazy in respect to private matters of the other.

One possible way of dealing with a situation in which the partner wants to keep secrets, but also to share might be to have several different secret phrases on a Trezor, and the spouse may already be used to using the trezor and the secret phrases and also know the seed words for the back up, but that she might not realize that the secretive spouse has another wallet that can be accessed through the Trezor and then the secret spouse would pass that down upon his/her death by somehow making sure that the secret password is communicated after death, and that could even be in a sealed envelop in a lawyers office, but he lawyer would not be able to access the wallet without the seed or even known other aspects of the wallet.. so the information in the envelop might even say that this is ONLY intended for my wife after my death and the lawyer would not even be permitted to open it... but another aspect would be if the wife died simultaneously or before the instructions were corrected, then there should be a back up plan of some other heirs or otherwise maybe no one ends up being able to get access to those funds.


If we are talking about ways to pass down our bitcoin, that does not even come close to any kind of presumption that bitcoin is the ONLY assets that anyone has that is worthy of passing down.

We could be talking about $100 worth of bitcoin $1million or some other amount, but the fact that we are focusing our discussion on bitcoin does not even come close to implying that bitcoin is the ONLY thing that we have - even if there might be some discussions/mentions regarding how bitcoin (as an asset class) differs from more traditional asset classes that likely have more of a physical component.. but even bitcoin might not be the ONLY kind of digital asset that someone holds that are of value, and not even necessarily referring to shitcoins because there could be other digital information that people hold that are valuable and/or in need of being passed down.. but even some of those kinds of digital assets might not have the same kinds of cryptographic natures or even the kind of transactional value that bitcoin has in terms of bitcoin would be valuable to anyone once they get ahold of it, they might end up spending it  or storing it away from themselves without necessarily being traceable or recoverable in terms of their likely moving it to new keys if they are able to breach the earlier keys.

It's cool that Bitcoin can be passed down like an inheritance. But it's not as easy as it seems. It's something to think about, even though it might seem like bad news. I understand that I didn't know what would occur with my small but growing Bitcoin savings if I died suddenly. This is a topic where we should face reality and find a solution. People who are new to Bitcoin might not be thinking about what could occur to their Bitcoin if they were to pass away unexpectedly.


Oh, wouldn't it be cool if a big platform added a time capsule thing? I could put away some crypto that I can't touch until a certain date. And then I could even send this capsule to someone.I could also create wallets and keys for my kids, but they wouldn't be able to use the crypto until they're 18. Haha, it'd be neat if I could give them a certain amount of Bitcoin for their birthdays every year for 30 years.

I believe we shouldn't just figure out how to give it to our kids or future generations, but also show them how to use Bitcoin properly so they can handle it well after we're no longer around.

 

The saying we grew up with as kids is that it's harder to protect freedom than it is to gain it, the same applies to Bitcoin. You have money so you can easily buy bitcoins but later on it will be a tough challenge for you to protect bitcoins. At the moment you are buying bitcoins you may be someone's child but after few years you will be a father so from then you will be thinking about how to leave my bitcoins to my next generation or loved ones. If your next generation doesn't know about Bitcoin then they won't understand the true value of Bitcoin so first you need to make the next generation much more experienced about Bitcoin. If the next generation or loved one can be made more experienced with Bitcoin and later share your account information with them then surely Bitcoin will reach your next generation or your loved one in your absence.

Thank you for your suggestions, I will re-evaluate my storage method carefully. I like everyone here, am trying to find the best solution to ensure the safety of my bitcoins. Therefore, I am willing to listen to everyone's opinions to find the best method.
USB storage is my new go-to in recent years, and with the traditional option for backing up my notes, I did that before learning about bitcoin, and it actually still works pretty well, as you said. It cannot be denied that this is still the method being used by many people.

.

Yes that's quite interesting and you've said it all. Bitcoin must not necessarily be the only digital asset that should be passed down. Examples of other digital asset that could be passed down are:
1) digital books
2) videos
3) music
4) photos
5) Email account

There are many of Dem but let us discuss on this few.
Digital Book: some digital books might be the type which passes information to the younger generation. Educative books to enlighten the younger generation the impending danger ahead and how to scale through.
Videos: videos might also be another digital assets. It might be a video that will contains the total asset that one needs to know about e.g lands, houses, business all over there world. online accounts that he/she has been using to Earn money. Or a video futage of death case. Or a memorial of the past.
Music[: could also be an inherited music that was passed on as a heridity. This music could be a spiritual music or a historical music that has a very big potential to change ones mindset.
Photos: photo is the fastest medium of understanding or conveying message. Photos could be family pictures, childhood picture, marriage pictures etc. documents containing useful information as well.  
Email Account: email account is also important because it contains alot of information concerning you and can also be passed on.

I will personally teach my kids about bitcoin,if I really want them to inherit my bitcoin. Teach them about wallets and seedphrase,which are the two important things to know so that they can have access to your bitcoin when you have passed on.

If you two kids,get two wallets for them and teach them how to import keys to their own wallet,after that you can create two extra wallets,where you will be storing bitcoin into their various wallet. Just like it is advisable not to store all your bitcoin in one wallet so that if your wallet is compromise,you won't loss all your funds. Since they have their own wallets which they have access to and can practice with it. You can draw a tattoo on their chest that contains the the seedphrase of each of their wallets,where no one can see it,only if they pull off their clothes and nobody will understand what it means. Then tell them that when you pass on the words on their tattoo should be imported on their wallets because you have a big surprise for them and tell them where bitcoin should be private,so that they can keep it a secret. Just my own crazy idea.

https://media.tenor.com/LghkR0aGu_gAAAAM/mr-bubz-dog.gif
That completely depends on how you choose to define the word "spent" in the first place. When is a thing truly spent? Is it when you have traded it in for something of equal or greater value? Perhaps it is spent regardless of the return value of the thing you traded it in for? How about if you gambled most of it away with bad trading practices? Is that considered spent?

I beieve our main focus here is bitcoin, lets priotize our focus on how bitcoin can be passed on to the next generation through inheritancee and how can we preserve the inheritance without conflict between multiple hiers. I believe we all know that there are various assets that can be inherited but we are talking on bitcoin so lets stay on track.

I'm pleased with your response, friend. I read a post about a Bitcoin enthusiast who was feeling very sad. He had accumulated Bitcoin for 8 years, but he was worried because he had cancer and might not live much longer. He had made sure his Bitcoin would be passed on, but his biggest concern was that his son didn't know about Bitcoin, and he might accidentally ruin what he had worked for all those years. I don't want to go through a similar experience. I'm definitely going to share my Bitcoin knowledge with my future heirs, so they can become even bigger holders than me. Who knows, maybe he could become the next generation's Satoshi.

That's the only chink in the armor of this mechanism. The fact that it banks on the trust and the integrity of the lawyer that you will be working with. But I guess if you have such stupendous amounts of bitcoin that you're worried about passing them down to your kids, you could pretty much afford a lawyer that is either loyal to you from the get-go, or someone whose loyalty can be paid. With that in mind the only thing you'll ever be worrying is wear and tear, and you're supposed to be good to go.

I understand what you mean because there are indeed a lot of things that are inherited and I understand where you are going but when looking at the initial context of the discussion we are centred on how to pass bitcoin to the next generation so as not to widen into other discussions the focus must remain there.
We all understand that there is a lot that we need to pass on to the next generation after we are gone but currently the discussion is still referring to bitcoin as the main focus so I think it will be out of line if discussing others to be discussed in this thread because the discussion becomes irrelevant to the original topic (off topic).

The problem is real and I'm sure there are significant amounts of btc lost forever due to death. Most people don't think about it, thinking they have plenty of time, but then they die suddenly and their stash could be lost for good. Although every holder has their private keys/pass phrases stored somewhere, so technically speaking, they should still be recoverable if you know what to look for.

But if we're talking about building intergenerational wealth, this implies you already have heirs that you trust, so the simplest solution would be just to share private keys with them, or just store them in a safe deposit box like Hal Finney did.

This is what makes Bitcoin different: the private key and passphrase. Of course, no one can open it if we don't reveal the keys before your death. It's not a good idea to transfer only Bitcoin money if you die because the majority of them, they will sell all Bitcoins located in the wallet. So, if you think you are old, I believe now is the greatest moment to teach them about Bitcoin. They may not believe you at first, but as time passes and you continue to teach them, they will develop an interest in Bitcoin. If you find someone who is suitable for Bitcoin wealth, you can transfer it to him before your death and advise him on what to do with it.

Yes.  Consumables are spent, but there are some kinds of products that are more durable, but they may well not hold their value very well.. so yeah some durables hold their value better than others. 

Surely, just like the lottery player can say that all the value that s/he had put into playing the lottery has some kind of value because it could have had paid off, but then there is nothing to show for it.

It is not necessarily a bad thing to spend your coins and your profits and even especially if you might have had gotten some kind of a windfall.  I am largely using my own windfall from my June 20 stroke of good luck to buy back coins, but I also have a decently higher reserve of fiat that is just available to me.. and probably I have spent some of that..

It is not always easy to identify exactly where source funds are coming from when they are put into a count or just kept in the background in case they might be needed at a later date or maybe they are just available and end up allowing for the non-spending of some other funds that would have had gotten spent if the windfall funds had not been available.

Likely, only you are in a position to really know how well you might have utilized those funds and/or would have it had been necessary to anything with them other than to consume them.. but then if you consume too much of them because you think that "trading is investing," then surely that could cause some levels of excessive bitterness.. I cannot be sure if that might be part of your situation.


Even though Hal is a smart guy.  Many of us already realize that there are problems with safety boxes, and surely we do not know the details of exactly how Hal saved his keys in safety deposit boxes, but that could be one point of failure if that might have had been the ONLY place that he had his keys and/or other instructional information related to his bitcoin.

If you are going to blindly follow someone like Hal and say, well if it was good enough for Hal, then it is good enough for me, then you may or may not get lucky with that approach to your bitcoin based on a safety deposit box being potentially one point of failure.

Why would you leave bitcoins with people who you think won't trust you? When leaving bitcoins, choose someone who will honor your trust. You may have held Bitcoin for a long time but your next generation may not have held Bitcoin for as long as you have held Bitcoin for a long time. If money is needed and your next generation doesn't have money then of course they will sell bitcoins. It is not uncommon to do so in cases of necessity. If your family is in financial trouble or in danger, of course if you are alive you would have taken that responsibility because in your absence your family has been in financial trouble so if someone in your family can save themselves from that financial trouble by selling your bitcoins then it is never bad. And no matter how much wealth we earn, that wealth is wealth but we cannot take it with us after death, so there is no point in thinking about what will happen after death, what you have done before death is the main thing. You just need to make sure that your bitcoins reach your next generation after your death.

Yes, it seems to me that if only the passphrase or keys are given to the inheritors they will not get the bitcoins. There may even be people who don't know about Bitcoin before you die. He does not know how to protect those bitcoins or how to use them for his personal needs. Then that bitcoin might be worthless as well. Because he might make a mistake there for which he might lose that money. They must be well educated about Bitcoin before giving them a private key or passphrase.

The only way to do this is by sharing your private key with someone very trusted or just storing it somewhere secure and keeping it locked until the time comes. The way to retrieve your valuables from the lock/vault can be specified on your will. Maybe be use a bank value to store your private keys on the paper wallet. Two parts on two different banks? That way there is lower chance of your keys getting compromised. And I am sure there are other people that have found out better ways to giveaway your wealth to your heirs. Maybe a quick google might help.

Yes you are absolutely right, you know some people thinks that its hard to share Bitcoin to the next generation, yes it can be hard but if the next generations have any little knowledge about Bitcoin then it can easily be transfered to them but if the next generation don't know about Bitcoin it might be hard for them to use Bitcoin and other crypto currency.
So in that case if anyone wants he's or her next generation to inherits their Bitcoin asset while they are getting older they should try and educate them about Bitcoin in an easy way they can understand little untll they have good knowledge about Bitcoin before they should be given the keys to the wallet so they upcoming will not get scammed or lose the coin to an unknown address.

I also met some people who suggested this method but I also wondered a lot about this method. Because the purpose of using bitcoin is because we do not want to depend on banks or any third parties. Meanwhile, if we split the seed phase and put it in 2 or more banks, it's like we are giving our assets to them to hold on our behalf once again. In this case, I would rather trust my loved ones like my parents or wife than trust the bank or the government again.

Private keys, JSON files, Passphrases have become the new way to go in transferring inheritance and/or wealth to heirs. These however should not be clustered in one place as it is not advisable.

If they are clustered together and one person gets a hold of it then it is gone. This can be scattered across safe houses or banks or institutions for safety and their direct heirs should be the ones to assemble it for usage. This is the only approach towards its safety but it still remains a new way to go in terms of wealth transfer to a heir.

Good point, but the sad truth is you have to store your private keys somewhere. If it's a physical location (be it for paper wallets or electronic devices) it'll always bear a risk of someone unauthorised getting their hands on it.
That could be mitigated by splitting it in 2 or more parts and store each separately. In Hal's case - he referred to one box, but at the time he passed away (2014) nobody really knew where BTC will go, so, I reckon, at that time it was probably not the most valuable asset of the inheritance. And we all tend to apply level of security proportional to the value of what we try to secure.

In the end, it is likely a good thing to recognize and appreciate the splitting of keys and/or the splitting of information.

And, sure sometimes these days private keys might be recognized and then figured out how they might be applied to some kind of a wallet (without even having instructions).

We cannot exactly know the size of Hal's stash, but it is thought to have had been pretty large, even in 2014 terms. ..and yeah, may not have been completely disclosing the details of how his keys were being secured and that might be part of the reason that I suggested that it might not have had been a good idea to be quoting that message from Hal in regards to how it appeared that he may have been holding his keys for his family members.

For sure, your point about the level of security attempting to somewhat match the present or future value of the stash or maybe making changes to the way that the coins are secured if the stash value size changes are surely valid. 

Many of us who have been into bitcoin for a while have likely experienced some level of changed concerns, and for example if someone had bought $10k worth of BTC for $300 each (which would have been around 33 BTC) in 2014 or 2015, may well have ended up surprised as soon as 2017 regarding how fast those values were going up perhaps 50x or more... so the price rise of 2017 may well have incentivized additional security measures or changes to then practices...and even a 5x or 10x change in value may well end up with similar kinds of concerns to change security practices. 

Not a bad idea, although there's two things to consider in your option:
1. One of the children loses their part of the phrase and they're both in trouble.
2. One of them convinces the other to access the money early, or steals it from the other one, knowing they have it. I would like to think my children are above such things, but it's always something to have in mind.


After reading this a thought came to my mind that I'll share with you. Imagine you set it up now, being in your, say 50s. You make the list of experts for your kids and forget about it and the bitcoins stored on some hardware wallet hidden in a safe. 30 years later, you die and  kids start going through your things. They find the wallet and the list, but those people are either senile, or already dead. Bitcoin on the other hand is worth 5 million dollars a piece and kids are scared if they tell anyone about the wealth you've gathered they'll get robbed and killed, not necessarily in this order. :D

or if you have 2 heirs then best to have them both half of the key? so if ever that you died in accident or even in natural death , then they can just share each other and then boom , take the funds out?
though My wife and my children have idea what is crypto and yes i have split the keys to them 3 , (but of course I have my own funds inside my pocket)  so if ever this happens then they can take it out without any issue.

You raise some good points about various ways to attempt to accomplish the extent to which any of us might want to give full power to someone and then to leave it up to that someone to engage in good practices, whether it is to follow instructions or perhaps even to have proper back ups of their keys that might be necessary for the other, and one of the possible remedies for a negligent or sloppy person might be to exercise 2 out of 3, but even 2 out of 3 might not resolve some situations in which one of the people who is irresponsible does their irresponsibility, and then one of the responsible ones ends up having a real and legitimate problem that even ended up screwing up their backup, and then in that case getting left with only 1 out of 3 ends up being the same as having nothing, since one  of the other keys would still be needed.

Oh and your example of giving full access to the spouse, and perhaps it could be like a joint account and there is enough to completely cover everyone and you use it on a regular basis, and there are supposed to be restrictions on spending from the account up to a certain amount per month... let's say $3k per month or something  like that (and presume the funds are in the ballpark of $1 million^**).. but then if you have your own separate $1 million, then you are still able to cope if your spouse runs off with the funds (or spends beyond the budget), even though that was not supposed to happen, and you did not authorize the spouse to engage in that kind of conduct, you have protected yourself by having right around an equal fund that you keep separate for yourself, just in case.

**Don't get me wrong.  I am not trying to make these numbers untouchable, but I am trying to give an example of a fund reaching a kind of self-perpetuating status, and if the fund had only $300k in it, then the example would still work as long at the income being drawn from the fund is $1k per month, and of course, if there is money flowing into the fund on a regular basis, then the extra cashflow into the fund would increase the amount that can be drawn out.. and if the fund is still in its building stage, then maybe no money would be spent from the principle, and it would just be a fund with extra money, and ONLY the cashflow would be part of the regular monthly budget.

That's actually a good plan as death is an inevitable occurrence in a man life and if you know that you are having some valuable amount of Bitcoin that you would need your family to inherit if death come knocking then splitting the key among your household is one way to go about it. But then there is always this possible of someone actually misplacing their key and just in case this happen what do you think will be the alternative way to go about it.

I wouldn't worry too much about my children accessing the funds early, cheating one another, spending it on stupid things, being robbed and all the rest of it.

You're leaving your whole world to them. This includes all your savings, properties, collectibles, things you worked on your whole life. If they are dumb enough to waste it or fight over it, they'll do it anyway, even if you make sure they get to share the bitcoin equally.

If they are stupid or hateful they will find ways to lose or destroy everything. I know it because I had such situations in my close family and in families of my parents.

If you're worried, get a bank deposit box in your name. Bank law ensures that even if it goes bankrupt you will not lose access because bank doesn't treat deposit boxes like money. It's your property they cannot put on auction or anything like that. You know the password, the encrypted wallet is in the deposit box. You can share the password with your children if you like, or write it in your will. Even knowing the password they won't be able to get to the file before your death and a potential robber who cleans your deposit box won't be able to access the money.

The above is not a perfect way but it's much better than leaving them money because the money will lose value with time but bitcoin won't. It's still in custody of a third party but that party cannot use it or go bankrupt and take it as a bailout.

As Bitcoin becomes more valuable, people tend to be more careful, and fewer private keys are lost. If you've educated your heirs about Bitcoin, they should be more focused on keeping things secure and not losing their keys. Unless they don't really understand the value of your Bitcoin holdings.

But just in case this happens, having a highly trustworthy attorney is crucial. However, since it's not always wise to rely entirely on another person, you can get creative with this.

For example, you could go old-school and write a letter with a fancy wax seal on it. You can have your attorney hold onto this letter, and it should only be opened by the person you want to receive it. So that will serve as an alternative if any heir loses private key.

Your example seems pretty good pixie85 in regards to the holder of the wallet (safety deposit box) not having an ability to access the keys (information) because they don't have the password, and that could work with leaving that information with an attorney, too... - however, what about the scenario of hardware failure.. and are you keeping the backup seed phrase in any location?

And if the wallet in the safety deposit is seized, stolen or otherwise not available - is there a second wallet somewhere?  maybe there would be a need for two safety deposit boxes, but that would not do much good if the attacker ends up being a government that seizes the property and does not return it.. .we likely realize that there are some ways that encryption might end up being broken if they have the actual harddrive.. so if you know that they have it, then you can move the funds, but if you don't know that they have it or you don't otherwise have access to the wallet, then you would not be able to do anything about their trying to beak the encyption of the device, if they believe that there is something of value on the harddrive.

That is my point mate, I am working for them , I accumulate all my cryptos for their future because who I am to keep when I am the one that for chance to pass away first?(of course there is uncertainties that might happen.
so I will let them decide , either to take it earlier even when I am still alive? or wait till I die it is for their to decide.
i have my own funds that will be with me in the next life if that happens , or if given a chance to live with them till i close my eyes? then those funds of mine will be their as well.

Perhaps you have a point in what you are saying, as a man is very painful working so hard to acquire wealth in other to give your children a better life and good education and when you die your children start fighting over the properties which you have laboured so much to build, so another way of trying or if not completely eradicate it from happening is to device a means of sharing all your properties among them while you are still alive, because that way everybody will no there place and respect your decision, through that way you can also monitor them and guide them on how to invest or run a business. With this method I believe things would be different instead of willing properties after death were as you don't no what your children are doing with your wealth.