Bitcoins and death

[grantbdev]

What will happen when holders of Bitcoin die? Would it be possible to pass down their digital wealth through a will? How could that be securely done? Would we see a massive amount of coins lost forever over time?

[1715268261]

1715268261

[1715268261]

1715268261

[debianlinux]

What will happen when holders of Bitcoin die?

We will cease breathing our bodies will be disposed of and anyone close to us will grieve even if they hated us.

Would it be possible to pass down their digital wealth through a will? How could that be securely done?

Private keys held in exactly the same manner vault keys and account passwords and such are. M of N authentication could insure your benefactors have knowledge and information and the attorney has the final piece.

Would we see a massive amount of coins lost forever over time?

Inevitably, for various definitions of "massive". The same holds true for things like precious metals, guns, guitars and classic cars. There is attrition through destruction and loss thereby increasing the value of the remaining.

[WinVery.com]

There is attrition through destruction and loss thereby increasing the value of the remaining.

A predominant advantage of secure currency.

[Stephen Gornick]

What will happen when holders of Bitcoin die? Would it be possible to pass down their digital wealth through a will? How could that be securely done?

Here's one way ... paper wallets with password encryption:

So the encrypted paper wallet(s) go to family members.  DeadMansSwitch gets the decryption key, as does the trustee.  From another thread:

I changed the colour to blue for encrypted paper wallets to provide distinction between encrypted/unencrypted paper wallets - a version in the original yellow is included in case you really like yellow, just delete 'note_encrypted.png' and rename 'note_yellow.png' in its place.

This solution (encrypted paper wallets) robably isn't ready for prime time, but give it a few weeks and that will probably become a very good method for offline / long term savings that is secure.

Would we see a massive amount of coins lost forever over time?

Back in the day, a loss of bitcoins in the thousands (of BTCs) would happen now and then, apparently.  That's also back when an offer of 10,000 bitcoins to get a pizza delivered took a few days of waiting and some prodding for anyone to finally make that trade.  

There still are losses of bitcoins that happen now and then (e.g., forgot the password to the encrypted wallet, didn't have any back ups and hard drive crash, etc.).

But as a bitcoin increases in value, the amount of losses occurring are much smaller.  Losing 2 BTC today is a loss of more purchasing power than what  Laszlo's 10,000 BTC had back less than three years ago.  

[b!z]

What will happen when holders of Bitcoin die? Would it be possible to pass down their digital wealth through a will? How could that be securely done? Would we see a massive amount of coins lost forever over time?

You could try cracking the wallet