What happens if we die?

[pekingcoepo]

Well all that can happen to our lives and the number of coins will continue to fall if no one knows our key wallet, with that from now on let's introduce to family, friends and people around us what is Bitcoin, if one day we die Coins that we Collect will benefit the people around us and not wasted because we never share, remember sharing is beautiful.

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[kkeylb]

You could put your bitcoin into a safe deposit box at a bank so any family member could get it, but then the government could also get it. Not to mention plenty of stores of bank deposit boxes going "missing." Personally I am too paranoid for that. I would rather give my family members a passphrase and specific instructions on how to unlock them if I were to die.

[ShowOff]

i have seen that kind of case once but luckily my friend who already die, she give her account data to someone who she trust. 0.12 BTC worth on Poloniex can be saved. maybe we can try to give the data to someone who we trust maybe family or someone else so if something bad happen to us, our money not gone

[Duzter]

Bitcoin and life has similarities. Think of one's life which is completely not certain, same is the situation of bitcoin. It has got increased value, but the same cannot be predicted. So when we're no more what's the need to think about it. Better is to educate few of your friends and family to access bitcoin.

[PotatoBlood]

Smart contracts will fix this!

[adzino]

Yeah, it is gone forever, unless someone finds that piece of paper and understand what it is and claims all the coins, it will be gone forever and never be able to recover it. So if you have large amount of coins, it is better to let your close ones know about it.

[el kaka22]

Nope, this is no existential question (although...). Everybody's talking about "When will Bitcoin die", but what if you die, and your family don't find your key, or don't understand it, or think it's only a useless sheet of paper with some code on it, or simply throw it away... Does this mean the currency's gone forever?

I find the possibility of this event rather realistic (yup I don't believe in eternal life), so that means that someday there might be 21M BTC but only 18M (and counting down...) is left in the market?

Well in my own opinion, if i die ? for sure all of my bitcoins will be worthless and useless because no one in my family don't know what is bitcoin and don't know anything in my accounts here in bitcoin that's why no one could retrieve it or can get all of bitcoins because no one could access on it.

I think what is relevant to your heritage due to the fact that you don't really love their loved ones. When you love people then you care about them regardless of whether they agree with your actions or not.

First of all, I would like to answer the OP, If we die then we will be dead persons and if our dead body will be thrown in water, it will float. Cool Han! hahaha!

I am not here to judge anyone's love on the base of whether they have told their loved ones about the BTC accounts or not. However, it is damn obvious that if they do not know the key, they can't access your BTCs.
I have also an idea. Exchanges must have some way to know whether someone is dead or alive. And once they discovered the death of  user, his BTCs should be collected. :p

[Ucy]

A Will that includes all your  Bitcoin & cryptocurrency keys will probably do. 

[Sir Cross]

I'm not sure what will happen with bitcoins that are stored and no longer retrieved after a long period of time. Does it depreciate? Go stagnant? Its probably advisable for us to keep our private keys ina safe place and entrust it to someone we can rely on, possibly someone with knowledge about bitcoin otherwise it would be useless. Storing it in a usb in a text file or something could probably do the trick, but if it were to be left with someone who doesn't know bitcoin, then instructions should be provided.

So what does happen to stored bitcoin that can no longer be accessed?

[gilangIDR]

Yeah, it is gone forever, unless someone finds that piece of paper and understand what it is and claims all the coins, it will be gone forever and never be able to recover it. So if you have large amount of coins, it is better to let your close ones know about it.

All things that are not well saved will surely be forever. When we die then no one else knows all the information we have. Except when we have told everything to the people we trust. Just like bitcoin, the bitcoin we have is inaccessible forever.

[skaynet]

Indeed we will all die. If you have so much BTC then it is also necessary to prepare your wills regarding BTC. Otherwise all will be buried with our deaths.

[btcney]

Nope, this is no existential question (although...). Everybody's talking about "When will Bitcoin die", but what if you die, and your family don't find your key, or don't understand it, or think it's only a useless sheet of paper with some code on it, or simply throw it away... Does this mean the currency's gone forever?

I find the possibility of this event rather realistic (yup I don't believe in eternal life), so that means that someday there might be 21M BTC but only 18M (and counting down...) is left in the market?

There is already an estimated at least a million coins that are lost forever.

Some people deliberately do this for an ICO or whatnot, using "proof of burn". Essentially, all funds raised in the crowdsale will be sent into an address which nobody can access unless they have extensive hashpower which not even all the governments commbined have close to.

When you die, same thing happens. Basically, bitcoin's supply goes down. Therefore, in the long term bitcoin is actually deflationary as the amount of coins generated per block becomes less.

[bucker steemit]

Yes chances are the money is useless, because no one is accessing it, it is the digital daylight, when we die all vanish without
 Remaining. But there is little suggestion it's good to notify emails and passwords on siblings if something happens later that could be useful

[mx667]

Well, I have never really think about it. I always thought that we should have more than just one money source.
Don't rely on Bitcoin only. We should have other work or other business to stay alive. I mean stay make money.
Maybe we should mine Bitcoin but at the same time we have other business like Blog and Adsense or Amazon ? 

[aardvark15]

Nope, this is no existential question (although...). Everybody's talking about "When will Bitcoin die", but what if you die, and your family don't find your key, or don't understand it, or think it's only a useless sheet of paper with some code on it, or simply throw it away... Does this mean the currency's gone forever?

I find the possibility of this event rather realistic (yup I don't believe in eternal life), so that means that someday there might be 21M BTC but only 18M (and counting down...) is left in the market?

Yes those Bitcoins will be permanently lost and can never be used unless someone knows how to calculate the private key or just gets lucky and guesses it.

There will be lost Bitcoins every year and therefore the number of lost Bitcoins will keep increasing over time. There will probably be a time in the future when there are more coins lost than not lost. But we won't be able to know which ones are lost unless people make it known what coins have lost private keys.

[musbeto]

Nope, this is no existential question (although...). Everybody's talking about "When will Bitcoin die", but what if you die, and your family don't find your key, or don't understand it, or think it's only a useless sheet of paper with some code on it, or simply throw it away... Does this mean the currency's gone forever?

I find the possibility of this event rather realistic (yup I don't believe in eternal life), so that means that someday there might be 21M BTC but only 18M (and counting down...) is left in the market?

LOL, i think for sure it , the future it will be disappear may be a few or a half.
No someone can foresee its future

[Merovius]

Can't you just leave the retrieval key code in safety deposit box/ entrusted with lawyer via will?

Yes, you could do that but it is important to remember that wills (at least in the United States) are matters of public record, which means that after the will is filed, anyone could go to the relevant county's courthouse (or access its records via website for a small fee) and read the contents of the will. So you would probably not want to put your actual private key in there, although you could still make a general bequest of your bitcoin balance to your successor.

Safe deposit boxes also carry some risks, like the risk of an unscrupulous bank official having access to your stuff, or the risk of either bank or government confiscation should there be a "bail in" to recapitalize the banks during a financial crisis, or perhaps a change in the laws regarding private assets held at banks.

[shine1123]

Nope, this is no existential question (although...). Everybody's talking about "When will Bitcoin die", but what if you die, and your family don't find your key, or don't understand it, or think it's only a useless sheet of paper with some code on it, or simply throw it away... Does this mean the currency's gone forever?

I find the possibility of this event rather realistic (yup I don't believe in eternal life), so that means that someday there might be 21M BTC but only 18M (and counting down...) is left in the market?

Well if i die and my family don't find my private key or my wallet that have all my bitcoins maybe it will gone forever. Because my family is don't know about bitcoin and how it works. I think i will start to write a note about my bitcoin wallet and how to open it lmao. We never know when the dead comes though, just prepare for it.

[krishnapramod]

Nope, this is no existential question (although...). Everybody's talking about "When will Bitcoin die", but what if you die, and your family don't find your key, or don't understand it, or think it's only a useless sheet of paper with some code on it, or simply throw it away... Does this mean the currency's gone forever?

I find the possibility of this event rather realistic (yup I don't believe in eternal life), so that means that someday there might be 21M BTC but only 18M (and counting down...) is left in the market?

Yeah, it's gone forever, lost coins.

If you are saving bitcoins for your loved ones then you should clearly explain to them how bitcoin works and how to inherit coins in case you die.

The simplest form of bitcoin inheritance is writing down the private keys on a piece of paper and storing it in a safety deposit box.

You can use bitcoin protocol for inheritance, but these are a bit technical and complicated, contract/time-locked transaction.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_4%3a_Using_external_state

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Timelock

Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_Secret_Sharing

Third-party services. Currently Coinbase doesn't allow to add a beneficiary, but through will and testament ownership of Coinbase account can be transferred.

https://support.coinbase.com/customer/en/portal/articles/2321225-how-do-i-gain-access-to-a-deceased-family-member-s-coinbase-account-

I guess in future there would be more bitcoin/crypto/digital inheritance services.

[Horas Bah]

Everyone will die, and before we die we must give the best action and usefull for anyone. And this is the best time to prepare before we die, we must help anyone who need.