Inheriting bitcoins

[jubalix]

How to pass bitcoins/CC on at this point after you pass from this mortal coil is a difficult one

At them moment most people would struggle to understand bitcoin, and if you passed on a wallet or private keys, I think a fair few if not a vast majority would end up deleting the wallet, loosing the keys , or loose coins, or simply not understand what to do....

Does anyone have any ideas how to pass on BTC???

Eg if you give the paper wallet to a lawyer, to pass on, how can you stop them spending it....and they just run off.

I think a lot of BTC will be frozen this way.

[1714105486]

1714105486

[Timelord2067]

That's what Will's are for - in Australia (and presumably other countries) Public Trustee's can draw up your Will outlining who gets what. ie House goes here, the car goes there, the paintings go to... the cash goes to ... It'd be no differant with any Alt / Digital Coin to 'cash'

Regards,

[Winterfrost]

You could split up the private key (or maybe even the seed to a deterministic wallet) using Shamir's Secret Sharing. You could leave parts in your will, a safety deposit box, a trusted friend, etc. Then leave instructions in for combining the parts and redeeming the bitcoins.

There's probably a way with multi-sig transactions as well, though I'm not as familiar with those.

[jubalix]

That's what Will's are for - in Australia (and presumably other countries) Public Trustee's can draw up your Will outlining who gets what. ie House goes here, the car goes there, the paintings go to... the cash goes to ... It'd be no differant with any Alt / Digital Coin to 'cash'

Regards,

I really really don't trust the public trustee, essentially they sell of all assets at cheap price to friends and apply highest possible tax rates, further this does not prevent the person getting the wallet screwing it up, before they understand how to use BTC

[franky1]

put it in your will. and treat the paper wallet exactly like a bearer bond, store it safe and just put its location  in the will

obviously if the funds disappear after you decease but before the family gets to hear the will, you know the lawyer pre-read the will and emptied the private key of the separate paper wallet (bearer bond) dry.

[jubalix]

put it in your will. and treat the paper wallet exactly like a bearer bond, store it safe and just put its location  in the will

obviously if the funds disappear after you decease but before the family gets to hear the will, you know the lawyer pre-read the will and emptied the private key of the separate paper wallet (bearer bond) dry.

but if the value is enough, eg say btc gos high each, the lawyer may just abscond

[franky1]

put it in your will. and treat the paper wallet exactly like a bearer bond, store it safe and just put its location  in the will

obviously if the funds disappear after you decease but before the family gets to hear the will, you know the lawyer pre-read the will and emptied the private key of the separate paper wallet (bearer bond) dry.

but if the value is enough, eg say btc gos high each, the lawyer may just abscond

same with writing in a will the keys to my safety deposit box containing 1 billion dollars in bearer bonds is located under the fishtank..

if it suddenly disappears after death atleast the police have something to go on...

(thinking for 2 seconds)
i have came to the conclusion this is yet another prequel scare tactic the OP may be dreaming up to then offer a dead-man switch service to contact family, offer them advice on how to reclaim bitcoins, only if the bitcoins are held in trust by him lol..

there's atleast a dozen of these brain farts tried out over the last few years.

but the simple solution: put enough info in the Will to find a paper wallet without actually putting the paper wallet in the will..

[kostagr33k]

A Nice how-to prevent this problem , written out maybe a good thing then! A lot of valid points have been brought up, but seems all are easily remedied by a good how to.

Secondly, maybe if a post exists with Lawyers that work with BTC , and are trusted should be included in this how-to.


Another option IS to start a service that helps people easily get trained on BTC, or at least one that could handle the transfer from someone who did pass away, to their family in a seemless way.

kosta

[franky1]

A Nice how-to prevent this problem , written out maybe a good thing then! A lot of valid points have been brought up, but seems all are easily remedied by a good how to.

Secondly, maybe if a post exists with Lawyers that work with BTC , and are trusted should be included in this how-to.


Another option IS to start a service that helps people easily get trained on BTC, or at least one that could handle the transfer from someone who did pass away, to their family in a seemless way.

kosta

well that would be the same guide all noobs to bitcoin should use, not just deceased families

[kostagr33k]

I like having separate Documents for specific scenarios, especially with something as critical as this =]

Blame my First IT boss who worked in the military and wanted SOPs for everything (Standard Operating Procedures ) !

kosta

[tclo]

As long as you have offspring who have IQs somewhere around 100 or better, I'm sure they could figure out the bitcoin directions if you left them detailed instructions.

[Stephen Gornick]

Eg if you give the paper wallet to a lawyer, to pass on, how can you stop them spending it....and they just run off.

The key can be split into multiple parts, so the family receives one part and the trustee/attorney another:

pybtcsplit - m-of-n Private Key Splitting made easy in one simple python utility
 - http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=104086.0

What many are waiting anxiously for is the inclusion of encrypted paper wallets.   So the trustee/attorney gets the decryption password and the family receives the encrypted paper wallets:

From another thread:

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) probably 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.

And apparently a commercial paper wallet product (based on an open source tool) is now available with this:

now in beta as part of OpenPaperWallet (and the retail kit, SafePaperWallet) -

BIP0038 compliant, encrypted private keys in QR codes.

Software v3 BETA

The new v3 offers many features:

- A step-by-step wizard
- Multiple background design options
- Encrypted private keys (BIP0038) and in-browser decryption.
- Deterministic Aliases

https://safepaperwallet.com/software-v3-beta/