Don't Let Your Bitcoins Die With You! How to give them away after you die

[Kasmal]

The Problem: While you are alive it is unwise to give anyone access to your bitcoin wallet, however if you should die unexpectedly (we all go someday), or are otherwise incapacitated; How can you provide access to your wallet for your heirs, ensuring the funds aren't just left inaccessible in your hard drive ?

The solution I propose is to use a service that allows you to schedule an e-mail to be sent at a later date, like  boomeranggmail.com if you have a gmail account, or lettermelater.com. For those using Microsft Outlook check here office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/delay-or-schedule-sending-e-mail-messages-HP001232817.aspx#BM1.

In the email you could send the passwords needed to access your wallet.dat file. Alternatively you could send the wallet.dat file itself as an attachment(preferably encrypted with password protection).However, I would caution you from sending the wallet.dat file as an attachment without first letting the receiver know your intentions, as some people would be concerned about opening an attachment from someone who is dead!

A major concern though is the danger of e-mails being intercepted and read by other parties. To solve this you could use a personal hint which only that person would know which would provide the password to unencrypt the attached wallet file. Better yet you could use PGP to secure the whole message.

I would suggest scheduling the e-mail to be sent in about a year's time plus another message sent to yourself about a month in advance reminding you to delay the message for another year.

A similar scheme can be used in general to give others access to your digital content that you may not want to share while you are alive.

Anyways let me know what you think  

[1714050863]

1714050863

[DamienBlack]

Or you could just put it in your will... like most people do with things they plan on passing on after death.

[imperi]

I plan on storing my wallets onto a USB stick, and burying them in the sand on a desert island. I will draw a map to get back to them, using proper cartographic methods. Upon my death, my closest relatives will receive the map along with my other belongings.

[wolftaur]

Encrypt the wallet with an extremely secure passphrase, put it on a USB stick, and put that in a safety deposit box and either leave the contents to your intended recipient in your will, or, use delivery on death if the bank has this feature.

Then put the passphrase on another USB stick and give that to the intended recipient.

[Kasmal]

Or you could just put it in your will... like most people do with things they plan on passing on after death.

That is true however that requires giving access to your wallet to someone else while your alive. Another point is that many people using bitcoins are young and haven't felt it necessary to otherwise spend the time and money to draw up a will.

[DamienBlack]

Or you could just put it in your will... like most people do with things they plan on passing on after death.

That is true however that requires giving access to your wallet to someone else while your alive. Another point is that many people using bitcoins are young and haven't felt it necessary to otherwise spend the time and money to draw up a will.

Then I doubt they feel it necessary to set up any other on death system.

[casascius]

Use a Paper Bitcoin Wallet (see my sigline).  Should be pretty straightforward.  Lots of grieving people will understand how to handle a piece of paper and redeem a code, versus trying to follow a script of decryption instructions.

[Kasmal]

Or you could just put it in your will... like most people do with things they plan on passing on after death.

That is true however that requires giving access to your wallet to someone else while your alive. Another point is that many people using bitcoins are young and haven't felt it necessary to otherwise spend the time and money to draw up a will.

Then I doubt they feel it necessary to set up any other on death system.

The reason for not writing a will when young is mostly because they don't have much money, and are generally okay with what they have going to their closest relatives. With bitcoins however if no measures are taken they could be lost forever.

[gjy4ygfds]

http://www.deadmansswitch.net ?

[ben-abuya]

http://www.deadmansswitch.net ?

Actually, this is already built into Bitcoin:

http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=5194.msg147032#msg147032

[netrin]

I understand, the secret key is only about 60 characters long. You could hand write that in a will.

[Kasmal]

http://www.deadmansswitch.net ?

Yup, that's the basic idea, though I don't see any way of configuring when the messages are to be sent with that.

[Kasmal]

I understand, the secret key is only about 60 characters long. You could hand write that in a will.

That would work, however that requires actually writing up a will. Plus there isn't much legal action you could take against the holder of your will if he decides to spend your bitcoins!

[davux]

There are 2 issues that are specific to bitcoin wallets:

• you still want to be able to use it while you're alive
• the wallet must be backed up again after each transaction

So burying it in the desert or leaving it in a secured box won't work.

You would need to be able to send an up-to-date version regularly (daily), so it must be stored online. (Which means you must of course encrypt it.)

The only challenge here is to inform the right person of the password and the URL. Maybe split the information: leave the URL in your last will (the legal one, an automatic email, etc.) and give the password to your friend while you're alive, or the opposite.

[Kasmal]

You would need to be able to send an up-to-date version regularly (daily)

If it's your savings wallet that you never touch you don't have to worry about that. Even if it's your wallet used for daily transactions you only have to worry about coins involved in transactions after 100 new keys are generated, see here https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Securing_your_wallet#Technical_Background.