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March 04, 2018, 06:06:39 AM Last edit: March 04, 2018, 07:34:56 AM by chado33 |
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This is a major barrier to everyday people entering crypto. This actually makes crypto more difficult to work with than using a bank. A bank makes you go through KYC, takes a picture of your driver's license, and then opens up an account for you. And if you die, your family can take your death certificate to the bank and get your money out. With crypto, there is ZERO fail safe barring printing out your PRVT keys and leaving instructions in your will on how to find and open your wallets. Roughly 55% of Americans do not have a will, the % is much higher in less developed countries. So how does a family retrieve your keys when you die? Or do your bitcoins just go... poof!
No one is smart enough to conceive of all the scenarios that will occur after they die. So leaving it to smart contracts or leaving it to each of us individually to do our own hair-brained estate planning doesn't work either. There has to be some kind of a hybrid solution here where we build-in decentralized security and bounty incentivized trust through oversight.
For example, a multi-key wallet with a dead mans switch that is scanning the Central Death Authorities of all the countries in the world. If a users death certificate is found on the CDA's database, then a masternode network which has two responsibilities, 1) act as a typical masternode, hold coins-get paid, and 2) hold coins to get access to bounties which are a small % of a users estate but must verify that death certificates that come to them. The masternodes were randomly chosen when the user added their last private key, they don't even know it until the death certificate is detected, so it makes the wallet virtually unhackable. At least three masternodes have to verify the death certificate and only that will create a complete key to open the will and private keys attached to the wallets that the deceased held. All the funds are then moved into a single currency into an escrow to be distributed to the beneficiaries of the will. The wills executor will also be randomly chosen from the masternode network and require at least two approvals from two more random masternode overseers before money can be moved from the escrow to the beneficiaries. This prevents collusion and eliminates fraud. The same type of estate trustee system can be set up for testamentary trusts as well.
This all has to be done in a frictionless and secure manner that people can rely on. But, until a system like this is in place, crypto will be held back from mainstream adoption.
I always like to put the mom test to these ideas. Right now, my mom won't get into crypto for the simple reason that she doesn't know what will happen to her money when she dies... and asking anyone that isn't tech savvy, not just old women, to print out their keys, put them in a safe and make reference to them in their will... is more friction than opening a bank account.
I would love to hear all of your thoughts.
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