Leaving Behind Crypto When You Are Gone?

[kingpin4321]

I have given hints to my wife for my password for my trezor and i own an extremely small amount. anyone with a serious amount should have a passcode to a set of metal plate in their house that spell out a private key to their funds. If i was smart and had money I would do that, unfortunately from my experience most other crypto enthusiast especially with funds don't trust their wives.

I honestly think you should start planing on that I mean on finding someone you trust and can entrust some certain details to probably a family member.
Like that case of the CEO who died with his password no one knows what tomorrow holds

[MakeMoneyBtc]

I am sure almost anyone who holds a big amount of bitcoin worth at least a few thousands of dollars have a safety plan in case they are dying or an accident happens to them. Either it is a letter left to their family or a testament where they specify about their bitcoin.

[traderethereum]

The first thing we need to do before we give our asset in the wallet, we need to make sure that person knows cryptocurrency so he can use the assets. Maybe we can teach that person step by step and ask him to practice, and I am sure it doesn't take too long for that person to understand. And then we need to tells that person always remember for "don't tell other people."
So when we are gone, we can delegate or give our assets to him with a letter about how to use the wallet and what we want that person to do after we die.

[Pursuer]

I am sure almost anyone who holds a big amount of bitcoin worth at least a few thousands of dollars have a safety plan in case they are dying or an accident happens to them. Either it is a letter left to their family or a testament where they specify about their bitcoin.

you would be surprised how many people actually have no plans about things like that whatsoever. specially those who have a lot of bitcoin worth a lot of money. these people may even be more careful about leaving any kind of trace behind. the latest example was the owner of an exchange (Canadian exchange if I am not mistaken) who passed away and he was the only one controlling the private keys and took them to his grave.

[gabmen]

I am sure almost anyone who holds a big amount of bitcoin worth at least a few thousands of dollars have a safety plan in case they are dying or an accident happens to them. Either it is a letter left to their family or a testament where they specify about their bitcoin.

you would be surprised how many people actually have no plans about things like that whatsoever. specially those who have a lot of bitcoin worth a lot of money. these people may even be more careful about leaving any kind of trace behind. the latest example was the owner of an exchange (Canadian exchange if I am not mistaken) who passed away and he was the only one controlling the private keys and took them to his grave.

I agree. People may have been overlooking the other possibilities and is focusing on what they'll do with their bitcoins. We'll never know what may happen to us and i think it's just logical to look ahead so that we don't waste our btcs if something happens.

[Malsetid]

The first thing we need to do before we give our asset in the wallet, we need to make sure that person knows cryptocurrency so he can use the assets. Maybe we can teach that person step by step and ask him to practice, and I am sure it doesn't take too long for that person to understand. And then we need to tells that person always remember for "don't tell other people."
So when we are gone, we can delegate or give our assets to him with a letter about how to use the wallet and what we want that person to do after we die.

There's always the dilemma of wondering if the person we trust the information with will keep it to themselves without having interest until we're gone. Even family members give in to temptation sometimes right? So you have to really weigh your options and if you're going to entrust your keys and assets to someone, probably best to get a lawyer as well.

[eann014]

I am sure almost anyone who holds a big amount of bitcoin worth at least a few thousands of dollars have a safety plan in case they are dying or an accident happens to them. Either it is a letter left to their family or a testament where they specify about their bitcoin.

Yeah, for those who has big amount of bitcoins will do this but not like me who has only small amount in my bitcoin wallet. LOL. I am still trying to accumulate some of it and saving it for the future but there are times that I really need to encash some of it because of some daily needs and sometimes out of budget. Anyways, this is still helping me.

[africuniaBank]

Read examples of people gone and they never gave their family or relatives their keys to their crypto.  How do most of you handle this?  Now if you have everything in your nano ledger s or trezor or even electrum for example, well you give them the 12 or 24 word seed and they have it.  Now i thought of some issues.  What if they dont know how to operate a computer?  Who do they turn to?  Are there bitcoin services where when someone is gone, their family or relatives go to that service and say this is the code or phrase for the crypto and they mention if its stored in a hardware wallet or exchange or electrum etc and have that service get their crypto for them for a price?  Like it will cost $100 or $500 for the service?  Such as they would then transfer the crypto to the family's own wallet or contact the exchange and have them set up the crypto to be sent to their family member's account?

1. If you know about crypto, and you have a family that you trust, then start with educating them about cryptocurrency and basic stuff about computer. It is not that hard to teach them how to manage seed imo.
2. If there's no relative who can operate a computer, and it is not possible to teach them how to do it, then the best option is to cash out your crypto once in a while and transfer the money to their account.
3. I think there are some services like that, but I personally won't trust anyone outside my family except if we can use multi-sig. Unless you can access a store vault in Swiss which values privacy and personal matter a lot.

The other issue comes then is taxes.  Most likely that person who has crypto stored most likely did not pay all or most or any of the taxes assuming they were holding for a long time.  Now if they paid all the taxes, well you could transfer the money to the family member but there is only a certain limit they can transfer a year without taxes i believe right?  This is concerning ppl in the US  Now what if that person paid taxes on some of it or none of it.  Well the family can't just take the money into their bank account since that person didn't pay any or entire taxes of it.  So how in the world would that work then?  Because when you file taxes on crypto, it needs to be written down when was the coin bought and sold and at what prices.  The family or relative wouldn't have a damn clue about it.  They also wouldn't know when they got it and say that person was a trader, they wouldn't have access to say the 500 or 1000 plus transactions that person did etc even if most were basically buying bitcoin and selling it for altcoin immediately since most altcoin you can't go from altcoin to usd or usdt etc.

Can't comment regarding taxes as it differs in each country.

Does anyone have experience or tips on this?  I think leaving crypto behind in a hardware wallet is the easiest right?  But what if some were in an exchange like bittrex or binance?  Do they contact bittrex or binance about it and then send in the paperwork?  Of course they would need that person's binance or bittrex email address and that person most likely had 2FA.  How does that work then?  I assume coinbase probably would be the easiest to work with?  Now let say that person also had their own wallets in their computer like for example bluecoin or greencoin where its not compatible with hardware wallet and they have some of these wallets on their computer.  Now if their family has the seed or phrase for this, they can claim it but if they have no clue how to do this on computer, are there services that allow this?  So imagine someone has crypto in their trezor or ledger and some in computer like bluecoin and greencoin and some in binance and coinbase.  Are there services that would help them recover all these for a fee?  Thus they would help that family email binance of coinbase assuming that family doesn't even know how to use computer?  Such as that person left behind a paper that says

You should never leave your crypto in exchange in the first place. If it were me, I'd always withdraw all crypto from exchanges, saves all seeds/password etc in a safebox with key and I'd tell my wife or kids how to manage it. But if such case like that happened, then your best best is to contact exchange support and proving that the original owner is dead (good luck with that).

Also a related question.  But if someone has your bittrex or binance secret code, they can't reset your device right or they could just by having that?  Or they need to know at least your email address at least?

They can access your 2FA. If they know your password & 2FA code plus email address (+its password), they can reset it. But I believe some exchange also requires SMS verification on top of this (depends on your settings tho).

IMO all of your issue is easily solvable if we can:
1. Teach our family about crypto and computer, at least on how to use it to manage crypto asset.
2. Prepare the backup/key/seed and save it in a safe place for them.

I really like your opinion about this. Also There are ATM for withdraw the money. We can also make a step by step note for our families and friends so that they can take help of other people they trust that will be also good for their future lives. We should keep safe backup for them. We should make small amount investment in crypto currency. We can also invest in other crypto currencies like litecoin and afcash etc.

[jerry0]

If you got a bitcoin atm card, then all they have to do is go to the ATM and withdraw it but they still need to restore the nano ledger s themselves right?  Such as leave them your bitcoin atm debit card?  Issue are the limits are not that much assuming you have a good amount of crypto there right?


To those ppl that keep saying to teach the people you are leaving your crypto with... first off what if they don't know how to even use a computer?  In case most people are not aware, older people don't even know how to turn on the computer.  Then you have an issue where say they don't speak english and speak their native language.  What do you suggest there?  This isn't like teaching your brother who is say under 35 who could probably understand it if you teach them step by step.  Older folks that are 50 and up would probably not have a clue how this even if you teach them this.


So thoughts on that?

[DreamStage]

I will probabily still leave it on the Internet with some big protection system or take them with me if i ever have anything physical for storaging them just like Trezor.

I would not share with anyone else It's only my property so let's keep that way.

[bitcoin-shark]

we can't live in isolation we have to trust someone a family member for example to leave him a copy of the private keys / password / 2fa etc to use only in case of extreme necessity, for example i would keep the altcoins on a ledger nano or on a paper wallet of which i would leave a copy of the private keys on a encrypted usb pen to a trusted person...

[cryptjh]

You can also just save your seed word somewhere your loves once will find them, when you're gone. I'm sure your nearest family know you spend a lot of time on crypto, even if they don't care about crypto, you should show them your seed words, so they know what to look for, and tell them never to show those seed words to anyone.

[Slow death]

Does anyone have experience or tips on this?

that's why we need specific bitcoin laws and all those points that you mentioned, because in addition to what you said it could be the case if someone died and left 100 BTC, how will know who owns the inheritance if he does not leave a testament and how will deal with this case in the courts? we need laws because of that. All your questions will only be answered on the day we have laws about it. 

[Ultimist]

I think that such services will definitely appear. This would be really very important both for those who want to just learn how to use bitcoin, and for those who would like to get the crypto of their deceased relative.

[emberbekas]

There is something you need to remind yourself before you leave those passwords and username to someone you know. You need to make sure that they know cryptocurrency. I'm not expecting me to leave this world so early, but we don't know when that thing will happen so we need to prepare on everything. This is why I am teaching my brother how cryptocurrency works and I have a notepad in which all my accounts from different exchanges was typed on that notepad. And it's just on the desktop of my PC.

First, never save most of our wealth in crypto because if something bad happens to us, our family can still get the other parts. Second, leave all the information needed on our personal computer. Third, I bet that our family knows what we have done in front of our computer as a search for additional income or at least we ever talk about it when we were alive. Last one, with all those things, I am sure we already leave enough clues for our family to chase the money we left behind.

[Yamifoud]

we can't live in isolation we have to trust someone a family member for example to leave him a copy of the private keys / password / 2fa etc to use only in case of extreme necessity, for example i would keep the altcoins on a ledger nano or on a paper wallet of which i would leave a copy of the private keys on a encrypted usb pen to a trusted person...

I'm afraid we could just end up our life without someone we could teach before anything to happen to us. I know some of our family members won't have such understanding with crypto as same thing we do it. Leaving with them the keys, passwords or anything about our crypto wallet isn't enough for them to  get of what we left if they still don't have knowledge about this. May teaching them or engage them with crypto earlier would be a big help.

[coin-investor]

I prefer to do a video tutorial about cryptocurrency and about managing and converting my cryptocurrency together with my private keys on it, and entrusted it to my trusted loved ones, departing without someone to manage the coins you left behind is a serious blunder, cryptocurrency can now be considered an investment.

[Mometaskers]

If you trust your family well enough then give them the passwords. I wouldn't give passwords to a spouse though. I mean, I wouldn't give my phone password, so why the passwords to my wallet?

Otherwise your lawyer, I suppose it's possible to have a 3rd party keep a sealed document with all the details in it.

You might want to do the same to your social media accounts so your family can close it.

[shesheboy]

we can't live in isolation we have to trust someone a family member for example to leave him a copy of the private keys / password / 2fa etc to use only in case of extreme necessity, for example i would keep the altcoins on a ledger nano or on a paper wallet of which i would leave a copy of the private keys on a encrypted usb pen to a trusted person...

I'm afraid we could just end up our life without someone we could teach before anything to happen to us. I know some of our family members won't have such understanding with crypto as same thing we do it. Leaving with them the keys, passwords or anything about our crypto wallet isn't enough for them to  get of what we left if they still don't have knowledge about this. May teaching them or engage them with crypto earlier would be a big help.

learning the basics or teaching them the basics rather is not that hard . imo credit cards and using facebook is more harder than opening a crypto wallet . so if you parents do those stuffs then why cant they be doing crypto ? eh ?   my point is we should teach our loved ones or any person that you trust the most to learn the basics of crypto ( e.g how to open the wallet ) and we must leave them our passwords  . so that they can recover your funds if something unusual happen to you  . i already done this , with my wife   .

[Noa_Amable]

I have given hints to my wife for my password for my trezor and i own an extremely small amount. anyone with a serious amount should have a passcode to a set of metal plate in their house that spell out a private key to their funds. If i was smart and had money I would do that, unfortunately from my experience most other crypto enthusiast especially with funds don't trust their wives.

well, it covers all spheres - cash, cards, etc. family should know where to find such things when you are gone