How would you implement a dead man's switch?

[clean_skin]

Suppose you want the following behavior:

• Funds are transferred to address A, an M of N multisig address.
• At regular intervals, M signatories must push a button in order to keep the funds at address A. If, during a given time period, M buttons are not pressed, then the funds automatically move from address A to address B, where they may be spent by recipient B.

The only way that I can think of to accomplish this is to move the funds at every interval. Once per period, M of N signatories sign a transaction to transfer the funds to address A1, it's a timelocked transaction, and at the end of the period, the funds can be spent by recipient B. Before the deadline is reached, M of N signatories sign a new transaction to transfer the funds from A1 to A2. The new transaction is timelocked with a deadline further out into the future. Apologies if my terminology is not precise, I hope you get the idea.

Is there a better way to accomplish the behavior that I described?

[Pmalek]

There was a good discussion about the dead man's switch last year in this thread > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5069728.0
There are several good suggestions there, hopefully you can find what you are looking for.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

I remember Dab was talking about a way. Something like this:

There is an email service (I can not remember it), you write an email, schedule it to send it to whatever recipient you want. You will set a periodic timer too. Say every two weeks or months whatever. If it's every two weeks then after every two weeks this client will send an automatic email to you and you will have to open it and need to click certain button/link so that it resets for the next week. Now if this email is not opened and certain button was not clicked then the client will send whatever email you scheduled to sent to your recipient.

You can talk to your closest one that they will receive an email with instructions to access the Bitcoins you have in case you have an accident or a sudden death.

[Pmalek]

There is an email service (I can not remember it), you write an email, schedule it to send it to whatever recipient you want.

Doesn't sound like something you can rely on. What if the service stops working after 5-10 years after the person who set it up dies? Unless there is an alternative way to access the data the recipient would be in a pretty bad place.

[mocacinno]

I remember Dab was talking about a way. Something like this:

There is an email service (I can not remember it), you write an email, schedule it to send it to whatever recipient you want. You will set a periodic timer too. Say every two weeks or months whatever. If it's every two weeks then after every two weeks this client will send an automatic email to you and you will have to open it and need to click certain button/link so that it resets for the next week. Now if this email is not opened and certain button was not clicked then the client will send whatever email you scheduled to sent to your recipient.

You can talk to your closest one that they will receive an email with instructions to access the Bitcoins you have in case you have an accident or a sudden death.

Doesn't sound like a solid idear to me as it is... The email service admin (or any tech guy that works for the email service, even as an intern or an outside consultant) might be able to open the scheduled email and read the instructions... Would be a great way to have your wallet drained if you ask me. Not to mention any security vulnerabilitys that would allow a hacker to get his hands on those scheduled mails.

If you found a rocksolid email service like this, the least you should do is encrypt the instructions using a very strong pgp pubkey, for which the privkey is helt by your recipient...

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

Doesn't sound like a solid idear to me as it is... The email service admin (or any tech guy that works for the email service, even as an intern or an outside consultant) might be able to open the scheduled email and read the instructions... Would be a great way to have your wallet drained if you ask me. Not to mention any security vulnerabilitys that would allow a hacker to get his hands on those scheduled mails.

It will be an encrypted email so no one can decrypt it except the family member who has their PGP private key. Sorry I forgot to mention that.

Doesn't sound like something you can rely on. What if the service stops working after 5-10 years after the person who set it up dies? Unless there is an alternative way to access the data the recipient would be in a pretty bad place.

Yeah there is a possibility but if you are alive then you will know it since you will not receive the scheduled email. 🤪

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

Each implementation have it's own pros and cons, so "better" implementation depends on what you can't sacrifice and don't mind sacrifice.

True.
Mine is in a MultiSig wallet. Keys are in different places in different peoples hand. They do not know each others. The instructions for them is, if anything happen to me then give it to my wife. She will do the rest.

PS: My wife is not tech savvy but I hope she will figure it out using the available information online. If needed she can get help from one of my brother who is fairly familiar with Bitcoins.

[bernardos]

PS: My wife is not tech savvy but I hope she will figure it out using the available information online. If needed she can get help from one of my brother who is fairly familiar with Bitcoins.

Why not also prepare your wife in advance to deal with the information appropriately so she does not become one of those that posts here after they downloaded Electrum 4.0 and had everything stolen from them. I would tell her what to expect if something was to happen to me so there isnt any surprises.

[Andriian]

There was a good discussion about the dead man's switch last year in this thread > https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5069728.0
There are several good suggestions there, hopefully you can find what you are looking for.

A good suggestion was proposed in this specific message in the thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5069728.msg48001975#msg48001975

Recently, I posted an improvement for the suggestion https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5069728.msg52468729#msg52468729

I didn't get any feedback for now. Hopefully, will get it in one of the threads.