Bitcoin is private and decentralized, ok but what if someone dies?

[asbani]

Bitcoin is a lovely concept but I feel it failed to include a system that considers the wealth of someone who suddenly dies and inherits his money to his loved ones "Family". I've always thought about this in my head, what happens to my money when I die.

The idea in writing my private key or long word sentence in a well is a method but is not efficient.

Because young people like many of us think we're going to live forever and we don't normally write wells, let's be honest here. Think about banks and real-life situation, here many of us hate the centralization and how government work on things, however, there is some benefit to what they do. When a person dies there's a system that automatically inherits all of your assets and money to your kids, which is a good thing and a plus in my book.

Bitcoin does not consider this! maybe if I am old I will write my private key for my family, but then again what are the chances that they would understand how to get the money? There are so many people who aren't computer savvy, so even if we go the extra mile of writing the sentence or the key in the well, a good chance that family members will not know how to use it and take it for granted. They don't know how much bitcoin worth and will neglect it, of course, given you wrote a well. What if you didn't?

Now, why did I bring this up? My brother who is one year older than me, he's only 40 when he died in a car accident last year. He talks nonstop about bitcoin and crypto so this indicates to me that he was investing. We don't know how much he owns, where he owns it, and how to give it back to his kids as heritage. His kids deserve to get that money but it's gone forever I'm assuming? so don't you think this is unfair, as I said bitcoin has a flaw that needs to be fixed in that sense.

What if my brother owns 4 or 5 BTC which his kids deserve? we will never know! the kids already got all the heritage out of the bank which is why I said the banks and government are a plus in that kind of issues/problems.

P.S. Most of his money goes into crypto and stocks, which is why the kids and his wife did not get much out of the banks, so with this, I don't know where to go to find out. If someone got an idea pls let me know.

[1715624778]

1715624778

[seoincorporation]

Now, why did I bring this up? My brother who is one year older than me, he's only 40 when he died in a car accident last year. He talks nonstop about bitcoin and crypto so this indicates to me that he was investing. We don't know how much he owns, where he owns it, and how to give it back to his kids as heritage. His kids deserve to get that money but it's gone forever I'm assuming? so don't you think this is unfair, as I said bitcoin has a flaw that needs to be fixed in that sense.

If you have access to his PC for sure you can recover those coins... Just look at the saved passwords and history and you will be able to trace those coins.

I'm really sorry for your brother, is hard to lose a member of the family and I totally agree with you, his kids deserves those bitcoins, but not all the crypto users thinks about what will happen to our coins if we have an accident. And we should worry more about this topic. How many coins will be lost until we understand the importance of backup the private keys with someone else?

[cabron]

That is probably the concern for most of us that when you die you take your BTC to the grave when you didn't share your pass and privatekeys with your kids. Its sad that if suddenly you just don't wake up in the morning, your kids won't be able to get your coins.

Unfortunately, you can't trust anyone even the lawyers who you leave your will and testament. You might want to do is educate your kid about crypto instead as early as you can so they learn. Its possible now that adoption is clearly coming. Teaching them to learn how to trade I think will be better.

[protocon]

Probably they might state in their will that they will give their family the coins they have and leave the private key somehow?

[bitmover]

Now, why did I bring this up? My brother who is one year older than me, he's only 40 when he died in a car accident last year. He talks nonstop about bitcoin and crypto so this indicates to me that he was investing. We don't know how much he owns, where he owns it, and how to give it back to his kids as heritage. His kids deserve to get that money but it's gone forever I'm assuming? so don't you think this is unfair, as I said bitcoin has a flaw that needs to be fixed in that sense.

What if my brother owns 4 or 5 BTC which his kids deserve? we will never know! the kids already got all the heritage out of the bank which is why I said the banks and government are a plus in that kind of issues/problems.

P.S. Most of his money goes into crypto and stocks, which is why the kids and his wife did not get much out of the banks, so with this, I don't know where to go to find out. If someone got an idea pls let me know.

Unless he gave his private keys or Seed (12-24 random words in a piece of paper) the coins he had are lost forever.

Probably he has a paper with 12-24 hidden somewhere in his house. The only chance of recovering those coins is by recovering that piece of paper.

It is very important that you explain that to his wife, so she can look for it. Maybe it will take some years for her to find, but it is important that she understand that this piece of paper with random words written on it is valuable.

That is also a good warning for all of us here: We all need to give some information about our bitcoins to a close relative who we can trust, so when we die our coins are not lost forever.

[Silberman]

People have been thinking about this kind of problem for some time but at least to me you are making too much trouble of something that can be solved, you could tell your family that a particular hard drive contains your fortune and give it to them but in order to avoid them to access those coins prematurely you encrypt the hard drive, then you contact a lawyer and in your will you write the password to the hard drive, that way when you die your family members get access to your coins and never sooner than that.

[thecodebear]

If he was storing his bitcoin himself then he had to store the private keys somewhere. This isn't something for Bitcoin to take care of, this is something for owners of Bitcoin to take care of. It is unfortunate he didn't talk to his wife about how he was storing his Bitcoin.

[mk4]

Bitcoin does not consider this! maybe if I am old I will write my private key for my family, but then again what are the chances that they would understand how to get the money?

This is the case because we are still so so early. While bitcoin holders right now could make early preparations like creating instructions to recover their wallet/s if it's the case that they die unexpectedly early, remember that all this is new tech. I think it's highly likely that some genius could create a better wallet recovery method than multisig sometime in the future.

[odolvlobo]

It may be too late for your brother, but for everyone else:

https://medium.com/@pamelawjd/inheritance-planning-for-cryptocurrencies-3-steps-in-3-minutes-83ebb3e916a2

[Argoo]

If he was storing his bitcoin himself then he had to store the private keys somewhere. This isn't something for Bitcoin to take care of, this is something for owners of Bitcoin to take care of. It is unfortunate he didn't talk to his wife about how he was storing his Bitcoin.

Therefore, first of all, you need to carefully inspect the workplace of the deceased brother, and then everything where he lived and worked. However, before that, you need to familiarize yourself with the private keys of bitcoin, how it is spelled, what letters and numbers it usually consists of, their number, in order to know what to look for. It is necessary to fully examine his records and possible hiding places, that is, in all unusual places. Of course, as already indicated here, also inspect his computer and all similar devices on which he could work.
Anonymity is a feature of cryptocurrency and therefore only we are responsible for the safety of our wallets and private keys to them. Nothing can be changed here.

[hd49728]

Give the access to your bitcoin (through private keys or mnemonic seeds) to the person you believe in, deeply love and want to give him or her the inheritance right for your bitcoin.

It can be done in your family. If you are a husband, a father and do love your wife, your children, you will want to give them information to get access to your bitcoin wallet. Just in worst case you suddenly pass by.

Make sure to train them which wallet to use, how to import a bitcoin private key/ mnemonic seed to a wallet. If you don't train them, when you pass by, they can ask someone else and probability to ask bad people is not low.

[kotajikikox]

You are making your Family Stupid for having no capacity to Understand Bitcoin when you die?

Why not start teaching them clearly for how it works so whenever you die they have idea and knowledge about your remaining cryptocurrency.

Know what ? you are just making the issue worst when the truth is , you are the one who must be responsible to handle and share this to them.


Mine? i have teached my Wife and Children about how to claim all my crypto assets when there is unexpected things happen.

[famososMuertos]

I encourage you to get positive with bitcoin^-/*/-and that if there is any cryptocurrency in investment by your deceased brother, you will get it.

You only have to do social engineering with the technological and social habits that your brother had, in the first instance you should know and be sure, but completely sure (100%) that you have "important" investments to make this asset search "trip" worthwhile, as it can be quite fast or it can take a long time.

If you have access to privileged information, I assure you that your "trip" will take you to the point of obtaining the necessary information to really know the value of those assets and to be able to use them.

Please avoid third parties who want to help you, especially anonymous or even acquaintances but who are not trusted, try it yourself in the first instance and require only the help of recognized companies.

Finally there is something that you can know a priori and I repeat it, studying the financial income and consumption habits of your brother can determine if it is worth doing that search, if someone talks about bitcoin or if they are expected to have a large amount of money in the bank and it doesn't exist, it not means  that your brother made investments in bitcoin, this comment may sound shocking and disorienting but I'm just being objective.

______
-/*/-

In reality it is not the case to enter into discussions of your idea in reference to the fact that the system of assigning bitcoin under a few sentences does not work and that the bank works better, it is a matter of culture and adaptation to new systems; ATMs, Debit cards, credit cards, checks, making electronic transfers, accessing our bank from the Internet, they seem very old technologies, but they really are (!?) There are still people who do not use any of the aforementioned, with bitcoin it is a question of time, so there will be few who will not adapt.

[GreatArkansas]

There are already a lot of solutions for this. I recalled before, a website or tool that is able to send an email for a specific period of time, and before that, it is kinda reminding you months/weeks/days before sending the email, just like you have a pending email that will be sent to particular email address.

I read before some people who already using this, just like if incase they will leave this world and have some notes for their love ones, so we can also use this to tell our family about our wealth on Bitcoins or other cryptocurrencis.

[Wexnident]

Now, why did I bring this up? My brother who is one year older than me, he's only 40 when he died in a car accident last year. He talks nonstop about bitcoin and crypto so this indicates to me that he was investing. We don't know how much he owns, where he owns it, and how to give it back to his kids as heritage. His kids deserve to get that money but it's gone forever I'm assuming? so don't you think this is unfair, as I said bitcoin has a flaw that needs to be fixed in that sense.

It isn't. It seems unfair because you "feel" that you lost out on something, but in reality, crypto is your own bank, meaning you literally manage everything on it. And everything means EVERYTHING. No one would be able to let you access your funds unless you let someone else access it, so if you mismanage it or you die and no one else can access it, that's it. Heritage, will, or what not, nothing of those matters if you don't leave a way for someone else to access it. I repeat, it is not unfair, that's just what it means to have your "own" bank.

[sujon5]

I am so sorry to hear about your loss.
This isn't the first key of loosing Bitcoin private key. The only thing I can recommend you is trying to look for a piece of paper or notebook or USB drive in your brother's staff. I think he kept a copy of his pass-phrase in a secure place.

[Kakmakr]

You know, Bitcoin is decentralized for a reason... It gives you FULL control over your own wealth ..and with that come a lot of responsibility. Now, people have to take the responsibility to make provision for their own estate and how it will be handled.

Now this is an example of how it could have been handled. The Crypto owner can split the private key into two sections.. the one section can be stored with a lawyer and the other with a relative that he can trust. Not one of the parties can do anything with the section of the private key that they have.

The executor of the Will, then have to get access of both sections of the private key and they then have to import that into a wallet and convert it into fiat. (Make sure that the executor of the Will know something about Crypto currencies and how to sweep bitcoins to a new address/wallet)  

[bryant.coleman]

Most of the Bitcoin users are in their 20s and 30s and they don't take this possibility seriously. There are two options - first one is to keep the backup to your Bitcoin wallet to yourself and thereby eliminate the possibility of some of your friends or relatives stealing the coins from you. In this case, if something happens to you, then the coins will be lost forever. The second option is to inform your most trusted friend, or a relative about the backup. But in such case there is always a possibility of this person trying to steal the money from you (although it is a very remote possibility).

[Alucard1]

This is the common issue that we may encounter about cryptocurrency, what if we die? then probably your bitcoin or assets will just be stored in your wallet and no one in your family and friends can use it. Maybe the solution for this is you have to give some of your wallet details to one of your family or to the one who you trust, it will lessen the possibility to waste all the hard work you have spent on earning your bitcoin.

[Renampun]

do not underestimate your password and private key...
It has been repeatedly discussed so that you prepare yourself to save your password and private key in a safe so that your family can find it when you die because if you don't then your Bitcoin will be nobodies.