What Happens To Your Crypto If You Sleep One Day and Don't Wake Up The Next Day?

[Fivestar4everMVP]

Hi guys!

Today, I came across a thread in the altcoin section which asked about the wildest things in crypto... I thought deeply for some seconds, and this thought came to my mind, and immediately, I realized I've thought about this several times in the past but never paid any attention to it, that thread/topic in altcoin section took me back and reminded me of this again, and am putting out the same question out here for all to ponder on, and who knows, maybe from here, we all might begin to think of ways we can make crypto much better for all.

I will go straight to the point....

 CryptoCurrency is decentralized, we all know this by now, and due to this decentralized nature, there's currently no way to register or appoint a next of kin who will take over the crypto assets of a user when he or she passes away/dies.

You know sometimes, I just ask myself, "what happens to all this money I've invested in crypto if I sleep tonight and do not wake up tomorrow morning? (that is, die in my sleep)" what happens to all my crypto investments stored on centralized exchanges which non of my family members know about or have access to, because they either don't know am into crypto or they don't know the password to login to this different exchanges and withdraw my money?? What happens to the money I leave in this exchanges when I die?
What happens to the coins and tokens(worth alot of money) stored in my different private wallets, example, trust wallet(I have more than 10 different wallets inside trust wallet), metamask, atomic, coinomi, monarch wallet, Bitgesell wallet, student coin wallet and several others, this different wallets have different private keys and some make use of seed phrases and non of my family members have access to any of this wallets because -

1. they  don't know it exist or that am into crypto(if at all they know what crypto is).

2. (if they know am into crypto) they don't have or know the private keys or seed phrases to each of this wallets and they also don't know where I store/stored them.

3. Assuming they have my phone in which this wallets are installed and still linked, they are all passworded and they still don't have the password to unlock it.

If I then go to bed tonight and don't make it out alive tomorrow morning, what happens to all this money ive invested in crypto, how do they get access to this money, what about the ones I staked on different platforms, how do they figure out each one of this platform and get the money out when am not there???

I guess this is a very important question we should all ask ourselves.

Thank you and welcome to the discussion.....

[Upgrade00]

Bitcoin is a decentralized network and there is no stipulated system for inheritance, but you can create your personal means of transferring coins should you not be available to access it anymore.
Ideally, you should only store your funds on non custodian exchanges and ideally, you should also keep backups for all your funds, you can leave this backup available to your next of kins for them to discover, you can disclose the location to them.

If they are not cryptocurrency savvy, you can draw up a will with notes and guides on how to access it, this will be revealed to them should anything happen to you.

You can also create a timelocked transaction which would be sent to a specific address sometime in the future, you will at this point have revealed the details of the wallet to whoever the transaction should be going to.

[Lafu]

If I then go to bed tonight and don't make it out alive tomorrow morning, what happens to all this money ive invested in crypto, how do they get access to this money, what about the ones I staked on different platforms, how do they figure out each one of this platform and get the money out when am not there???

If i go to sleep and dont wake up anymore tomorrow , nobody will get my crypto i have now !
There are not much left of people who i can be give anything .
But yeah possible i make some plan about to donate it some where but dont know .

[The Cryptovator]

I have a question for you, do you manage any hard notebook to write you all the credentials related to crypto? If so, then simply write a trusted person's name on the notebook with a phone number who could help recover your funds and handover to your family after you pass away. Better if you tech one of your family members about how works cryptocurrency and how they could recover. For me, I have written one of my trusted friend name and mobile number as well. If I pass away my family member would call him to recover all the crypto since I write all the credentials I am connected with. I know it's hard to trust anyone else, but I don't have any other option. No one from my family member is enough educated to recover the funds. So you may do the same as me, I don't see any alternatives way.

[Charles-Tim]

Let your heirs be conversant with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. I think these threads will help:

Halloween inspired poll –would your Bitcoins get passed on if you suddenly died?
What happens to my bitcoin if I die today?
Leaving Bitcoin as inheritance

[bitmover]

Let your heirs be conversant with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. I think these threads will help:

Maybe your heirs are too little to understand that. You need to share your private keys with someone you really trust, so in case you die this person can give your heirs access to your funds.

THere is a security risk here, but there isn't any other alternative. You may also try to split your coins in two stashes, and share only one stash with that trusted person.

Anyone, it is important to do this if you have kids, or someone else you love and want to leave something.

[Charles-Tim]

---snipped---

If I have to comment based on my opinion, I have preferred to use either Multisig wallet or shamir's secret sharing encryption. Assuming I have 4 people as my heirs, I can create 3-of-5 multisig wallet which will be for the 4 heirs and I. If they are all conversant with how to use Bitcoin, they should be able to access the bitcoin easily if anything happen. But some people may not like to let their heirs to know about the total Bitcoin holding amount, the heirs will only be conversant about it but will not know much through the secret given to them, I mean the Shamir's secret sharing, in which there can be 5 secret codes but having like 3 shares that only minimum of 3 secrets will be able to reconstruct private key or seed phrase, in this way, no one of them will know the total amount of Bitcoin stored. People will have different opinions, but I believe I am satisfied with either of these.

[hosseinimr93]

A solution is to use locktime feature and make a signed transaction which will be valid after a certain time (a certain block to be more precise)
I recommend you to visit the link below and read the topic created by LoyceV.

Using Locktime for inheritance planning, backups or gifts

[Nathrixxx]

Citing myself as an example, I ensure that the only one person that knows all my crypto security secrets is my wife who is also a tech-savey with no iota of doubt on trust.
I strongly advice you create a backup on anything you're doing with trusted credentials but crypto is a decentralised network.
Also its advisable to always have an updated business diary.

[joniboini]

Also its advisable to always have an updated business diary.

What do you mean by a business diary? A book where you record your crypto transactions? I don't think that's necessary for inheritance purposes. It might be useful for tax purposes though.

[nelson4lov]

~Snipped

Thanks for sharing the thread. Got to learn how the bitcoin time-locked transactions work. But something to keep in mind, thread shows a guide for Bitcoin only and doesn't include other altcoins projects. There's plenty of users on the forum that is actively participating in other altcoins projects and there's no way to do these on all projects yet.

Best bet would be to put all keys and details in a private folder and encrypt it. However, the downside is that if it gets compromised, all funds in the listed wallets and sites will get drained.

[Magicalking]

1. they  don't know it exist or that am into crypto(if at all they know what crypto is).

2. (if they know am into crypto) they don't have or know the private keys or seed phrases to each of this wallets and they also don't know where I store/stored them.

3. Assuming they have my phone in which this wallets are installed and still linked, they are all passworded and they still don't have the password to unlock it.

If I then go to bed tonight and don't make it out alive tomorrow morning, what happens to all this money ive invested in crypto, how do they get access to this money, what about the ones I staked on different platforms, how do they figure out each one of this platform and get the money out when am not there???

I guess this is a very important question we should all ask ourselves.

Thank you and welcome to the discussion.....

I asked this question before. I will share what I learnt and try to answers your 3 questions
1. Educate your family about Bitcoin. You sound like a family oriented person you wouldn't care so much if you weren't.
2. Sharing private keys is a tricky one. Think of a easier way to make your keys visible. You can leave clues on the walls, painting, e.t.c.
3. This is not a problem if 1&2 is sorted early

[UserU]

It's pretty much like a will. If you didn't pass it to your next of kin, nobody will get to inherit the wealth.

Unless your holdings are easily accessed, like a faucet or some exchange which only requires an existing cookie session + 2FA.

For those wallets with the seeds and phrases, that's another story.

[EvieLannister]

This issue has been discussed before, and I have considered it before. If something happens to me, what should I do with these assets? I have now taught my family and friends to use cryptocurrency and told them to store my keys correctly. When my misfortune does happen, they can access it based on the key I provided. Of course, if it can be written in the will, there are legal advantages. But if we don’t have time to tell our family and friends, when we die, our assets will be lost, and the family will lose a piece of protection.

[akirasendo17]

This issue has been discussed before, and I have considered it before. If something happens to me, what should I do with these assets? I have now taught my family and friends to use cryptocurrency and told them to store my keys correctly. When my misfortune does happen, they can access it based on the key I provided. Of course, if it can be written in the will, there are legal advantages. But if we don’t have time to tell our family and friends, when we die, our assets will be lost, and the family will lose a piece of protection.

are you going to include the keys to the will? surely if that's a big amount of money if someone sees it, they would have got interested and stole it,
the most convenient way would give it to a person you trusted inside the family, I would not entrust it to someone outside of the family, but if it happens that if you died and you never tell it to someone, that money will stay there because it will be impossible for them to crack it open without the keys.

[EvieLannister]

This issue has been discussed before, and I have considered it before. If something happens to me, what should I do with these assets? I have now taught my family and friends to use cryptocurrency and told them to store my keys correctly. When my misfortune does happen, they can access it based on the key I provided. Of course, if it can be written in the will, there are legal advantages. But if we don’t have time to tell our family and friends, when we die, our assets will be lost, and the family will lose a piece of protection.

are you going to include the keys to the will? surely if that's a big amount of money if someone sees it, they would have got interested and stole it,
the most convenient way would give it to a person you trusted inside the family, I would not entrust it to someone outside of the family, but if it happens that if you died and you never tell it to someone, that money will stay there because it will be impossible for them to crack it open without the keys.

Yes, this method of yours is also possible. It is best to tell your family that if you are friends, you will inevitably have other ideas. But if it is written on the will, it can be placed in a safe, after all, wealth must be kept carefully.

[lovesmayfamilis]

This issue has been discussed before,

Everything is correct. This issue has already been discussed quite extensively. The OP rewrote the meaning so that someone might not wake up. Then you can create a topic about what will happen if you choke and die from a bone from an olive tree, or a brick just falls on your head.
The point is that we cannot predict what might happen to us in a minute. If someone is very concerned about their investments, there is no need to wait for the day of judgment. Worry about your loved ones, do it today, tomorrow may not come.
Well, if you are delaying everything, it means that you really just do not care what will happen to your assets.
The dead don't give a damn.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

I have a question for you, do you manage any hard notebook to write you all the credentials related to crypto? If so, then simply write a trusted person's name on the notebook with a phone number who could help recover your funds and handover to your family after you pass away. Better if you tech one of your family members about how works cryptocurrency and how they could recover. For me, I have written one of my trusted friend name and mobile number as well. If I pass away my family member would call him to recover all the crypto since I write all the credentials I am connected with. I know it's hard to trust anyone else, but I don't have any other option. No one from my family member is enough educated to recover the funds. So you may do the same as me, I don't see any alternatives way.

Thank you very much for your contribution and advice, it's a helpful tip I must say, but then, am also reminded that I have no hand or hardcopy notebook where I put down this things, I hate to say this cus I know it's one of the "Don't" rules in crypto, but all the private keys, seed phrases, 2FA recovery codes, passwords to my different crypto accounts are all stored online, Ive tried getting a hardcopy book where I can write this things down but I discovered that it's saver for me to keep them online where I can easily access them from any where and from any device available at that moment, and the online portal where i store this things is also protected with a very heavy and extra strong password, this password is the only thing about my whole crypto accounts I have written out and buried somewhere around my home, because access to this one password and my phone gives any one access to all my crypto stuff including the private keys to all my wallets and passwords and 2FAs to the exchanges.

[Oceat]

I've read this kind of question before although it's your only job to make them find out or ask someone that close to you to give your private keys or all of your crypto investment. It's just like a will and you live it only to someone you truly trusted or it's up to you to make a way how they would know you have something for them. Make a treasure hunting map if you want them to get interested with crypto or you could just hand over your crypto to them if you don't want them to suffer from finding. But I'd love the part where you can make them think rather than accept something that they don't work hard for free.

[Taskford]

If you don't give your private key or passphrase to the person you trust a lot then your crypto stored in your wallet will be lost forever so make sure you hand your important details to trusted person so that if something bad happen to you they can recover your funds and use it for something more important. Also teach them how the system works so that they will not ask help to anyone who knows more about it since they are prone to stealing if they ask the wrong guy at stole all your balances so aside for handing teaching on how this system works is also best for this situation.