Can you 'Will' your bitcoin to your children?

[JamesBorn]

In a case where you have five children and you don't have much physical assets but you have a enough bitcoin that non of your children are aware of it. Now your age is advancing, you begins to prepare "WILL" and there is no way to divide and share bitcoin account to the five children! What will you do? Since non of them are aware.

Can you "WILL" the private key to your favorite child or call them together and reveal the private key to them? Or what will you do?
OK guys is up to you!

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[bullrun2024bro]

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First of all, depending on the place of residence, the execution of the will and its taxation may be different. So you should keep that in mind when drafting a will.

Regarding your example above: One Bitcoin can be divided into eight decimal places. What prevents you from writing a will that covers all five of your children equally? You then deposit this will (including the sealed private key of course) with a notary who, in the event of your death, will pay out the Bitcoin to your children according to their share.

Problem solved. After all, this is how it is done with other assets that are passed on to the descendants. With Bitcoin there is no big difference, except that the notary has to be familiar with Bitcoin and you have to include the private key in your will.

[Rruchi man]

Now your age is advancing, you begins to prepare "WILL" and there is no way to divide and share bitcoin account to the five children! What will you do? Since non of them are aware.

This is a simple situation, if you wish to share the amount of bitcoins you have kept among your children, you can include a clear statement in the WILL, that the amount of bitcoins you have at the time of death will be transferred to a trusted third party that will act as an escrow for the split and sharing of the bitcoins in any percentage you have specified among your children.

 That way you can avoid any problems that may arise by giving it to one of the beneficiaries to share to the others.

[Lucius]

If you want to leave something like that to each of your five children, then make 5 wallets and "fill" each one with as much BTC as you want. When I say "wallets", I mean creating seeds, which is much easier than extracting private keys from public addresses and manually writing them down, which can easily lead to errors. On the other hand, if you want to print private keys, you run the risk that your data will be compromised, just like if you use the camera on your smartphone.

When you have 5 wallet seeds, write them down on paper and store them in an envelope with the name of each child and an explanation of how to use them. How you store those envelopes is up to you, but I personally wouldn't entrust something like that to a lawyer or someone I don't trust completely.

[hosseinimr93]

In the case you want your children to have access to your bitcoin after your death, without them being able to spend the fund before your death, you can use locktime feature.
For more information, visit the following topic and read the guide provided by LoyceV.

Using Locktime for inheritance planning, backups or gifts

[Saisher]

In a case where you have five children and you don't have much physical assets but you have a enough bitcoin that non of your children are aware of it. Now your age is advancing, you begins to prepare "WILL" and there is no way to divide and share bitcoin account to the five children! What will you do? Since non of them are aware.

Can you "WILL" the private key to your favorite child or call them together and reveal the private key to them? Or what will you do?
OK guys is up to you!

You need a lawyer for this so that will be in accordance with the law of the country, every one of your children has the right to inheritance here in our country even illegitimate children have a share, my best course of action is to divide my Bitcoin to all my children equally what you say that you cannot divide your Bitcoin is not true you can divide it on as many shares as you want.
I prefer to give their shares while I'm alive as a donation to each one of them so there are no more issues about shares when I die.

[darkangel11]

You have a number of options here and your actions depend on the number of people you want to trust, your situation at home, the area where you live (if it's dangerous or not).

In your case you have 5 children and you want to divide the coins equally. One of the options is to make a will with the help of a law firm and seal private keys in envelopes, each with the name of one of your children. The lawyer will keep these envelopes in custody.
As long as you live you can use the addresses, add and subtract coins from them, just that when you die they become inaccessible from your computer because only you know the password. After your death your children go to the lawyer and each gets their private key.

If you don't want to trust the lawyers, make a new wallet and share the seed between your children so that each of them gets a few words. The only way for them to get the money would be to get together and access your wallet.

Each option has a downside. First option makes you trust someone. The second can make the money inaccessible if one of your children suddenly dies before they are able to put the seed together.
Imagine if you died and they are to meet to access the wallet and one of them gets into a car accident. Then nobody gets the money.

[Crypt0Gore]

*Then You Have Some Teachings To Do*

Since you claimed that the children had no idea that you have Bitcoin, I doubt that any of them understands how to handle a Bitcoin wallet or carry out any transaction themselves.

If your topic is referring to yourself, you need to correct your mistakes before it's too late.

I consider this a mistake because you failed to teach them about Bitcoin all this while, what would have happened if you aren't able to ask this question today and you aren't among the living anymore? Your Bitcoin will go to waste.  

*Solution*

•You don't have to give up the private keys to them, because this can cause a fight among the children later, case of one been greedy than others.

•Like I've said, tell them to download Bitcoin wallet e.g Electrum wallet and send their shares to them one after the other, if you are rich, buy 5 hardware wallets and send the Bitcoins to each of the hardware wallets and hand it over to them.

•Tell them to learn more about Bitcoin by doing some research themselves, also give them some advise how they can mess it all up, I meant every possible ways they can lose their Bitcoin to scammers.

[hosseinimr93]

Like I've said, tell them to download Bitcoin wallet e.g Electrum wallet and send their shares to them one after the other, if you are rich, buy 5 hardware wallets and send the Bitcoins to each of the hardware wallets and hand it over to them.

With doing this, you lose access to the fund and the children will be able to spend it while you are still alive. It's possible that one day you need the fund yourself.
Your suggestion is good if you want to give bitcoin to your children as a gift.

[cryptoaddictchie]

First of all, depending on the place of residence, the execution of the will and its taxation may be different. So you should keep that in mind when drafting a will.

Is it taxable on inheritance of bitcoin and cryptos? Sorry but in our country, as far as I know as long as you dont change it to fiat its not taxable unless you convert it.

Im thinking also the same doing so but of course need to study first if the crypto has implemented worldwide regulations for something like this.

[bullrun2024bro]

Is it taxable on inheritance of bitcoin and cryptos? Sorry but in our country, as far as I know as long as you dont change it to fiat its not taxable unless you convert it.

As I said before it depends on the place where you live. So you might be right for your country. However, there is no worldwide universal taxation of Bitcoin, so one has to differentiate depending on the jurisdiction you are living.

In many European countries it is the case that assets up to a certain value can be inherited tax-free. Regardless of whether it is shares, Bitcoin or real estate. However, in other jurisdictions, inheriting Bitcoin may be tax-free and taxes may only be payable on a sale in FIAT currencies.

The best thing would be to consult a local tax advisor on the subject. Here in the (international) part of the forum you will hardly get a suitable answer. If there is a local forum section for your country, you might want to ask there.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

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This idea is good.

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Lucius has an excellent idea, and one that I would endorse. There are humans with little or no sincerity or honesty; they can claim to be men of integrity, but in your absence they can do something totally different against your will. Trusting such information to a lawyer is something I cannot advise anyone to do. Just split the bitcoin into different wallets and keep a trace on how the kids can gain access to it when their father is dead.

In a movie I watched with this kind of storyline, the man kept a record of how his three children could discover where he buried his will. What the man did was to contain little by little all his will information in three different diaries and inform the children that when he is dead, they should look for three diaries in his room that contain information on how they can get his will. So after he died, his children were already aware because the information was not just made available to one person. The diaries contain only a few pieces of information, so the three diaries need to be combined to get the full picture.

[PrivacyG]

I have an idea.  Can multi sig not help in any way to avoid a conflict post mortem or to avoid having to trust lawyers with the custody of the balance?

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[m2017]

In a case where you have five children and you don't have much physical assets but you have a enough bitcoin that non of your children are aware of it. Now your age is advancing, you begins to prepare "WILL" and there is no way to divide and share bitcoin account to the five children! What will you do? Since non of them are aware.

Can you "WILL" the private key to your favorite child or call them together and reveal the private key to them? Or what will you do?
OK guys is up to you!

What prevents you from dividing bitcoin into equal shares for each child? Or do you think that BTC is not divisible?

There is another option: divide btc not into equal shares, but depending on the abilities of each child. Why leave a legacy to a child who is prone to rash and irrational actions. For example, lose all the money in gambling. Then it’s better to leave the assets to the child who uses them wisely and increases them for the benefit of the family or even other heirs.

There can be many nuances here.

[AverageGlabella]

First of all, depending on the place of residence, the execution of the will and its taxation may be different. So you should keep that in mind when drafting a will.

Is it taxable on inheritance of bitcoin and cryptos? Sorry but in our country, as far as I know as long as you dont change it to fiat its not taxable unless you convert it.

Im thinking also the same doing so but of course need to study first if the crypto has implemented worldwide regulations for something like this.

I recommend contacting a lawyer about inheritance tax with cryptocurrencies because I think it depends on the country and inheritance might still be taxed even if Bitcoin has not been converted to fiat. It would only take legal advise from people who are qualified and not members on the forum because it could land you in a lot of trouble if they have given you the wrong advice.

[dkbit98]

In a case where you have five children and you don't have much physical assets but you have a enough bitcoin that non of your children are aware of it. Now your age is advancing, you begins to prepare "WILL" and there is no way to divide and share bitcoin account to the five children! What will you do? Since non of them are aware.

It depends if you want to split your Bitcoin to five equal amounts for each child, or you want someone to get more and others less coins.
To avoid all the complications I would split and prepare coins in advance, every kid can receive exact same seed words (12 or 24) but each of them will have unique different passphrase.
That way they could all access one main account, but separate accounts would not be shared between them.
This is easy to do with hardware wallets creating multiple accounts.

Can you "WILL" the private key to your favorite child or call them together and reveal the private key to them? Or what will you do?

I don't think private key alone is safe enough, so it's better to use something like multisig setup.
Whatever option you choose, having multiple backkup options is needed, to avoid single point of failure.

[Oceat]

I agree with the idea above that you have to create a five wallets instead of making your children to share a single wallet which can cause a problem in the future. I don't know enough of laws in every country but you should consult your lawyer if you want that to happen but also you can follow what the suggestions above me. Having a Bitcoin to make as your gift or something as an asset to give to your children is a very complicated things and not to mention the idea of how you should protect those private keys in every wallet in order for them to not get hacked or taken from you.

[drwhobox]

I agree with the idea above that you have to create a five wallets instead of making your children to share a single wallet which can cause a problem in the future. I don't know enough of laws in every country but you should consult your lawyer if you want that to happen but also you can follow what the suggestions above me. Having a Bitcoin to make as your gift or something as an asset to give to your children is a very complicated things and not to mention the idea of how you should protect those private keys in every wallet in order for them to not get hacked or taken from you.

First of all the father should be aware of the safety of his coins before making any WILL. I think a secured hardwallet can solve the problem of security. Five hardwallet with equally holds the same amount of bitcoin for each child.

Also, the father can give that responsibility to their mother for giving them the hardwallet when they grow up.

[Peanutswar]

If you have the chance or capability to have a bitcoin and give those to your children it's a good idea but make sure they are aware having this kind of thing because again once they lose already the key once you are not around any more no one will use that bitcoin and it could just a waste of time and money already.  In case what will you plan just leave the bitcoin in your hot wallet just keeping the key or buy them a hardware wallet which is the most ideal.

[armanda90]

I don't think children will understand well about private key and Bitcoin investment, seems need waiting until he age over 13 years or in my country have been in pass junior high school and know about bitcoin. I agree have to will our children with  Bitcoin assets at the future but my children under two years and know understand yet how to manage or access bitcoin.

Not only about our children but all our family is important thing will our bitcoin assets, can't predicting bad happening to us and leave them private key or transparent with how much assets bitcoin having is the best way and help us later if got dropped suddenly.