HOW DO WE TRANSFER BITCOIN WEALTH TO HEIRS AND THE NEXT GENERATION

[MusaMohamed]

BTC-community is waiting for the recognition and acceptance of bitcoin, which in turn will entail legal regulation.

The Bitcoin communities nowadays are significantly bigger than years ago. Each market cycle, each bull run, Bitcoin is more noisy on social media so that it becomes more popular and successfully attracts new people to Bitcoin communities.

I believe we will witness it again with 2024 halving and 2024 - 2025 bull run.

It is likely that in most countries BTC will be treated as property or an investment asset, like securities. Accordingly, it will be possible to leave a will or testament at bitcoin. So far, the legal basis for this has not been created, but I am absolutely sure that if the governments of countries officially recognize btc, then laws will appear that allow leaving it as a legacy. How exactly this will be implemented is not yet clear, because there is no precedent yet, but it is this that will push for the distribution of the will.

Treating Bitcoin as a commodity, a security, accepting it as legal tender or does not accept it as legal tender, it's fine enough for locals to use bitcoin for transactions. Even laws and governments have yet officially protected Bitcoin investors in some nations, if they have yet prohibited it, you have no legal issues by holding bitcoin or using it.

My belief is Bitcoin will be accepted more in legal aspect and the trend in legality will be better for Bitcoin communities globally. Stay positive and get rid of worry about legal regulations against Bitcoin. Locally there might be some barriers even very serious but globally the picture is better.

[1714502870]

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[1714502870]

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[LogitechMouse]

Re: HOW DO WE TRANSFER BITCOIN WEALTH TO HEIRS AND THE NEXT GENERATION

TBH, I don't know how investors who doesn't have any people to trust their assets with when they die will give their Bitcoin, and other assets to their heirs. I guess I'm lucky that I know a person whom I can trust my assets with if the worst thing happens, and I die.

Having a person or people where you can trust with is the best solution for this. The problem is, there might be a chance that the one who you trust right now will be the ones that will backstab you, making them a traitor, and has a chance to steal your assets. The chances are low, but it isn't zero right. Anyway, trusting a relative, or in this care an heir is very hard thing to do. Maybe just putting it in a hardware wallet, then teaching them how to access it is the best way. Of course you will only give them the wallet when you die, or at least you feel that you will be. In that way, it would be better than just forgetting those Bitcoins.

[Odohu]

Re: HOW DO WE TRANSFER BITCOIN WEALTH TO HEIRS AND THE NEXT GENERATION

TBH, I don't know how investors who doesn't have any people to trust their assets with when they die will give their Bitcoin, and other assets to their heirs. I guess I'm lucky that I know a person whom I can trust my assets with if the worst thing happens, and I die.

Transferring assets to heirs is not entirely about trust issues. It so happens that life is unpredictable and one cannot really say when the time is up to leave this word. The reason people device means of transferring assets is to ensure the right people have access to the assets when they are gone.

You might not hand over your assets when you are alive and active unless it is a partial handover and not complete handover. I know some people do this but the chances of handing over everything including your passwords  and secret phrases to your heirs, when you are still alive, is very slim hence, the need to work out motherlities this can be done efficiently.

[Ojima-ojo]

This thought has been bothering me for a while and I feel we can discuss it here. Many people that are building their Bitcoin portfolio are doing it to also save for the coming generation. However, how this wealth will be transferred to the heirs and the next generation and how this wealth will be preserved without being lost or causing problems remain unclear.

The best way to transfer wealth to the next generation comes in two different aspects but both operate together and these two fundamental aspects, tools to effectively transfer tour Bitcoin assets to the next generation and this are:

1: disclosure of your wallet balance and transfer of wallet private recovery keys to the next of kin.
2: giving the one that wants to inherit the assets the basic knowledge of cryptocurrency and how to secure their assets guiding their self against any possible attack by maintaining high privacy.

I understand for other tangible assets, a WILL can be written to be revealed when the time is right. But for Bitcoin, I don't know how this can be done as it may require revealing the secret codes of the wallets or storage devices. Is there any other way this can be done?

Just like i said above, the only way to transfer Bitcoin holdings is by giving up the private keys to the wallet and in doing that one need to take into accounts some other underlying factors that can expose your privacy and security of the account.


This is the more reason one need to build a food basic knowledge of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies  in the life of those around tou in that way you don't necessarily need to spend too much time or risk too much in attempting to transfer the wealth to your next generation since they already know the way to handle themselves.

My thought was captured in my comment in this thread but I felt to raise a topic for most discussion. In case this topihasve has been discussed, I will be glad to be pointed to the thread.

Well thought out mate and nice to see that you decide to ask such here since it will help all of us to learn how best to transfer wealth in digital formats.

[panganib999]

The general consensus is that you'd need not a tool or a mechanism, but a laid out plan of how you're going to pass down your cryptocurrency wealth to your descendants. And I pretty much have an idea of such.

You have to first ensure that you're using a cold wallet, like a trezor or a hardware wallet before you die. That ensures that your funds don't accidentally fall victim to hackings or mismanagement if you keep it in exchanges. Once that's settled, keep your trezor wallet/hardware wallet along with the seedphrase/passcode in a single vault. That ensures safety and security, as well as the convenience of knowing what the authentication is. After which, include these assets in your will and testament, along with the shares that your kids will receive in full explicit detail, so no one mistakes/confuses which or who's got the share of who.

Pretty much easy and it does not involve any form of tool that could fail, or mechanism that could turn against its main purpose.

[PX-Z]

Once that's settled, keep your trezor wallet/hardware wallet along with the seedphrase/passcode in a single vault. That ensures safety and security, as well as the convenience of knowing what the authentication is. After which, include these assets in your will and testament, along with the shares that your kids will receive in full explicit detail, so no one mistakes/confuses which or who's got the share of who.

Pretty good the same as what i thought. Although hardware wallets have expiry i mean they wont work after such a long time say 10 years of not/using it, its battery/screen will simply wont work anymore, same as my ledger problems. So including it on your vault will give a hint to anyone who will get it later and the seed phrases.
Or simply let your family lawyer do the work later on..

[JayJuanGee]

Provide your keys in a will. Could always do a multisig as well where the will only has one part of what you need to access the coins, so nobody can get it just by looking at the will, and your family members have other parts of the multisig but not enough to get the coins without the will so they can't access them until the will is presented.

Or provide a partial key in the will and your family already has the other part of the key so they just have to put them together when the person dies.

I believe you can also make a transaction so that after a certain amount of time they coins in the address, if they are still there, get transferred to another given address. You give your family this other address, of course then the coins would officially pass to them whenever that time is up, not at the person's death, so it could be before or after the death.

But I bet every year some bitcoin is lost to owners dying, and I'm sure this will continue in the future, as probably most people aren't setting up how they will transfer their bitcoin unless they are old or sick. For example if I died my family would have no access to my bitcoin (something my mom likes to bring up as a reason why I should give her my keys haha, in her scenario she would spend all my bitcoin on doctors and medical procedures if something happened to me so that I would wake up broke lol).

I find this Codebear post to be a bit of a springboard for my own post in this thread, and I am not sure if I have much to add in light of my having had posted in DdmrDdmr's thread on May 5, 2023.

Also I had not yet read Loyce's thread (already mentioned in this thread) on related topics or fillippone's thread.. and maybe I will put those two back on my "to read" list.

I get the sense that the more that I read through these kinds of topics, the more concerned that I get, even though there surely have been some members, in this thread suggesting that the problem is easy to resolve, which surely does not seem to be the case in terms of how much of a dilemma that we end up putting ourselves in regarding how much information to entrust to various people who we might choose to give them information prior to some kind of an instruction sheet that might be in the form of a will at an attorney's office, and we likely realize that we do not necessarily even have to have an attorney holding an instruction sheet, even though they surely are already used to having responsibility over holding sealed envelopes in which the contents are not read until the person had died.. and they tend to take those responsibilities seriously, but sure they could be a point of failure if they read the contents prior to being authorized to do so.

I don't really like some of the ideas of giving hardware wallets and presumably not sharing the back-up seed, which seems quite problematic if there is a hardware failure, as well as my not liking the idea of putting the harware wallet and the seed in the same place.

I do like ideas of dividing up information while hoping that it is not overly complicated because dividing up information may well end up having the information in one location to be destroyed or compromised, but if the information is just 1/3 of a seed then it is more difficult to use the 1/3 as a way to hack, but if they get 2/3 then it could get closer to being able to hack into the wallets.

And, let's not fool ourselves when it comes to how many places that we might hold bitcoins, so there could be several kinds of pieces of information that might be seeds to wallets and then various accounts that we might have and passwords to the accounts, but if the accounts are known and then there is proof of death, then there should be some assumption that coins held in those kinds of places should be recoverable...

so one thing is recovering the coins and then another thing is making sure that they get to the intended recipient, so yeah there could be some easy ways to do that, if you trust the person not to get into their coins prior to your death , then you could instruct them and pass them privately without going through any kind of dividing of keys or separating the instructions from the keys.  

I don't really perceive the lawyer to be a problem in terms of necessarily jeopardizing the keys (if the keys are not actually given to him/her) - but that could be with anyone who we might trust with the instructions but not given the keys.. but maybe someone else might know that the keys are in three parts and where the three locations are .. but then there also might be two or three sets of the three locations. in case any of the locations might get compromised. which does happen.. houses do burn down, bank safety deposits do get raided (banks are destroyed sometimes too)..

I am not going to claim to know any one particular solution, because some of these matters change through time including which wallets/assets that any of us might hold and how easy it might be to update our information pieces that we are passing on, and surely one of the advantage of physical property as compared with digital property would be that the tangible item is not disappearing at the time of our death, even though the gold bar burried in the yard might not be discovered ever or maybe until 1,000 years later... so yeah the digital information may well die at the time of our death whether it is the private keys or the ways that they are put together, and there may be no way to connect the three pieces of paper with the private key if the instructions are lost.

And Codebears disclosure that even his mother might not be a good place to leave keys if there might be some failures of the person holding such keys to exercise good judgement, and surely judgement might be different whether it devolves into the levels of mal-intentions or just incompetence, negligence or merely differences in ways of considering what is reasonable and what is not reasonable.

[Sayeds56]

This thought have been bothering me for a while and I feel we can discuss it here. Many people that are building their Bitcoin portfolio are doing it to also save for the coming generation. However, how this wealth will be transferred to the heirs and the next generation and how this wealth will be preserved without being lost or causing problems still remain unclear.

I understand for other tangible assets, a WILL can be written to be revealed when the time is right. But for Bitcoin, I don't know how this can be done as it may require revealing the secrete codes of the wallets or storage device. Is there any other way this can be done?

My thought was captured in my comment in this thread but I felt to raise a topic for most discussion. In case this topic have been discussed, I will be glad to be pointed to the thread.

You have highlighted an important and complex concern regarding seamless transfer and preservation of Bitcoin wealth to the next generations. I think Bitcoin indeed stands out as a promising asset to pass down to our successors. One approach could be to utilize  multi-signature wallets, that require multiple private keys and digital wallets. This procedure involves two or three wallets and private keys to authorize transactions.

[fruktik]

My belief is Bitcoin will be accepted more in legal aspect and the trend in legality will be better for Bitcoin communities globally. Stay positive and get rid of worry about legal regulations against Bitcoin. Locally there might be some barriers even very serious but globally the picture is better.

It is good to reason in this way when there are no restrictions in the country on the use and storage of Bitcoins. In my country, this case is very bad. The government passed a number of some laws, but did not allow the use of the crypt as legal tender, but people must pay taxes if they have it. How do you like this circumstance? Impressive insanity of managers? Me very. To be honest, I'm already tired of such antics. It's infuriating that these people in power only care about their own pockets.

Until now, they cannot decide how to properly shove the crypt into the legal field. They want to take tax tribute, but people don't care.

[Litzki1990]

This is a very important point, you may be involved with Bitcoin right now but at any moment you may die due to an accident or any other reason, since death is uncertain and can strike at any time so we should always think of alternatives. You should arrange for someone in your family to use my bitcoins in your absence. The best way to pass your bitcoins down to the next generation is to discuss your investments and bitcoins with a trusted family member. Trusted member can be anyone like your wife your son or daughter your brother or sister or your parents you can choose any one of them who can use bitcoin in your absence. Discuss Bitcoin with a certain person first and make them experienced enough about Bitcoin, after doing all this, when you feel that your family member now has a complete understanding of Bitcoin, you share with him the important things about your account. So that he can take over your bitcoins later in your absence.

[dothebeats]

Once that's settled, keep your trezor wallet/hardware wallet along with the seedphrase/passcode in a single vault. That ensures safety and security, as well as the convenience of knowing what the authentication is. After which, include these assets in your will and testament, along with the shares that your kids will receive in full explicit detail, so no one mistakes/confuses which or who's got the share of who.

Pretty good the same as what i thought. Although hardware wallets have expiry i mean they wont work after such a long time say 10 years of not/using it, its battery/screen will simply wont work anymore, same as my ledger problems. So including it on your vault will give a hint to anyone who will get it later and the seed phrases.
Or simply let your family lawyer do the work later on..

That is truly the simplest way and the easiest. However, you need to be sure that you can trust your lawyer, and it is very understandable for people to not go that way and answer. First, again, there is the issue of trust especially if it is something that has to do with hard-earned money and long-term investment. Another thing is the insurance that only your chosen heir will get that bitcoin wealth, sometimes the law can be overturned by some technicality and it can be messy to deal with.

[aylabadia05]

I understand for other tangible assets, a WILL can be written to be revealed when the time is right. But for Bitcoin, I don't know how this can be done as it may require revealing the secrete codes of the wallets or storage device. Is there any other way this can be done?

Some may not agree that the plan to submit assets such as Bitcoin to the heirs by giving Seed Phrase Wallet and Passcode to the trusted people that we have been saved in the safest storage. If until now it still hasn't given it, just convey the storage area that we save the key that can access Bitcoin by creating special requirements before trusted people access Bitcoin assets like 'Don't Open As long as I'm still alive'.

Or you doubt if you give Seed Phrase to those who are trusted to receive Bitcoin heritage because there is no one in this world that you can trust, so follow the LoyceV guide that has been included by hosseinimr93

If you want your heirs to have access to your bitcoin only after your death without you having to reveal your private keys (or seed phrase), you can follow the guide provided by LoyceV.
Using Locktime for inheritance planning, backups or gifts

[irhact]

This thought have been bothering me for a while and I feel we can discuss it here. Many people that are building their Bitcoin portfolio are doing it to also save for the coming generation. However, how this wealth will be transferred to the heirs and the next generation and how this wealth will be preserved without being lost or causing problems still remain unclear.

Have a will, the will should have the private key to the wallet where your bitcoin are been stored for the benefits of passing it onto your heirs. What I do is to have separate wallets so I have bitcoin that I can spend or sell to reinvest when the market is experience a dump and I also have another wallet that I send in Bitcoin to the wallet occasionally for hodling and I'll pass that wallet to my heirs when I have one, for now I don't have any children but I'll be open to having some in the future.

You have to get a respected lawyer and be willing to trust the lawyer to pass on the will without stealing the bitcoin in the wallets. Use a recognize firm so they won't want to destroy their reputation by stealing one client wealth knowing it'll affect the trust of the firm.

[Odohu]

1: disclosure of your wallet balance and transfer of wallet private recovery keys to the next of kin.

I don't completely agree with you on this as I feel this might create some psychological problems for the heir. For instance, if you have let's say 100BTC and you reveal this to your heir that is a teenager, there is a possibility that you will damage his psychology. Don't forget that there is amount of money a teenager will be exposed to and his character might changed drastically... some might become lazy, proud, arrogant and there are some that might start habits such as drugs and others.
This is the reason some wealthy men only make their children comfortable without exposing them to so much wealth until they are psychologically fortified to handle large amount of money mostly through will or other means of transfer. 

2: giving the one that wants to inherit the assets the basic knowledge of cryptocurrency and how to secure their assets guiding their self against any possible attack by maintaining high privacy.

This is absolutely necessary because if you must transfer Bitcoin to heirs, they must have the required knowledge to handle same. It is even wise we teach our children Bitcoin irrespective of if we are ready to hand over to them or not... this way they can also start building even from an early stage. Personally, Bitcoin is surely one of the things I will prioritize for my children... even as they build their professional careers and venture into different different field of life. I have always been an advocate of each one start from your family and friends in sharing the knowledge of Bitcoin and the technology behind it. If all of us in this forum start from our immediate families, imagine how many Bitcoin lovers and users we can nurture within a short time.

I get the sense that the more that I read through these kinds of topics, the more concerned that I get...

I truly understand the angle you are coming from as it was same for me. However, the essence of seeking diverse opinion from people is to be able to view the entire thing from different perspectives and select the most suitable concept. No doubt many wonderful suggestions have been reeled out already; one can add some refining too depending on what gives us peace of mind to implement.

[virasog]

Hmm, interesting well, as you should know the key is to access the assets, and that key cant be shared if you want security. If you've lost the key or anyone doesn't have it he cant access the Bitcoins in the wallet. So you need to pass the key but there is a huge risk haha, as I had mentioned already if anyone has the key he can withdraw all the funds. More interestingly haha in reality people store Bitcoins for their hiers. I use to keep my keys mostly in a place and few of my family members know where. As you know haha Death is the reality and it can be on the head anytime.

The real problem with BitcoinBTC is that if you share your private key with your near and dear ones like your wife and kids, there are chances that they may misuse the funds and even withdraw them before you die.

On the other hand, if you choose not to share the private key with them, you never know if you die all of sudden like in an accident or heart attack and nobody will know those private keys and hence that bitcoin will be lost forever.

I think, in the future many rich families will become poor when someone in their family dies suddenly without transferring the secret private key to anyone.

[Wiwo]

Hmm, interesting well, as you should know the key is to access the assets, and that key cant be shared if you want security. If you've lost the key or anyone doesn't have it he cant access the Bitcoins in the wallet. So you need to pass the key but there is a huge risk haha, as I had mentioned already if anyone has the key he can withdraw all the funds. More interestingly haha in reality people store Bitcoins for their hiers. I use to keep my keys mostly in a place and few of my family members know where. As you know haha Death is the reality and it can be on the head anytime.

The real problem with BitcoinBTC is that if you share your private key with your near and dear ones like your wife and kids, there are chances that they may misuse the funds and even withdraw them before you die.

On the other hand, if you choose not to share the private key with them, you never know if you die all of sudden like in an accident or heart attack and nobody will know those private keys and hence that bitcoin will be lost forever.

I think, in the future many rich families will become poor when someone in their family dies suddenly without transferring the secret private key to anyone.

I agree with the fact that the major challenges of Bitcoin is in it security and transferability which have lead to a lot of attempt conspiracy,  take the case of Satoshi Nakamoto for instance,  his wallet holdings have remained untouched since his disappearance and if he never return,  those bitcoins become waste and lost forever,  so in other to prevent such occurrence in our individuals live there is a need to put adequate measure in place to checkmate our securities and how best to transfer our Bitcoin to the next generations without causing any harm to both the receiver and you who is the custodial owner.

The risk of the danger of disclosing your private key to another person, vs. the risk of dying without anyone having access to your bitcoins, has been the major worries of many of us.

[coolcoinz]

Well there's the traditional way of having a will but it's understandable that a third-party is involved if you have that since you need a lawyer to legalize transferring everything you own to your heir. If you want it to be more private there's paperwallet, your btc will be safe if you can physically hide the paper well and only your heir will be able to get it. It's a smart and subtle way of hiding your possession well.

You don't actually need a lawyer for that because as far as I know, there's common law and banking law that governs these things. Under common law, you don't have to "report" any cash found at home.
Imagine that you live with your mother and she dies. You are the only child and your father is dead or your parents are divorced. Whatever movables were there at home are automatically yours. If she had cash in a safe and you know the combination, it's yours. Nobody is going to ask you how much money, jewelry, or art pieces she had as long as there are no other heirs that can lay claim to these things.

If she had a bank account however, the bank will not grant you access unless you give them a court order.

With bitcoin there's no third party locking you out. If your mother left you private keys, seeds, or wallet passwords, the money is yours.

[MFahad]

You are talking about bitcoin transference to your children so there is two things first and most important thing is that there is no surety that how long bitcoin will persist so if your buy bitcoin for the transference of money to your children then no guarantee that at that stage what will be the cost of bitcoin? Will there be any value of bitcoin? people will still believe on bitcoin?

Future is unpredictable and leaving such an expensive thing the value of which is not known and even existence is unknown is something most risky.
The second thing is that is there any individual who you can trust to share your private key with that? If yes then you can but I don't think that in today's age there is such a loyal personality present who will share the message of your money to your children.

I will suggest that buy some property and make some apartment so you can share these assets with your children easily and without any hazards. Every individual has own perception but I think as Compared to bitcoin this idea is better in order to give them profit as well as having less risks.

[suzanne5223]

Hmm, interesting well, as you should know the key is to access the assets, and that key cant be shared if you want security. If you've lost the key or anyone doesn't have it he cant access the Bitcoins in the wallet. So you need to pass the key but there is a huge risk haha, as I had mentioned already if anyone has the key he can withdraw all the funds. More interestingly haha in reality people store Bitcoins for their hiers. I use to keep my keys mostly in a place and few of my family members know where. As you know haha Death is the reality and it can be on the head anytime.

The real problem with BitcoinBTC is that if you share your private key with your near and dear ones like your wife and kids, there are chances that they may misuse the funds and even withdraw them before you die.

On the other hand, if you choose not to share the private key with them, you never know if you die all of sudden like in an accident or heart attack and nobody will know those private keys and hence that bitcoin will be lost forever.

I think, in the future many rich families will become poor when someone in their family dies suddenly without transferring the secret private key to anyone.

I agree with the fact that the major challenges of Bitcoin is in it security and transferability which have lead to a lot of attempt conspiracy,  take the case of Satoshi Nakamoto for instance,  his wallet holdings have remained untouched since his disappearance and if he never return,  those bitcoins become waste and lost forever,  so in other to prevent such occurrence in our individuals live there is a need to put adequate measure in place to checkmate our securities and how best to transfer our Bitcoin to the next generations without causing any harm to both the receiver and you who is the custodial owner.

The risk of the danger of disclosing your private key to another person, vs. the risk of dying without anyone having access to your bitcoins, has been the major worries of many of us.

I don't see the prevention of shared privacy as a problem because everything that has an advantage must have a disadvantage and the moment will totally accept that the moment will have a way or solution to the disadvantage.
Back to the topic, the best way to transfer Bitcoin wealth to heirs first starts by creating an airgap wallet from a clean computer, getting 2 safe deposit boxes in 2 different locations (put the BTC wallet address and wallet backup file in one) and the last thing is having a good and honest lawyer.
Meanwhile, no one should know what the safe deposit box contains.

[DaNNy001]

This thought have been bothering me for a while and I feel we can discuss it here. Many people that are building their Bitcoin portfolio are doing it to also save for the coming generation. However, how this wealth will be transferred to the heirs and the next generation and how this wealth will be preserved without being lost or causing problems still remain unclear.

I understand for other tangible assets, a WILL can be written to be revealed when the time is right. But for Bitcoin, I don't know how this can be done as it may require revealing the secrete codes of the wallets or storage device. Is there any other way this can be done?

My thought was captured in my comment in this thread but I felt to raise a topic for most discussion. In case this topic have been discussed, I will be glad to be pointed to the thread.

You have highlighted an important and complex concern regarding seamless transfer and preservation of Bitcoin wealth to the next generations. I think Bitcoin indeed stands out as a promising asset to pass down to our successors. One approach could be to utilize  multi-signature wallets, that require multiple private keys and digital wallets. This procedure involves two or three wallets and private keys to authorize transactions.

I think that's a good suggestion just like the mixin safe wallet currently tested out here in the community though it's a beta version but the idea is very unique in terms of passing out bitcoin to the next because the access to send coins will be fixed to as many that will be involved in the inheritance of the coin(bitcoin).  But on still as there is advantage to this means there are still disadvantages to it too.