Bitcoin in our will, is it safe with lawyers?

[Obim34]

I came across this on the internet and I see a good reason as to share it here in the forum. Some time ago, I saw a  thread talking about Bitcoin as an asset that could be transferred or willed, yes it is important we do so, since dieing alone with our secrete keys unrevealed or not willed out means losing that amount of Bitcoin forever, considering the time and resources put all in just to achieve such a portfolio.


Right now even some of our lawyers don turn criminals, dey they very soft on the truth as long they go benefit from the transactions, whereas we want will our Bitcoin where we think say we fit store with 100% assurance say e go later dey delivered to our kin.

Many comments were made but I go aswell like make we discuss am here for the forum, so everybody go dey carried along. Wetin we suppose do in this case?

[Charles-Tim]

The two better ways are time/height lock or multisig.

If it is multisig, you will have to let the hires know about it and they have to learn about multisig setup and backups. They will also know the amount of coins on the wallet.

For height/time lock, the hires just need to know about the bitcoin address you will tell them to give you and how they will receive coins on it, that the private keys must be well protected.

I think height/time lock is better. The hires will not know the amount of the coins and there will be no dubious plans from the hires to cooperate to steal the coins.

[promise444c5]

I think height/time lock is better. The hires will not know the amount of the coins and there will be no dubious plans from the hires to cooperate to steal the coins.

It's my first time hearing  height/time lock  can you explain better on how it works

[Charles-Tim]

It's my first time hearing  height/time lock  can you explain better on how it works

You can see it on wallets like Electrum. You will make a transaction and set the block height or the date and time the transaction should be broadcasted.

[Mate2237]

Don't put the seed phrase in the will, and only write that you son, or daughter should take the bitcoin form your wallet and give the hardware wallet to the lawyer and give the key to the person that will receive the will so that nobody can use the wallet in that process until the will has been read I. The public and let the layer handover the hardware wallet to the person to withdraw the coins.

Lawyers e no dey trusted again because their ways are not pure. And also teach the person wey you know say you want give the bitcoin will how to operate some of those things.  But don't tell the person that you have kept coins for him or her. And I think with this I have given you some tips to go about it.

[Obim34]

The two better ways are time/height lock or multisig.

If it is multisig, you will have to let the hires know about it and they have to learn about multisig setup and backups. They will also know the amount of coins on the wallet.

For height/time lock, the hires just need to know about the bitcoin address you will tell them to give you and how they will receive coins on it, that the private keys must be well protected.

I think height/time lock is better. The hires will not know the amount of the coins and there will be no dubious plans from the hires to cooperate to steal the coins.

I'm not too technical to easily understand about the height/time lock and the Multisig but alone doing some research I think about the Height/time lock is more like fixing a certain interval of time on the blockchain to confirm transactions. Which means the person who is to get the will supposing should be aware of the confirmation date of the transactions. It seems the transaction would be from one wallet to another? The beneficiary should hold the private keys to the wallet which is to confirm the transaction, right? But in this space how do we know the number of years left before our departure, do we just fix some random number of years probably a 10yrs interval. I'm inquisitive here, you can aswell thrown in more light.

[AVE5]

Willing your bitcoin assets with an involvement of a lawyer to me isn't a consent of third party yet because while you lives, your seed phrases is just between you and your trustee being your lawyer and when you're no more, the lawyer can sideline it and your family could be left with nothing and they literally can't fight it out because there's no proof that will.

The only option is having a private savings box that may contain your internet private details probably if you've your seed phrase stored online or stored offline in the box and during when you exit, behold, your wallets and privacies can be traced if your family can get reach to the box.
You only need to have a family that respects your Privacies and you too trying to be much logical so they you don't over trust them because anything anytime is possible to happen by any memeber if the family throwing stone to invade.
At some sensitive points in life is so choked that we'd be left with only one option and no other possible ways. That's he scenario here.

[Ruttoshi]

It's my first time hearing  height/time lock  can you explain better on how it works

You can see it on wallets like Electrum. You will make a transaction and set the block height or the date and time the transaction should be broadcasted.

To add to what Charles-Tim said, you can read this article for proper understanding on what time/height lock. It allows a transaction not to be mined until the block reaches a certain height or when it gets to a certain time before your transaction will be mined.
https://learnmeabitcoin.com/technical/transaction/locktime/

[Cryptomultiplier]

Willing your bitcoin assets with an involvement of a lawyer to me isn't a consent of third party yet because while you lives, your seed phrases is just between you and your trustee being your lawyer and when you're no more, the lawyer can sideline it and your family could be left with nothing and they literally can't fight it out because there's no proof that will.

The only option is having a private savings box that may contain your internet private details probably if you've your seed phrase stored online or stored offline in the box and during when you exit, behold, your wallets and privacies can be traced if your family can get reach to the box.
You only need to have a family that respects your Privacies and you too trying to be much logical so they you don't over trust them because anything anytime is possible to happen by any memeber if the family throwing stone to invade.
At some sensitive points in life is so choked that we'd be left with only one option and no other possible ways. That's he scenario here.

Am sure that with putting our faith in a lawyer comes the responsibility of mutual trust, which in turn can make things way better. Having a lawyer serves a very important function and before such trust will be earned, the lawyer must have proven to be effective and mature enough to handle disputes as well as resolve them.

Before a will is placed in the hands of a professional lawyer, there must have been a mutual understanding and trust that has been earned, in that the family members know the lawyer so well and can reach him and trust him to deliver on certain promises.

[Josefjix]

Am sure that with putting our faith in a lawyer comes the responsibility of mutual trust, which in turn can make things way better. Having a lawyer serves a very important function and before such trust will be earned, the lawyer must have proven to be effective and mature enough to handle disputes as well as resolve them.

Before a will is placed in the hands of a professional lawyer, there must have been a mutual understanding and trust that has been earned, in that the family members know the lawyer so well and can reach him and trust him to deliver on certain promises.

Only for those that have acknowledged the market and knows the essential value of bitcoin ought to put it in their will because they know the potential risks and significant profits involved. Our lawyer ought to be someone we have build mutual trust and know the type of person he or she behaves or have pretended to portrayed. I know this world is a wicked one and we don't sit in position to know the good an bad people. Our bitcoin is safer and talking about death, do you plan of leaving this world? For me, I'm not stepping for any reason until God say it's my time. I'm here to enjoy myself and make substantial involvement with investment that will definitely saved me from the terrible hands of volatility of the market.

[Dailyscript]

Am sure that with putting our faith in a lawyer comes the responsibility of mutual trust, which in turn can make things way better. Having a lawyer serves a very important function and before such trust will be earned, the lawyer must have proven to be effective and mature enough to handle disputes as well as resolve them.

Before a will is placed in the hands of a professional lawyer, there must have been a mutual understanding and trust that has been earned, in that the family members know the lawyer so well and can reach him and trust him to deliver on certain promises.

Only for those that have acknowledged the market and knows the essential value of bitcoin ought to put it in their will because they know the potential risks and significant profits involved. Our lawyer ought to be someone we have build mutual trust and know the type of person he or she behaves or have pretended to portrayed. I know this world is a wicked one and we don't sit in position to know the good an bad people. Our bitcoin is safer and talking about death, do you plan of leaving this world? For me, I'm not stepping for any reason until God say it's my time. I'm here to enjoy myself and make substantial involvement with investment that will definitely saved me from the terrible hands of volatility of the market.

It is difficult to trust persons this year. And when it comes to will in cryptocurrency not everyone knows how to go about it. That is why i came up with the idea of encrypting my private keys in a different format so that the only one who can decrypt it would be the one given the will. This is because he would have to go and learn how to encrypt it but there are various process to it. And that is the main reason why we need to teach our family about the blockchain and the security in cryptocurrency.

[Igebotz]

You can see it on wallets like Electrum. You will make a transaction and set the block height or the date and time the transaction should be broadcasted.

To add to what Charles-Tim said, you can read this article for proper understanding on what time/height lock. It allows a transaction not to be mined until the block reaches a certain height or when it gets to a certain time before your transaction will be mined.
https://learnmeabitcoin.com/technical/transaction/locktime/

Timelock is a risky and still in a Beta mode- you don't know what the fees would be like at that time, could be little for a miner to pick up and the coins end up returning back to your wallet after sitting in the mempool for months and your next of kin will never get it.

Set timelock tnx in 2024 ( fees rates; 79sats/vb) to be executed in 2050 ( fees could be 500sats/vb), this way your coins would get stuck on the Blockchain and return to your wallet after sometime. Technically timelock can't help much.

Onchained muti-signature is still the best out there or best share your seed phrase and passphrase between two family members and leave direction of use to your lawyer. Your next of kin ( Seed phrase) your wife ( passphrase) - this way the two come in agreement to get access to the coins since they can't access the coins without the two. Seed phrase is useless without passphrase and verse versa

[Samlucky O]

I made some research on this topic and here are Similar topic like yours which has been previously discussed here  in our 9ja local board and also in bitcoin forum you can look into this two thread to get more light in what you seak. Below are the threads:
Using Locktime for inheritance planning, backups or gifts

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

[Charles-Tim]

You can see it on wallets like Electrum. You will make a transaction and set the block height or the date and time the transaction should be broadcasted.

To add to what Charles-Tim said, you can read this article for proper understanding on what time/height lock. It allows a transaction not to be mined until the block reaches a certain height or when it gets to a certain time before your transaction will be mined.
https://learnmeabitcoin.com/technical/transaction/locktime/

Timelock is a risky and still in a Beta mode- you don't know what the fees would be like at that time, could be little for a miner to pick up and the coins end up returning back to your wallet after sitting in the mempool for months and your next of kin will never get it.

Set timelock tnx in 2024 ( fees rates; 79sats/vb) to be executed in 2050 ( fees could be 500sats/vb), this way your coins would get stuck on the Blockchain and return to your wallet after sometime. Technically timelock can't help much.

Onchained muti-signature is still the best out there or best share your seed phrase and passphrase between two family members and leave direction of use to your lawyer. Your next of kin ( Seed phrase) your wife ( passphrase) - this way the two come in agreement to get access to the coins since they can't access the coins without the two. Seed phrase is useless without passphrase and verse versa

What kind of beta mode? About the fee, the recipient can do CPFP and that solves it. The sender should also use high amount of fee rate like at least 100 sat/vbyte. Like I have explained before but which is not yet in details, multisig also has its own downsides.

[Igebotz]

Timelock is a risky and still in a Beta mode- you don't know what the fees would be like at that time, could be little for a miner to pick up and the coins end up returning back to your wallet after sitting in the mempool for months and your next of kin will never get it.

Set timelock tnx in 2024 ( fees rates; 79sats/vb) to be executed in 2050 ( fees could be 500sats/vb), this way your coins would get stuck on the Blockchain and return to your wallet after sometime. Technically timelock can't help much.

Onchained muti-signature is still the best out there or best share your seed phrase and passphrase between two family members and leave direction of use to your lawyer. Your next of kin ( Seed phrase) your wife ( passphrase) - this way the two come in agreement to get access to the coins since they can't access the coins without the two. Seed phrase is useless without passphrase and verse versa

What kind of beta mode? About the fee, the recipient can do CPFP and that solves it. The sender should also use high amount of fee rate like at least 100 sat/vbyte. Like I have explained before but which is not yet in details, multisig also has its own downsides.

How many wallets have this features? Only electrum so yeah it's still in the beta mode and not adopted yet.

100sats/vb was not even enough to move 1 UTXO last month not to talk of in the nearest future with all the inscriptions happening on the Blockchain now. You could set the timelock and die even before you let your next of kin knows so how are they doing to know when the transactions triggers to monitor the fees?

If you're to use CPFP on $500 BTC your dad left for you at a fees of 500-1ksats/vb how much would be left in the wallet?

The best shot is to trust two separate members of the family with your seed phrase and passphrase and leave a note in a box.

[Charles-Tim]

How many wallets have this features? Only electrum so yeah it's still in the beta mode and not adopted yet.

There is nothing beta about lock height or lock time. Also it is what knowing that it is not included in bitcoin protocol, and nothing is in beta about it. Lock time or lock height feature is pertaining to the wallet that you are using it. It is the wallet that will let you know if it is in beta or not.

100sats/vb was not even enough to move 1 UTXO last month not to talk of in the nearest future with all the inscriptions happening on the Blockchain now. You could set the timelock and die even before you let your next of kin knows so how are they doing to know when the transactions triggers to monitor the fees?

If you're to use CPFP on $500 BTC your dad left for you at a fees of 500-1ksats/vb how much would be left in the wallet?

You do not understand how lock time or lock height works. You will have a signed transaction which will only be available at the time or block height that you set. If you understand what you are doing very well, it is the best for inheritance. But like I said, if you know what you are doing.

[Belarge]

Am sure that with putting our faith in a lawyer comes the responsibility of mutual trust, which in turn can make things way better. Having a lawyer serves a very important function and before such trust will be earned, the lawyer must have proven to be effective and mature enough to handle disputes as well as resolve them.

Before a will is placed in the hands of a professional lawyer, there must have been a mutual understanding and trust that has been earned, in that the family members know the lawyer so well and can reach him and trust him to deliver on certain promises.

Bitcoin should be in safe hands when we no longer exists as humans, we planned our path to grow to become one of the very tough humans. We should be able to handle challenges when faced with one and do our best to resolve the issues coming our ways. Our lawyers are available and there sole aim is simply to deliver an excellent job for us. I know it's been really a tough time but it doesn't mean we should give up, rather we should lay our maps and strategies.

[promise444c5]

You can see it on wallets like Electrum. You will make a transaction and set the block height or the date and time the transaction should be broadcasted.

Make sense you've given me an assignment actually  I hope I would be able to try it on a testnet mode.... setting a short term interval for the transaction to be broadcasted

[Igebotz]

100sats/vb was not even enough to move 1 UTXO last month not to talk of in the nearest future with all the inscriptions happening on the Blockchain now. You could set the timelock and die even before you let your next of kin knows so how are they doing to know when the transactions triggers to monitor the fees?

If you're to use CPFP on $500 BTC your dad left for you at a fees of 500-1ksats/vb how much would be left in the wallet?

You do not understand how lock time or lock height works. You will have a signed transaction which will only be available at the time or block height that you set. If you understand what you are doing very well, it is the best for inheritance. But like I said, if you know what you are doing.

How do you know the the fees rates X block would mine your coins with in the next 10 to 20 years? Lock time is not advisable for inheritance purpose ( I've already given the best solution above)

The timelock is a forced hodl strategy tools for those who want to hodl without spending for a longer period of time - you timelock your coin for two halving season (8 Years), this way you can no longer spend the coins and if there's a change in fees ( very certain) you can easily use the RBF to bump the fees and get your coins.

Especially in Portugal and Germany where capital gain tax on crypto hodlings exist- If you keep your coins for less than a year you pay tax, so it's best to timelock for X year to avoid paying tax.

Do not use time lock for inheritance purpose

[Zanab247]

No, the will is not safe with lawyer because the lawyer can withdraw all the BTC from the person wallet, and he will not include BTC among the assets he will go to present to the children that involve in the will to enjoy their late father assets.

Since BTC assets is different from other assets, I will not include BTC as a will to my lawyer because once your lawyer have the seeds phrase in his hand, and he discovered there is a huge amount of money in that wallet, he can organize some killers to kill the person so that he can have access to the BTC, but if you write the seeds phrase down and show it to your wife to deliver the seeds phrase to one of their children by name, it will going to be safe when someone die.

Well,  it can work in other countries where their judges know how the blockchain of BTC work, and they will not take bribe when such case arise in the court and it will be difficult for the lawyer to have the mind to touch the will, but if something like that happen in Nigeria, it will be very easy for the person to bribe some judges to get favor in the case.