Trust: who can be trusted to keep your seeds?

[Becassine]

The problem of seeds is obviously crucial. Can we imagine being the one and only person who knows what to do with these 12/24 words? How to keep them safe, but also how to pass them on to heirs or friends (so that they know what to do with them?). Informing others while preserving your own security can be a real challenge in some countries.
And then there's betrayal, divorce etc...

What are the solutions?

[DubemIfedigbo001]

The problem of seeds is obviously crucial. Can we imagine being the one and only person who knows what to do with these 12/24 words? How to keep them safe, but also how to pass them on to heirs or friends (so that they know what to do with them?). Informing others while preserving your own security can be a real challenge in some countries.
And then there's betrayal, divorce etc...

What are the solutions?

I prefer keeping custody of my seed phrases myself, and only a trusted family member knows where it is but cannot access it easily. If I'm gone or something, the family member can have full access to it.

I would also keep the sharing formula of my holdings with a lawyer, the formula already known by my most trusted family member, so that the person who knows my secret phrases wouldn't take everything for himself. It's my own pattern of 2FA to ensure my holdings gets evenly distributed to those concerned.

[Ambatman]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5526556.msg64956549#msg64956549
You can check this thread of mine out. Is about testing custody.

Solution? There's no real solution
Find someone who you perceive as been trustworthy and take the risk
Life choices are tied to a risk.

Or better still use a multisig wallet or another alternative is
Shamir secret sharing.

[Ultegra134]

The problem of seeds is obviously crucial. Can we imagine being the one and only person who knows what to do with these 12/24 words? How to keep them safe, but also how to pass them on to heirs or friends (so that they know what to do with them?). Informing others while preserving your own security can be a real challenge in some countries.
And then there's betrayal, divorce etc...

What are the solutions?

I wouldn't risk it with anyone. No one cares about your stuff more than you do, thus, expecting from someone else to be cautious with something so important is out of the question. Not necessarily because they'll do something on purpose, but because they might be careless and leak your seed phrase by mistake. It needs to be someone who acknowledges what it is and has some basic understanding of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general. It's a complicated matter and I haven't yet factored betrayal or divorce just like you mentioned. Money changes people, and it's usually for the worse. I'd rather be accountable for myself if I end up losing my seed phrase, I'll be the only one to blame.

[Hazink]

I have read about this same type of discussion in this forum in more than 2 threads, if I'm not mistaken, and there is no exact perfect solution to it. Trust is one big thing, even as you still need to trust someone if you really don't want everything you have worked for to go untouched.

You can just choose your spouse or one of your children, whom you can teach about how to access a wallet with a seed phrase and entrust it with another in case of an emergency. You will know that your family can still have access to your holdings. It's worth it even if you are thinking about the danger of losing everything by trusting the wrong person.

[PX-Z]

No one but just me. Then i just save it somewhere safe that could lead someone from my family to check if ever i passed away. No one in my family used and have the knowledge to use bitcoin in technical way as i did. I need to make a little instructions on how to do the importing/exporting for them to recover it.

[Text]

I’d say nobody at least not in a way that gives full control to someone else. Splitting the seed into parts, using multi-sig setup or encrypting it with a trusted dead man’s switch could be safer alternatives. Trust is fragile and situations change. The challenge isn’t just who to trust but how to ensure access without compromising security.

[Churchillvv]

when I see people speak of distrust I wonder how you all choose your partners or spouse if you will keep having doubts that they will steal from you.

Well it's very difficult to choose who to entrust with a good number of your networth but perhaps the very importance is to make at least a very background opening to some that you have sometimes of such nature (bitcoin) or better educate your children about bitcoin and how to handle seed phrases yet keep some informations to yourself.

[PrivacyG]

The best solution is a mix of solutions.

You can not leave the seed to who you think should and will enter your property by the time of your death.  There are enough cases of people who died and had their property robbed by strangers or even relatives who should not have the right to the items post mortem.  If you leave a note to who you think will earn the right to your seed, you are playing lottery.

But unfortunately, this can still happen even if you leave the seed to only one person you trust or a few people you trust.  A lot of things are still possible.  Humans are really bad at keeping a secret, so they may be robbed of the seed themselves upon your death.  Then it is also important to take into account that, while you trust somebody right now, they may betray you even while you are still alive and take your Bitcoin without your knowledge or approval considering they are now an owner of your seed too.

Then the solution seems to be a multi sig wallet.  But even that comes with caveats.  Consider you have four kids and they are all married.  Three of them die in a car crash and their spouses were always ready to betray you.  Due to their death and their ignorance of your feelings or financial status, they will turn their back against you and you will only have one kid left who is able to help you out.

Humans are not only an excellent creature when it comes to not being able to keep a secret but also excellent at betraying others to their own advantage.

Out of my lack of trust particularly in strangers, I would never put my trust into an institution or a stranger to help me out with keeping my Bitcoin safe or distributing it to the right people if I happen to die.  So these are and in my opinion should always be the last resort on the list of ideas.

I do not believe there is a perfect solution.  For each solution, you can mess up.  The best way is probably to simply mix multiple solutions together.  While that means more headache, it also means less Bitcoin lost if anything goes wrong.  Otherwise, the best thing you can do is hope nothing bad happens and everything goes right.

[BenCodie]

It depends on your own capacity. If you believe that for some reason that you are at risk of mismanaging your phrase, then confiding in a family member that you would trust also with something like your bank account details or possession of your gold/other assets might be appropriate (but still, not recommended as it increases risk of something going wrong). Friends come and go, so that's a no for the whole phrase. A bank or notary is probably fine for part of your key though not the whole thing. It's a bit contradictory to trust a bank with your phrase in my opinion.

A mix, like PrivacyG said, is not a bad idea. You can use part of the seed with a family member, part of it with a friend, part of it with the bank, and so on. Though in my opinion, a phrase can easily be managed, kept safe and planned for next of kin (if you are worried about that) on your own. People don't need to know that you even own Bitcoin until you need to involve other people (which I believe should be until death).

[Darker45]

It's a real challenge everywhere, not just in some countries. It's indeed hard to be your own bank.

I'm afraid there's no solution. One situation is different from another but, overall, the risks of holding the key to a significant sum are high. Robbery, theft, sudden death, accident, serious illness, fire, flood, and so on and so forth could compromise your entire savings beyond recovery.

There are measures that reduce such risks like educating close and trusted family members about Bitcoin and private keys and whatnot, giving them hints that you've got small savings in Bitcoin, using multiple steel backups, and so on, but these don't take away the risks completely.

What's left I guess is the price to pay for having this kind of financial freedom.

[jcojci]

Before you trust your family to take care your seedphrase, you can teach them all things matter about Bitcoin. You can test them by giving some satoshi and see how they use it or you can give other test to make sure if you can trust them or not. If he can be trust, he will trying to take care of that wallet without take any satoshi inside the wallet. Trusting someone is not easy because human change from time to time but if that person is honest, trusted, and else, you can give your trust to him/her.

Making a multi sig may be is a good choice so they can do anything if they don't use it together. In this matter, you can hire a notary to help you explain about your legacy.

[pooya87]

Well if you can't trust a spouse then there is no reason to continue living

You can always use additional protective measures, like for example in case of storing the mnemonic at your parents' house you could encrypt it before printing it on paper. Then store the passphrase separately (in a different location) so that in case it was taken by someone else (a third party like a thief or something) it cannot be stolen.

But this is one of those scenarios that there is no solution that fits all. For some people a safety deposit box in a bank may be a better solution (although I'd say you must encrypt it in this case) if they are single or have no parents or something like that.

[Jawhead999]

The best is nobody, zero betrayal, zero stress.

The ideal is family, but I would say family are only biological parents and biological child, other than that they're strangers. Biological parents and biological child will not betray you, they're the only one who can happy and feel sad over anything happen in your life.

This is different to your partner, spouse, husband/wife, step child, parents in law, brother/sister in law etc, if they have a chance to get all of your money and title, they will do it.

I prefer to use standard wallet + passphrase, you need to make sure it's easy to access your wallet because even just a standard wallet, people can still lost access over their coins.

If someday, I found that my parents or my child use my money, then fuck it, at least they're the one who give huge impact in my life.

[retreat]

The problem of seeds is obviously crucial. Can we imagine being the one and only person who knows what to do with these 12/24 words? How to keep them safe, but also how to pass them on to heirs or friends (so that they know what to do with them?). Informing others while preserving your own security can be a real challenge in some countries.
And then there's betrayal, divorce etc...

What are the solutions?

I would guess that there are quite a few people who would not trust anyone with their seed phrase, even if it is their own wife or children, because it is not a matter of trusting them or not, but rather a matter of taking responsibility, you need to see their capability to take responsibility, if you see that they are not ready and experienced in doing so, then you should not burden them with such a heavy burden. The fear of making bad decisions or mistakes that they might make which could potentially result in the loss of bitcoin is a big consideration—and that is why some people prefer not to share their seed phrase with their family.

[serjent05]

For me, no one can be trusted except our parents. That is how my relationship with my parents is. I do not know about anyone's situation, but in my case, I have 100% trust in my parents since they brought me up, supported me when I was down, and never left me on my own to deal with difficult situations.

As their child, I should return the favor by fully trusting them, may it be secrets or financial stuff.  After all my kind of parents are the ones who prioritized their child . 

I would not suggest having 100% trust in friends, often times friendship is destroyed when it comes to financial situations.  If one has a wife, and has kids on her, I would suggest trusting half of the fund's secret key to her, we must always have a reserved for our ownselves.

It is really hard to trust anyone these days.  It feels like we are taking a gambling risk when trusting someone, but funds would be wasted when we leave this world and no one knows about our wealth.  If we have a family, it is like we deprive them of good fortune if we keep it a secret until we leave this world and I feel that is too selfish of us...

That is just my opinion and others may differ but for me sharing our wealth with our family is one of the best things to show how we love our family.

[OgNasty]

While you should limit the people who have access to your keys/seeds, I think you should be thinking in terms of who you will want to have your coins when you die. You could even give different people sections of your keys and hope they don’t conspire against you. There’s also multisigs that can be useful for a variety of reasons.

[davis196]

The problem of seeds is obviously crucial. Can we imagine being the one and only person who knows what to do with these 12/24 words? How to keep them safe, but also how to pass them on to heirs or friends (so that they know what to do with them?). Informing others while preserving your own security can be a real challenge in some countries.
And then there's betrayal, divorce etc...

What are the solutions?

I voted for "Nobody". Why do you think that your friends and family have to inherit your crypto? If you want to give them your crypto, just sell it for fiat money and give them the fiat money. Just like Satoshi once said "if you lose access to your coins, this becomes a donation to the community". The same thing happens when you die and nobody has access to your crypto wallets. I would never share my passwords and see phrases with friends and family. Most of them are in a pretty good financial condition and they don't need my crypto. I also don't have any kids and I don't plan having kids.

[Outhue]

I have family and friends that I trust but trust can always be broken, even as a married person, I still don't think it is a good idea to give my key to my spouse because a lot is happening in today's world, I will prefer to key them their own hardware wallet and instruct them about keeping their keys to themselves and keeping mine to myself too.

Private keys are named private keys for a reason, it was never made to be shared about friends and families, there are betrayers and deceitful people among those who we called loved ones.

Some hardware wallets today comes with multiple key function where more than one person can create the wallet at once and each of them will have their seed phrases, to unclock and move funds out of this wallet, all seeds need to be import, like signing a transaction by more than one person for the transaction to go through, I think this one is better for families.

On my Keystone wallet it is called Shamir Backup, it has more advance backup option and suited for more than one person.

[Felicity_Tide]

The problem of seeds is obviously crucial. Can we imagine being the one and only person who knows what to do with these 12/24 words? How to keep them safe, but also how to pass them on to heirs or friends (so that they know what to do with them?). Informing others while preserving your own security can be a real challenge in some countries.
And then there's betrayal, divorce etc...

What are the solutions?

This is a very sensitive matter that I haven't had any thoughts about. I believe sharing a seed phrase isn't difficult at all, as majority of us have one or two people that we are close to. But the whole issue now lies in 'trust'. One thing that funnies me is that, we can trust someone with our lives, but the case is quite the opposite when it comes to money.

Though, I still sit on the idea of keeping one's seed phrase to him/her self. But it will be best to make it known to someone within the family cycle (not extended). There is no point of making it a muti-sig, because a family that isn't in union/good term, might find it difficult to agree on how to split, if eventually something goes wrong. If a person happens to be married, then making it known to the wife is ideal, but might come back to hunt in the case of divorce. There are so many things to consider before taking steps, because money has a way of changing a person.