Who to trust: A lawyer or a family member.

[betswift]

Why not let emergency fund be in fiat? Emergency fund is different from inheritance. There is nothing hard about inheritance. Go and learn about multisig as some people use it for inheritance purpose but in a way that it is only setup in a way only one person will not have full control. You can read about time lock also. Even a single signature wallet is enough if done correctly with a better approach.

I too think there is nothing wrong with emergencies in fiat.

Surely, it may be done different, but in reality.. It really depends on the emergency in question as well.

[LoyceV]

Here, it would be a notary instead of a lawyer handling the will. But I wouldn't trust them with my private keys. Even if they're honest, it adds the risk of your keys getting compromised either by mistake, or by theft. And even if they're honest when there's eyes on them, you can't know for sure if they're still honest when they know nobody can prove they stole something. If your Bitcoins are gone, you'll point at your lawyer and your lawyer will say you moved them yourself.
Remember: Verify, don't trust.

[justdimin]

This is very important because not everyone can be trusted these days. A lawyer plus an important role to help in keeping will and making sure they’re shared as instructed by the deceased, then when it comes to bitcoin tht is very secretive and needs some passphrase or private key to be accessible in a wallet, you have to be more careful with the lawyer you’ll entrust such will to. Family members can also be a good choice to tell about it, but then, you wouldn’t want the will to be tempered when you’re still alive, so that makes it even difficult to entrust it to a family member especially the one you don’t trust fully in their ways.

I will still rather disclose it to a family member because in the end, they own the will. I could make sure they don’t get to have access to it until when I’m no more. It is very privacy conscious, so that can be handled with them as such as a lawyer can also do it. The main motive is that it gets to the hands of those rightful of it which there is no assurance through a lawyer but with a beneficiary family member of it, it could at least serve its purpose. I will chose a family member over a lawyer and that’s indisputable in my case.

The ability of a lawyer is more important in this case, or even a family member. You could leave your passkey, or phrase or whatever that is the thing that gets your money, could be a ledger wallet, doesn't really matter what the general concept is, if the people you leave these to, have no clue how to get it, and no idea how it could be used, no idea about phrases and keys and all that, then even if you leave them all of it, they would not be able to take it.

So, the result for me is figuring out who would be better at extracting it. If any family member could (my wife can) then I would leave to them, but if you don't have any family member who could, then find a crypto lawyer who understand how these are made, and then leave it to them, but make sure you can trust them so they do not steal it, or tell your family how much you have so that they would know and not be scammed by the lawyer.

[Outhue]

If you are a single bitcoin investor, would you rather teach a trusted family member about Bitcoin than involve your personal lawyer. I ask this because I grew to understand that lawyers are good at handling confidential issues like Wills.

Your question isn't very clear, why the need of a lawyer just because you want to teach a family member about Bitcoin? How does teaching involves assets keeping or assets willing? I am confused.

Do you mean to say leaving your Bitcoin in the hands of a family member or involve a lawyer? I think this is it, if I am correct then there is my reply.

You know your family better than anyone, if they can be trusted then will the BTC to them, remember that using lawyer is safer because they will only pass on the BTC after you are no more, until then the BTC is still yours.

Betrayer is real, this is something I feared the most right now, especially in the family, don't even tell anyone that you want to pass BTC to them when you aren't fully ready to do so.

[lovesmayfamilis]

When I saw the title of the topic, I laughed. Trust a lawyer? Yes, sometimes we are forced to create trust documents that a lawyer must keep, but I would be very careful with complete trust. Who is a lawyer? Someone who works for money. Believe me, any lawyer has and will have a price for which he can be bought and re-bought. This happened to me; since then, I have been cautious with such people. If you are alone, then you have nothing to regret if you suddenly lose your property, dying. If you have loved ones, there is always a chance to teach and explain how to use your wallet, because it is not for nothing that bitcoin itself implies being an independent bank. Why trust anything to strangers?

[Samlucky O]

It's easy as you said but passing Bitcoin as inheritance is really a big problem to me. Reason I said this is that, it is necessary you let your family know you have Bitcoin in your possession Incase of emergency or if death nock on your door, but if you decide to let your family member/ your spouse to have access to your holdings they may decide to move your fund while you are even alive. If you also entrust your seed to your lawyer, he may decide to withdraw your Bitcoin without your family knowing about it, especially after the owner is dead.

For me, I would choose the solution of trusting my loved ones, I would rather leave money for them to use than let it disappear with me and go to waste. My family is protective and willing to sacrifice for each other, I think putting faith in them is worth more than any other solution.

Although my suggestion does not in any way mean that I can't entrust my HODLing to my family, I am talking from the aspect of doing it without having problem with your family or spouse while you are alive. Humans can be funny at times expecialy when they have access to your money. It's just like your wife knowing and having access to all your wealth. You may no longer be safe because when you guys are in good terms she might be lovely and acts as if nothing happens, but there is a level to which you will have problem with her, and she may decide to pull out your Bitcoin and move from your life. So the aspect I am talking about is the aspect that you can entrust your Bitcoin assets to your loved ones without being hurt when you are alive. What they do with your asset when you are alive and when you are gone are two things entirely.

the only way I think this will be possible is to tell your family the amount of Bitcoin you have in your portfolio with proof and give access or seed to the lawyer as a will Incase you are no more.

[CryptoBuds]

I agree with you both, that I'd like to go first with my loved people and lawyer is my last choice if my favorite choice can not work like I have noone to give them that inheritance information about my wallets and backups.

Lawyers in theory have to obey a contract and law but they certainly can break the contract and law by doing illegal things. I can not trust lawyer and I would prioritize my loved people for this inheritance and sensitive information.

Even the president of a country, judges, and anti-corruption judiciary can disregard the law to commit crimes and corruption just for money...Similar, lawyers are also human and have greed, they are no different from the others. So when it comes to trust and money, no one is more trustworthy than our loved ones. If even our loved ones like parents, wife or siblings are not trustworthy then no one else in this world is trustworthy.

It can be said that no one is more trustworthy than ourselves, but if forced to choose, relatives are still more trustworthy than strangers.

[uchegod-21]

When I saw the title of the topic, I laughed. Trust a lawyer? Yes, sometimes we are forced to create trust documents that a lawyer must keep, but I would be very careful with complete trust. Who is a lawyer? Someone who works for money. Believe me, any lawyer has and will have a price for which he can be bought and re-bought. This happened to me; since then, I have been cautious with such people. If you are alone, then you have nothing to regret if you suddenly lose your property, dying. If you have loved ones, there is always a chance to teach and explain how to use your wallet, because it is not for nothing that bitcoin itself implies being an independent bank. Why trust anything to strangers?

Growing up as a teen in my country. The kind of movies we watched portrayed lawyers as incorruptible or uncompromisable saints. I grew with that idea that lawyers, magistrates, judges or anyhow they are called were saints or next to God. But as I grew, I became more exposed and have barristers as friends, then I knew they are just ordinary citizens working for money. Infact, majority of them are morally bankrupt.

[Slimzeee]

Trust is very rare, based on what I've observed in the cryptocurrency space. If you're doing well enough, you might easily face issues, let alone having your seed phrase exposed. So, opening up to anyone about it is still a risk.
However, what I can say, which I've mentioned in a similar thread, is to write a "will" if you have a sustainable amount of assets. This doesn’t necessarily mean you're wishing bad for yourself. By law, the lawyer will only hand over the seed phrase to the trusted family member you’ve chosen if you are no more and that settles it. You shouldn’t suffer to accumulate and nobody can eat of it afterwards

[xandry]

If you are a single bitcoin investor, would you rather teach a trusted family member about Bitcoin than involve your personal lawyer. I ask this because I grew to understand that lawyers are good at handling confidential issues like Wills.

It's not necessary to tell family members or a lawyer about anything.
For example, I also consider myself lonely, since Child-free is not among my relatives or those to whom I would like to give my "pennies". Even my wife... she will definitely spend all the money on her child from a previous marriage. 
The best option I see is to find some kind of charitable organization and, after making sure that they know what cryptocurrencies are, create, for example, a deferred email using gmail, which will be sent if this action is not canceled within five years.

[skarais]

First, no one can be trusted to hold your large sums of money, if anyone can be trusted, it is your family. Rather than entrusting my private key to someone else, I would rather trust my own family members, be it my wife, children, or someone else in my immediate family. They are the ones who deserve the inheritance and we should be able to trust them, but because of the uniqueness of human nature, we will inevitably differ in who we can trust.

As a husband, I am responsible for my own family including my wife, children and parents, so they should be trusted to manage my assets if needed. I work to provide for them, try my best for their future, so it is not right when I do not trust them at all and prefer someone else to do it.

[kryptqnick]

Bitcoin is money, and with money, there's a strong matter of trust. I have some people in my life whom I trust a lot, close family members. I can and do easily talk about Bitcoin to them, and we know how to access each others' funds, but it would also work if just one of us had those funds.
I don't see why I should trust a lawyer, and a lawyer would normally have to be paid. So to me, the choice is loved ones (not necessarily someone literally from your family, but someone you truly trust).
Then again, I'm always mentally ready that someone might make a mistake, the money can be lost in the process. I accept it as a risk.

[Awaklara]

If you are a single bitcoin investor, would you rather teach a trusted family member about Bitcoin than involve your personal lawyer. I ask this because I grew to understand that lawyers are good at handling confidential issues like Wills.

We can see the character of each member of our family. So we can determine whether it is good to trust one of the family members to know access to the Bitcoin we have or hand it over to a lawyer for inheritance purposes.
Actually, without a lawyer, we can also make arrangements if the assets we have are indeed planned to be inherited in the future. Such as leaving a note along with a wallet recovery seed that can be accessed by other family members when the time comes.
Personally, I would trust my family more than a lawyer.

[uneng]

If you have a harmonic family where its members get along very well with each other, and where there is a mutual bond of trust between them, I don't think it's necessary to involve any lawyers, as you will reach to a common agreement.

However, if it's a chaotic family where there lots of internal disputes and disorganization due to lack of control from the parents, it may be a good idea to contact a lawyer. There are also cases where the mother or father partners with one of the sons against the others, so you probably want to make sure an eventual BTC inheritance is going to be shared in a legal and fair way among everyone.

Although Bitcoin is a pretty new thing, this kind of conflict is so old like the ancient times... Therefore, it must not be hard to find a skilled lawyer on this subject.

[Y3shot]

Here, it would be a notary instead of a lawyer handling the will. But I wouldn't trust them with my private keys. Even if they're honest, it adds the risk of your keys getting compromised either by mistake, or by theft. And even if they're honest when there's eyes on them, you can't know for sure if they're still honest when they know nobody can prove they stole something. If your Bitcoins are gone, you'll point at your lawyer and your lawyer will say you moved them yourself.
Remember: Verify, don't trust.

Relying on a lawyer with an important asset like bitcoin that can be easily compromise is not safe at all, I think trusting to keep seedphrase in the hands of a layer just because of profession is not the best decision,  if one has a good trusted family members it is better than to trust it in the hands of a lawyer, a lawyer is still a stranger as far as privacy in bitcoin is concerned.  If their is no family member that can be trusted, no need to even bring a lawyer close.

[Negotiation]

I think security and privacy are very important when managing digital assets like bitcoin. Since the bitcoin key is very important it can be risky to hand it over to someone else or trust them especially if that person is a lawyer or someone who might be able to steal your funds. It might be better if you give this responsibility to a trusted family member who is more interested and careful in ensuring your security and privacy. That's why it's very important to keep your bitcoins in a safe place such as a paper wallet or a hardware wallet and make sure they're secure. It's actually a good idea to keep it with a family member but it's essential to take proper security measures.

[m2017]

If you are a single bitcoin investor, would you rather teach a trusted family member about Bitcoin than involve your personal lawyer. I ask this because I grew to understand that lawyers are good at handling confidential issues like Wills.

You can only trust bitcoin to someone you are ready to hand it over to. How do you imagine a lawyer making a will on bitcoin? Will you hand him seed phrase so that he can give it to your descendants after your death? This looks extremely stupid and a violation of the main rule in crypto - "not your keys - not your crypto".

If you want to leave bitcoin to your descendants, then pass it on directly to them. Without any intermediaries.

[HONDACD125]

When it's about giving access to finances, I would rather trust a family member over a lawyer because I believe anyone can deceive you these days, but if it's a family member who gets to have your holdings or the savings, it won't hurt that much compared to the lawyer backstabbing you and keeping the money after your demise instead of giving access to your family as you have willed it.

There is only one way that I can think of that might make it a viable option to trust a lawyer with your bitcoins or funds. You should write your will, mention that you have a certain amount of cryptocurrencies stored in a wallet and the seed phrase or private keys to it are with the lawyer, and you should make copies of that will and give it to different people, maybe even submit one at the court for surety that the will is performed correctly after you are no more.

This way, the lawyer won't be able to run away with the funds and have no consequences for his actions.

[EarnOnVictor]

If you are a single bitcoin investor, would you rather teach a trusted family member about Bitcoin than involve your personal lawyer. I ask this because I grew to understand that lawyers are good at handling confidential issues like Wills.

I mentioned the lawyer as an addition to the suggested family members in a thread last week in keeping the sensitive Bitcoin passkeys, and even talked about bank. Well, I think all of them are useful tools towards the safe keeping of your Bitcoin details, but just don't commit the important passkey solely into the hand of any of them. The best bet is to distribute the keys in pieces with at least two of them, and you have to ensure that they do not know each other. They can only meet when the investor is no more or in case of other eventualities.

[Youngrebel]

If the case br that be the case, I'll rather entrust my seed phrase and Bitcoin to a family member who is trustworthy and someone that is a very close family member. By so if he shouldn't take the wealth and better himself a few more family members will also benefit. This is way better thet the wealth remains with the family and not totally get lost to a stranger in the name of a lawyer