When it comes to bitcoin inheritance planning, don't give your heirs too much credit.
I've helped with 100s, if not 1000s, of probates (the process for transferring assets and settling debts upon death), and this is what we see:
Over and over we see heirs fumble and struggle with even legacy assets that most people are familiar with (bank, brokerages, and annuity accounts).
Probably due to some combination of grief, time constraints, and the stress of handling someone else's personal affairs on top of your own busy ilfe.
So it's hard to imagine a non-Bitcoiner, in these circumstances, successfully figuring out a hardware wallet or utxo, let alone anything more esoteric things like a sharded seed phrase or multisig vault. It just doesn't seem realistic.
If you still believe you're Shakespeare and can write that perfect letter of instruction, try this mental exercise:
Imagine your uncle says he will leave you his substantial wealth, but it's all located in a completely foreign and corrupt land. Maybe even some alien society run by the Hutts, whatever.
You don't know the basic language, let alone the slang or technical jargon. Their notions of how value/wealth is stored are completely different from what you're used to. You have no understanding of the legal system (to the extent any laws exist), or local systems or customs. Oh, and everyone there is trying to screw or rob you, and if you mess up the wealth is irrevocably stolen or lost forever.
But no worries! Your uncle promises he'l write a really good letter, so nbd right? It took him years of self-study to (sort of) confidently navigate that environment, but his letter is just as good, right?
My theory: the "correct" bitcoin inheritance solution will be different for everyone. But unless your heirs or executor are deep down this rabbit hole, please don't assume you can write the perfect letter of instruction or design the "simplest" treasure map that will guide them flawlessly to safe self-custody.
Appreciate any and all feedback
Timelocks (or better op_vault, but of course that's a softfork that hasn't been implemented into consensus yet)
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If I understand correctly, a timelock will automatically spend BTC to another wallet upon a set time.
So your non-bitcoiner heirs need to understand how to access, self-custody, and maintain security for the destination wallet.
So it seems like the same issues, just a new wallet (the destination wallet instead of your own)
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The difference, is that you can perfectly describe exactly how to use it in full plain text. If someone tries to steal it before you're dead, you can spend out of it, but if it is in the hands of the heir, it can well really just be a smartphone with the wallet installed, private key ready to rock and everything. "Hit send and scan the QR code of whomever you want to send it to". Might be the instructions. I suppose you could try being extremely verbose as well, but its a hot wallet essentially. Oh, I remember lightsats teaches users how to download and use a lightning wallet so easily too.
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"you can perfectly describe exactly how to use it in full plain text"
This sounds like a version of the "perfectly" written inheritance letter or "simple" treasure map.
My experience, even with legacy assets, has been that no matter how clearly or simply the deceased thinks they've arranged things, during the stressful probate process, heirs will often fumble.
If anything, I urge us all to underestimate our heirs and executors. It may seem silly, but assume their IQ drops 50 points
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Its not a treasure map. You give it to them and explain how to use it while you're alive maybe even let them try a test transaction. They can't spend from the timelocked wallet as long as you're alive to spend out of it.
ALSO, if you never teach your heir about Bitcoin, you especially shouldn't expect them to value Bitcoin at all. As soon as they get it, they're gonna go sell it on Coinbase lol.
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Not really. One way you could approach this is by storing a few pre-signed transactions that transfer your funds to your heir, that have a locktime of a few years.
That way, the funds can't be spent before that timelock (and you could just spend the UTXOs, invalidating the pre-signed transactions), and the timelocked transaction can only be mined after that locktime.
Another way is Liana https://github.com/wizardsardine/liana, that uses a script address that can be spent by a secondary (heir) key after some amount of time. Liana is still WIP though.
Bitcoiner parents have big responsibility of educating their descendants about bitcoin.
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That scares the bajebbus out of me. My family is sick of my bitcoin podcast and informal education, but my hope is that some of it will rub off and I can find the right person to shepherd them through that difficult time. Hopefully they bitcoin well before that day.
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This is the best solution until automated solutions are available, the deceased should at least have some educational reference materials stored in their safe or deposit lock-box at their bank, so their heirs will be able to get up to speed quickly enough upon their passing
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I agree with you, I can be 100% sure that if I pass on no one in my family or extended family would have a clue how to access that bitcoin, some people will involve a company that will take their share, some people will use deadman switches that send some or all that BTC to an address a family member can access, some will have their treasure map as you say and others will just go out with their bitcoin
I do think that the first generation of bitcoiners to die will be the biggest cut in supply ever in bitcoin history
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"I do think that the first generation of bitcoiners to die will be the biggest cut in supply ever in bitcoin history"
Hoping my small contribution to the bitcoin community will help minimize this!
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We still have time to figure out some solutions, Maybe a self contained ChatGBT style interface that users could spin up and interact with on the passing that could guide the family memeber, would be a possible option way off in the future :)
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What do you think of companies like Unchained or Casa that have multi-sig solutions for inheritance?
Also, your point might not necessary apply to an asset like Bitcoin that increases in value over time. The incentive and greed of the human spirit might go long here. ;)
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Unchained, Casa, and lately Nunchuk all add great options to the mix.
Best solution depends your heirs' and executor's level of knowledge on custody and opsec. And their willingness to stay up to date, since we don't know when we'll die.
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я решил задачу наследования. как? очень просто. я оставляю наследника адреса с 1 сатоши 10 сатоши 50 сатоши 1000 сатоши. сейчас это без мысленно как, в 2010 0.1 биткоина... но время показывает как этого избежать. думвю поймёшь... сейчас нет способы вывести 2 сатоши если комиссии высоки а значит это будет передано по наследству дефакто. биткоин это инструкция пойми меня верно.
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I tried translation app, but still don't quite understand this post. Much appreciated if anyone else can explain
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