This is an editorial by Konstantin Rabin, finance and technology writer.
Death isn’t something many people like to talk about a lot, but it’s crucial to sit down and think carefully about what will happen to all of your earthly possessions when the inevitable finally does.
As important as it is, a 2021 study found that Less than half of adults in the United States have a will set up at all. While many are too intimidated to think about it, a significant number of people simply feel they lack the know-how to set one up or like to wait until they have kids before they feel the need to put their lives in order.
Over the past year or so, I decided to have a “will” discussion with myself, and after much thought and many hours of research, the answer to the best way to inherit my will seemed obvious: Bitcoin.
As things are in the world today, you are bound to end up with issues if you don’t make a will. Let’s say you kick the bucket tomorrow without making an inheritance plan. The first thing that might happen is that all Assets can be frozen So that the courts take their sweet time to search all the details of your property. This alone could take anywhere from several months to several years, depending on where you live and what assets are in your name. If you were married and died intestate (without a will), your spouse may have to find an executor, which often costs a lot of money, and then comes months of paperwork and infighting with long-lost relatives who may suddenly start showing up on your doorstep. your home. Along with all the drama can come the tax guy, ready to act as a grim reaper for the assets you leave behind, often taking huge percentages out of your life savings.
With all this in mind, making your will with BTC can solve many problems for those you leave in the land of the living. I’ll go over some of my thoughts on this and explain exactly why I decided to set up my will with Bitcoin.
Advantages of Bitcoin over traditional assets
For me, it all came down to two aspects, the first being accessibility. With physical assets, you end up having to do more than just the paperwork when passing your estate on after death. Whether it’s gold bars, a cellar of investment-grade whiskey, or expensive paintings, there’s a certain level of expertise needed to move these items from one place to another and then properly care for them.
Bitcoin solves this for me. Here you have an asset that does not need anything else of a 256-bit long combination To be accessed globally, without your next of kin having to wait months for access to frozen accounts. This combination can contain all the value I want to pass on, without the need for any fancy temperature-controlled room or two-ton safe. In this way, the value can easily be transferred and accessed by beneficiaries around the world without the need for intermediaries.
The other aspect of BTC that makes it so good to use as an inheritance device is its privacy aspect. We all know that the Bitcoin blockchain technology is as secure as it can be, thus eliminating any security risks, but what about privacy? Sure, it might be possible to track who owns BTC if you know who the wallet belongs to, but as with most of us HODLrs, we tend to keep things low key.
So, BTC offers security, accessibility, and privacy, but it also occurred to me that there might be some issues with this chart, so I listed them and thought about each one.
Bitcoin transfer challenges and risks
Security seems like a no-brainer in terms of keeping my stash of coins safe for those I want to leave them to, but then again, how does one transfer said coins or pass the wallet in a secure way? Setting up a smart contract that gets executed upon your death seems like the perfect solution, but then Elon Musk started those human experiments with his own brain transplantso this idea may still be a few years later.
know how
So, you might be thinking, go old school and get a safety deposit box at a regular bank to leave your private key in a well-protected place, and include instructions in your will that will make the situation clear to those you left behind. But even then, there is a certain amount of technical proficiency that will be required for your beneficiaries to be able to navigate the intricacies of bitcoin ownership.
The use of BTC is now more visible than it used to be Back in 2010However, it still requires a level of technical understanding that can be challenging for heirs who may not be familiar with cryptocurrency. The solution here is obvious: educate your employees on the glories of Bitcoin before you end up six feet tall.
value and distribution
Bitcoin price fluctuations It might be something that could scare people away from even considering this asset as a transferable store of value, but there is no doubt that one day, even a single satoshi will be worth a penny.
The problem comes from the fact that while I’m still alive I want to continue using cryptocurrency exchanges to trade and add to my bitcoin stock. So, how can the ever-evolving Bitcoin stack be evenly divided after I die? Well, this is really very simple, just allocate a percentage of your coins to each beneficiary. This way, you can keep adding to your nest egg, and it doesn’t matter how many coins you have or how volatile the market is, the right ratio will make it into the right hands.
Tools for planning bitcoin inheritance
Okay, so, in diving down the BTC-will rabbit hole, I’ve managed to find some tips and tools that should come in handy when planning what happens to your things once you enter eternal rest. Let me just touch briefly on two of them:
Multi-signature wallets
This one is ideal for those who are afraid that one of their relatives will try to deceive the rest or something. One way you can use multi-signature wallets is that your attorney and your beneficiaries must approve a transaction in order to be executed. This extra layer of security can be an easy way to set up your will without too many technical issues. For me, this multi-signature wallet approach is a great idea and I have already implemented it.
Bitcoin Estate Planning Services
Believe it or not, I wasn’t the first person to think of this. Specialist bitcoin estate planning services are available and they offer solutions to securely manage and transfer your bitcoin holdings after your last breath. These services can help a lot by providing expert guidance and reducing the risk of losing or misusing bitcoin by those who are not very familiar with blockchain technology. While I personally see the value in these services, they are just not my cup of tea.
Whichever path you choose to carry out your BTC will, one thing that should always accompany your last will is a file of comprehensive documentation giving clear instructions for all your wishes. Clear documentation is essential, and the more concise the instructions, the less space there will be for interpretation and arguments from the recipients.
Bitcoin impact as legacy
For me, it’s all about building a legacy and playing a role in Bitcoin’s future, even from beyond the grave. The democratization of wealth is the perfect way to help move forward the ideas of a better world through blockchain technology and BTC, and by incorporating it into my will, I feel it helps this cause all along.
My goal has always been to promote financial inclusivity and would like to enable my heirs to be exposed to a transformative asset that has already been and will continue to shape the world into something glorious. Supporting Bitcoin in this way also aligns with my belief in the potential of decentralized technologies to reshape the future of finance and society as a whole.
By choosing Bitcoin as my legacy, I hope, at the very least, to spark conversations about digital assets, educate my heirs, inspire them to explore the opportunities offered by emerging technologies and enable them to approach the evolving financial landscape with confidence.
This is a guest post by Konstanin Rabin. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
