Money is as much as it is useful in this worldly life, so its use is null at death.
Therefore, users who hold cryptocurrencies and who keep their keys in secret locations may die and leave them without access to and benefit from those around him after his death.
According to the "Financial Times", between 2.3 million and 3.7 million Bitcoins have lost access to them, whether due to death or other causes.
The Quadriga CX disaster is a good example:
This story shook the crypto arena.
In December 2018, the founder of Quadriga CX, Gerald “W. Cotten”, died unexpectedly while on a trip to India.
Unfortunately, Cotten's death caused a lockout of the platform's users' funds, which are estimated at $ 250 million.
His widow "Jesse Powell" continues to claim that no one but him has access to the platform's cold wallet.
And some still refuse to believe this fact.
Recently, 115,000 investors demanded that his body be taken out to prove it was actually dead
Incidents like these lay and highlight what can be done for a cryptocurrency holder before his death.
How do you plan to transfer your cryptocurrency inheritance?
Before planning to transfer your cryptocurrency inheritance, you must first arrange the priority of those who will get it, and you must first teach and educate them about how cryptocurrencies work and the most important basics related to them.
There are multiple ways and options to ensure that your currencies are transferred to your heirs in an efficient manner, as follows:
First option: Mention your digital coins in your will
To ensure that your crypto assets are passed on to your loved ones, this must be mentioned in your will.
Obviously, you may not want to disclose your PIN, passwords and private keys in your will.
Thus, for the sake of security, legal experts advise the creation of a will to be carried out by lawmen, meaning that the executor must be elected.
Or the will can be left in a place that only those you want from your family and loved ones can reach, and through it you can mention your digital currencies and how to access them.
The second option: relying on projects that focus on inheritance
Many projects now offer better-designed solutions for cryptocurrency holders when they die. For example, there is the Safe Haven project, a project that builds custom solutions for digital inheritance.
Earlier this year, the project announced the testing phase of the first version of the V1.0 platform.
The project operates in a unique way as the owner is required to encrypt their private keys and passphrases using the SHIP platform on various posts.
These shares are distributed to the stakeholders and the validation share is stored on the “VeChainThor” blockchain.
Once the death of the owner is confirmed, the legal entity opens the inheritance.
Thus, it combines all cryptocurrencies to reveal passwords and private keys for the assets, currently and as we indicated the platform in the testing phase.
Two other projects like Casa and PassOn also help cryptocurrency owners to ensure that their assets are transferred to heirs.
Third option: Use the dead man's key
The Dead Man's Key is a computer program that transfers the cryptocurrency to the heir's account in the event of the death of the owner.
The program sends an email to the owner at regular intervals and waits for a fixed programmed period.
If there is no response, a smart contract is triggered.
Cryptocurrencies are automatically transferred to the account that was mentioned during the smart contract setup
“Last Will” is one such platform for inheriting Bitcoin Cash.
Except that this method may have a downside in case you don't have time to respond?
Besides, heirs must be well-versed in cryptocurrencies so that they can access assets from the wallet.
Fourth option: Choose a cryptocurrency exchange to perform the inheritance transfer
A trading platform like Coinbase has set up procedures for transferring ownership of cryptocurrencies to make inheriting cryptocurrencies easy.
To ensure that assets are passed on to a legal heir, the Queen Piece team requires multiple documents.
For example, the death certificate of the owner, his will, the proof of identity of the heir issued by the government ... etc.
However, it is not a completely complete way to access cryptocurrency inheritance, as quacks and fraudsters may find their way to access an inheritance that is not their right.
This is a fascinating conundrum and I can see positives and negatives to all the different solutions. 'The Dead Man's Key' has made me think of a potential storyline for a novel: the heir tries to bump off the owner but doesn't quite succeed and the owner ends up in a coma. The smart contract is triggered, after which the owner wakes up - only to find his heir is actually his nemesis and has inherited all of his crypto!