<p>This depends a lot on how you handle your wallet. If you are careful about it and make sure you have an off-site backup of your wallet (or use a deterministic or paper wallet, etc) then you can easily pass your wallet and all the coins it contains to anyone you choose in the same ways that you can pass on other property.</p>

<p>Of course if you're the only person with access to the wallet and have not planned anything then yes, your bitcoins will be "lost in the network."</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-04-16T03:46:11.687Z
IF you have significant value in bitcoin, I would make sure that this is included in your will and that your executor knows how to deal with them so that your heirs can make use of your estate.
Zachary K
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-04-04T22:07:15.697Z
2012-04-04T22:07:15.697Z
David Perry
<p>You may just store your bitcoins with the method also used by <a href="https://www.casascius.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.casascius.com/</a> ... so it will be like paper-money stored in a sock under your bed.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-04-05T11:55:10.600Z
2012-04-05T11:55:10.600Z
Manuel Klarmann
<p>You can set up a transaction/contract that would express your will to transfer specific bitcoins to another person:</p>

<p><a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_4%3a_Using_external_state" rel="nofollow">Contracts. Example 4: Using external state</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Scripts are, by design, pure functions. They cannot poll external
  servers or import any state that may change as it would allow an
  attacker to outrun the block chain. But we can make transactions
  connected to the world in other ways.</p>
  
  <p>Consider the example of an old man who wishes to give an inheritance
  to his grandson, either <strong>on the grandson's 18th birthday</strong> or <strong>when the
  man dies</strong>, whichever comes first.</p>
  
  <p>To solve this, the man first sends the amount of the inheritance to
  himself so there is a single output of the right amount. Then he
  creates a transaction with a lock time of the grandson's 18th birthday
  that pays the coins to another key owned by the grandson, signs it,
  and gives it to him - but does not broadcast it. <strong>This takes care of
  the 18th birthday condition.</strong> If the date passes, the grandson
  broadcasts the transaction and claims the coins. He could do it before
  then, but it doesn't let him get the coins any earlier, and some nodes
  may choose to drop transactions in the memory pool with lock times far
  in the future.</p>
  
  <p><strong>The death condition is harder.</strong> As Bitcoin nodes cannot measure
  arbitrary conditions, we must rely on an <strong>oracle</strong>. An oracle is a server
  that has a keypair, and signs transactions on request when a
  user-provided expression evaluates to true.</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_4%3a_Using_external_state" rel="nofollow">...</a></p>
</blockquote>

<p>I'm not sure whether this mechanism is flexible enough to be used if you are not certain which amount should be transferred or from which address (because you may want to perform some operations with the bitcoins after you have set up the "inheritance transaction"; perhaps, you can simply generate and store such a transaction every time the amount or the address changes).</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-08-06T04:00:07.680Z
What happens if the son dies before the old man and before turning 18? Coins are sent to a dead wallet?
Thomas
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-08-06T07:37:34.340Z
@Thomas By default, yes, of course, AFAIU. But probably, you could take care of that condition in the contract, too: what to do if the son died too early.
imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-08-07T09:21:06.630Z
Will also need to support the case they both die at the same time (and before the son's 18th birthday). And so on, might become complex (with low probability, ok...)
Thomas
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-05-11T20:51:41.223Z
2012-05-11T21:07:31.733Z
2012-05-11T21:07:31.733Z
imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev
<p>Eventually, technology advances may enable cracking of the keys allowing access to your Bitcoins. This would be the digital equivalent of salvage or treasure hunting.</p>

<p>Until then, they're lost.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-04-12T19:00:16.540Z
Any crack that could recover "lost" coins could also recover live coins, so before that level of break is attained, I expect the network's security to have been upgraded.
jl6
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-04-22T02:38:42.937Z
Yes, but that doesn't occur everywhere instantaneously. You can still use old wallets with the latest Satoshi client. Any keys that are not updated become fair game, increasing both the incentive for holders to keep up to date, and motivation to break existing systems.
miscreanity
CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-04-09T15:43:37.697Z
2012-04-09T15:43:37.697Z
miscreanity
<p>It's up to you what you want to happen with your bitcoins when you die. The bitcoins are in the possession of whomever has the wallet and the passphrase needed for it. If you want someone else to inherit your bitcoins, you need to arrange for a way for them to obtain the wallet and passphrase. Perhaps a safety deposit box containing the password or a memory stick containing the wallet.</p>

<p>Bear in mind though that a backup of the wallet will only contain 100 future addresses. If you perform more transactions than that since the backup was taken, they won't be stored on the memory stick unless you ensure you send your bitcoins only to addresses that will have existed when the wallet was backed up.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-05-11T13:19:31.350Z
2012-05-11T13:19:31.350Z
Rebroad
<p>Most of us will probably want our bitcoins to go on to our family members when we die.</p>

<p>If you're the only one with access to your private key, however, that is unfortunately impossible.</p>

<p>The best solution to this is to "shard" your private key into shares and distribute those shares to various members of your family. With Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme, you can require that M shares of the N total shares created be required to reconstruct the private key.</p>

<p>Here is a very straightforward, easy to read python implementation of Shamir's Secret Sharing: <a href="https://github.com/rxl/secret-sharing" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/rxl/secret-sharing</a>.</p>

<p>All you need to do to shard your private key is the following:</p>

<pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; from secretsharing import BitcoinToB32SecretSharer
&gt;&gt;&gt; shares = BitcoinToB32SecretSharer.split_secret("5KJvsngHeMpm884wtkJNzQGaCErckhHJBGFsvd3VyK5qMZXj3hS", 3, 5)
['B-RJ6Y56OSUWDY5VAAGC6XLSTM64CAJ2LPBNB7NKATJCWC7VSHIP5DQIVMR6OGJ4GB', 'C-CT5R24XAR5B732JWYQKSYOYBSF5VHI73HLY24QCFRJR5XUW64C4JWYN6SRGWVCUG', 'D-T54KX27OPEAGZ7TNK5WOFK4WFPZKEXUHNKPWLWDXZQNYPT3WPV3P5IGQTD7HAJDG']
</code></pre>

<p>In this case, 3 out of 5 of your family members would have to come forth upon your death and combine their shares in order for your private key (and your bitcoins) to be recovered.</p>

<p>The process for recovering private keys would be as follows:</p>

<pre><code>&gt;&gt;&gt; BitcoinToB32SecretSharer.recover_secret(shares[0:3])
'5KJvsngHeMpm884wtkJNzQGaCErckhHJBGFsvd3VyK5qMZXj3hS'
</code></pre>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-08-06T04:04:37.693Z
And then your family members fight to death to get as much as they can from the recovered coins (as they get access to all the coins instead of split coins). To prevent that, each individual needs to have a private key that he/she does not share with others (but still need the public part of others to make use of it).
Thomas
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-06T17:44:56.823Z
2014-05-30T15:23:53.833Z
2014-05-30T15:23:53.833Z
Ryan Shea
<p>You leave them in your will, along with the gold you buried in a secret location.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2012-04-05T00:02:31.817Z
2012-04-05T00:02:31.817Z
Chris Moore
<p>I am using a website called www.planneddeparture.com. It is a Digital Legacy platform that keep all my social media accounts, pics, contacts, docs as well as bitcoins safe. Pretty much like dropbox but with the difference that I can assign beneficiaries and leave them instructions of what to do with my digital belongings when I am gone. I have used it for 2 months now and have assigned beneficiaries to almost all my belongings including my bitcoins. I have read some of the comments and must say that some solutions are quite old fashioned and risky. There are plenty if platform on the web that deal with your digital assets. Have a look and decide for yourself. I happen to use PlannedDeparture and I am feeling quite secure about my bitcoins and other data.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-01-11T19:40:39.743Z
The community's consensus is against centralized solutions to such problems.
dionyziz
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-07-17T15:50:41.937Z
2014-07-17T15:50:41.937Z
Nam
<p>What happens to my bitcoins when I die?
Are they lost in the network? </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-30T16:52:44.887Z
They go to live on a farm where they-- oh wait, when *you* die.
Tim S.
<inheritance-plan>
What happens to my bitcoins when I die?
Osservatore68
# What happens to my bitcoins when I die?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2012-04-04)

What happens to my bitcoins when I die?
Are they lost in the network?

**Tags:** inheritance-plan

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: They go to live on a farm where they-- oh wait, when *you* die.  

---

## 8 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2012-04-04. Score: 13

This depends a lot on how you handle your wallet. If you are careful about it and make sure you have an off-site backup of your wallet (or use a deterministic or paper wallet, etc) then you can easily pass your wallet and all the coins it contains to anyone you choose in the same ways that you can pass on other property.

Of course if you're the only person with access to the wallet and have not planned anything then yes, your bitcoins will be "lost in the network."

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: IF you have significant value in bitcoin, I would make sure that this is included in your will and that your executor knows how to deal with them so that your heirs can make use of your estate.  

---

### Answer by username_4 on 2012-04-05. Score: 4

You may just store your bitcoins with the method also used by <https://www.casascius.com/> ... so it will be like paper-money stored in a sock under your bed.


---

### Answer by username_5 on 2012-05-11. Score: 4

You can set up a transaction/contract that would express your will to transfer specific bitcoins to another person:

[Contracts. Example 4: Using external state](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_4%3a_Using_external_state):

> Scripts are, by design, pure functions. They cannot poll external
> servers or import any state that may change as it would allow an
> attacker to outrun the block chain. But we can make transactions
> connected to the world in other ways.
>
> Consider the example of an old man who wishes to give an inheritance
> to his grandson, either **on the grandson's 18th birthday** or **when the
> man dies**, whichever comes first.
>
> To solve this, the man first sends the amount of the inheritance to
> himself so there is a single output of the right amount. Then he
> creates a transaction with a lock time of the grandson's 18th birthday
> that pays the coins to another key owned by the grandson, signs it,
> and gives it to him - but does not broadcast it. **This takes care of
> the 18th birthday condition.** If the date passes, the grandson
> broadcasts the transaction and claims the coins. He could do it before
> then, but it doesn't let him get the coins any earlier, and some nodes
> may choose to drop transactions in the memory pool with lock times far
> in the future.
>
> **The death condition is harder.** As Bitcoin nodes cannot measure
> arbitrary conditions, we must rely on an **oracle**. An oracle is a server
> that has a keypair, and signs transactions on request when a
> user-provided expression evaluates to true.
>
> [...](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Contracts#Example_4%3a_Using_external_state)

I'm not sure whether this mechanism is flexible enough to be used if you are not certain which amount should be transferred or from which address (because you may want to perform some operations with the bitcoins after you have set up the "inheritance transaction"; perhaps, you can simply generate and store such a transaction every time the amount or the address changes).

> **Comments:**
> **username_6**: What happens if the son dies before the old man and before turning 18? Coins are sent to a dead wallet?  
> **username_5**: @username_6 By default, yes, of course, AFAIU. But probably, you could take care of that condition in the contract, too: what to do if the son died too early.  
> **username_6**: Will also need to support the case they both die at the same time (and before the son's 18th birthday). And so on, might become complex (with low probability, ok...)  

---

### Answer by username_7 on 2012-04-09. Score: 3

Eventually, technology advances may enable cracking of the keys allowing access to your Bitcoins. This would be the digital equivalent of salvage or treasure hunting.

Until then, they're lost.

> **Comments:**
> **username_8**: Any crack that could recover "lost" coins could also recover live coins, so before that level of break is attained, I expect the network's security to have been upgraded.  
> **username_7**: Yes, but that doesn't occur everywhere instantaneously. You can still use old wallets with the latest Satoshi client. Any keys that are not updated become fair game, increasing both the incentive for holders to keep up to date, and motivation to break existing systems.  

---

### Answer by username_9 on 2012-05-11. Score: 3

It's up to you what you want to happen with your bitcoins when you die. The bitcoins are in the possession of whomever has the wallet and the passphrase needed for it. If you want someone else to inherit your bitcoins, you need to arrange for a way for them to obtain the wallet and passphrase. Perhaps a safety deposit box containing the password or a memory stick containing the wallet.

Bear in mind though that a backup of the wallet will only contain 100 future addresses. If you perform more transactions than that since the backup was taken, they won't be stored on the memory stick unless you ensure you send your bitcoins only to addresses that will have existed when the wallet was backed up.


---

### Answer by username_10 on 2014-02-06. Score: 2

Most of us will probably want our bitcoins to go on to our family members when we die.

If you're the only one with access to your private key, however, that is unfortunately impossible.

The best solution to this is to "shard" your private key into shares and distribute those shares to various members of your family. With Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme, you can require that M shares of the N total shares created be required to reconstruct the private key.

Here is a very straightforward, easy to read python implementation of Shamir's Secret Sharing: <https://github.com/rxl/secret-sharing>.

All you need to do to shard your private key is the following:

```
>>> from secretsharing import BitcoinToB32SecretSharer
>>> shares = BitcoinToB32SecretSharer.split_secret("5KJvsngHeMpm884wtkJNzQGaCErckhHJBGFsvd3VyK5qMZXj3hS", 3, 5)
['B-RJ6Y56OSUWDY5VAAGC6XLSTM64CAJ2LPBNB7NKATJCWC7VSHIP5DQIVMR6OGJ4GB', 'C-CT5R24XAR5B732JWYQKSYOYBSF5VHI73HLY24QCFRJR5XUW64C4JWYN6SRGWVCUG', 'D-T54KX27OPEAGZ7TNK5WOFK4WFPZKEXUHNKPWLWDXZQNYPT3WPV3P5IGQTD7HAJDG']

```

In this case, 3 out of 5 of your family members would have to come forth upon your death and combine their shares in order for your private key (and your bitcoins) to be recovered.

The process for recovering private keys would be as follows:

```
>>> BitcoinToB32SecretSharer.recover_secret(shares[0:3])
'5KJvsngHeMpm884wtkJNzQGaCErckhHJBGFsvd3VyK5qMZXj3hS'

```

> **Comments:**
> **username_6**: And then your family members fight to death to get as much as they can from the recovered coins (as they get access to all the coins instead of split coins). To prevent that, each individual needs to have a private key that he/she does not share with others (but still need the public part of others to make use of it).  

---

### Answer by username_11 on 2012-04-05. Score: 1

You leave them in your will, along with the gold you buried in a secret location.


---

### Answer by username_12 on 2014-07-17. Score: -2

I am using a website called www.planneddeparture.com. It is a Digital Legacy platform that keep all my social media accounts, pics, contacts, docs as well as bitcoins safe. Pretty much like dropbox but with the difference that I can assign beneficiaries and leave them instructions of what to do with my digital belongings when I am gone. I have used it for 2 months now and have assigned beneficiaries to almost all my belongings including my bitcoins. I have read some of the comments and must say that some solutions are quite old fashioned and risky. There are plenty if platform on the web that deal with your digital assets. Have a look and decide for yourself. I happen to use PlannedDeparture and I am feeling quite secure about my bitcoins and other data.

> **Comments:**
> **username_13**: The community's consensus is against centralized solutions to such problems.  

---

