Is there Bitcoin after death? How to arrange your crypto-will
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As a crypto owner, you’ve probably played with the following thought: who will inherit your Bitcoins when you die? And how exactly did you arrange that? Very morbid, but something to think about. It may just happen that no one in your area knows where you store your crypto. Let alone that they have the login details. Would be a shame if no one can access your assets (or you can access that of an heir). After all, you can’t do anything with it yourself. Rest assured: we are working on it.
Surely that can be done differently? Jeetu Kataria, CEO of Digital Financial Exchange (DIFX), agrees. According to Kataria, DIFX has developed a nomination program based on blockchain. “It allows users to choose trusted individuals, family and friends as beneficiaries of their crypto wallets.” A nice development, because research shows that 89% of crypto owners are quite worried about the surrender of their digital assets. The new tool was unveiled during the Crypto Expo Dubai event.
Where do you actually store Bitcoin?
For the nomination program of DIFX you do need a wallet. There are software, but also hardware wallets. Most Bitcoin owners store crypto in a software wallet; a dedicated desktop or mobile app that acts as a vault. A software wallet is protected with a password or a 2FA authentication. If you lose the login details, there is no man overboard. Each wallet has a last resort, a backup of 12 unique words; your private key. You also need this when you install the wallet on another device. Nevertheless, software wallets are not always safe and quite susceptible to theft. They are regularly hacked. Even crypto gurus on YouTUbe have fallen victim to this.
Another option is to use a hardware wallet (ledger), a kind of specially equipped USB stick. On this you do not store the Bitcoins themselves, but the private key (the 12 unique words). Your computer communicates with the ledger, sending Bitcoin transactions to the device. The transactions are then sent back to the computer. In this way, the private keys never exist on the computer itself and are not susceptible to many types of viruses.
Hard or soft is both an option. You can also leave your crytpo on the trading platform where you purchased them. Not recommended, because…
