You must have seen at least a few headlines that
You must have seen at least a few headlines that talk about how substantial amounts of cryptocurrencies have been lost because of the death of their respective users. In fact, sometimes even crypto-related institutions, like exchanges fall into problems because of the demise of people who had access to the crypto. In such a situation, how to protect digital assets after the demise of a user?
You must have read how the QuadrigaCX Exchange ran into trouble after its founder passed away. Like that one, there are many crazy stories about lost Bitcoins. A lot of them emerge from a situation of death or demise. So what do you really do in that case?
What Happens When A Crypto User Dies?
A crypto asset is stored on a blockchain and not in an actual physical location. After all, there is a reason why its called “virtual asset”.
Even if it is stored in a physically tangible hardware wallet, it is protected by something called a private key. Without a private key, you Bitcoins (or other cryptocurrencies) are as good as lost.
You May Also Read: Can Lost Bitcoins Be Recovered?
The digital assets can be unlocked, accessed and used only with a proper private key and if a crypto user dies without having disclosed his crypto private key to someone who survives him, then the crypto basically goes for a toss.
Often, the loved ones of the person dying does not even know that he or she had crypto holdings. That makes it worse because that way they cannot even try and seek out any possible source of information about what the private key could have been.
How To Protect Someone’s Crypto After Death?
There are a lot of crazy things people do to recover their lost Bitcoins but no matter what stops you pull, you cannot do anything at all without the private key to the dead person’s Bitcoins.
You May Also Read: Offline or Online? How Should You Store Your Bitcoins?
Now, the only possible way to safeguard one’s crypto after one’s death is to inform one’s loved ones about the existence of one’s crypto holdings and telling someone in advance, very discreetly, what the private key to his or her holdings is.
Simply writing down the private key somewhere often does not help because the family members of the deceased may not even understand what the string of alphanumeric characters even represents.
Therefore, it is imperative to inform of both the existence of the cryptocurrencies and about what the private key is, if one’s crypto is to be protected after one’s death.
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