Planning for what happens to your savings after you die is an important part of being a responsible Bitcoin owner.

If you don't pass on the keys to your Bitcoin, you permanently remove your Bitcoin from the available supply. A positive side effect of this is that by decreasing the available supply, you effectively increase the value of everybody else's Bitcoin, so if you'd like to fairly distribute the value of your savings amongst all Bitcoin holders when you die, keep your private keys secret forever.

If you'd like to pass down your savings to family or other beneficiaries, you'll need a plan to ensure the secure transition in the event that you're not around to help.

Below are the key properties of any sound Bitcoin inheritance plan:

• Keys should be resilient to loss, disaster, and theft
• Keys should not be accessible to beneficiaries while you're still alive
• Multiple beneficiaries should be onboarded to add redundancy
• Beneficiaries should understand how to take ownership of the inheritance without compromising privacy
• Counterparty risk of seizure, confiscation, or disclosure by untrusted parties should be removed
• Estate plans and wills should clearly assign title/ownership over financial assets and property to avoid probate

While the tools exist to build such a plan yourself, it takes a fair amount of knowledge and skill to build an end-to-end plan that meets all of these requirements. Several companies exist that offer collaborative custody and inheritance planning as a service to take the guesswork and stress out of building a sound inheritance plan:

• Casa
• Nunchuk
• Swan Vault
• Unchained

Each of these services has different tradeoffs from supported regions, to cost, to minimum savings thresholds, to hardware wallet support, to KYC requirements, to wallet privacy, but they all combine multisignature wallets with collaborative custody of the keys, concierge onboarding and support, inheritance planning, and education for your beneficiaries.

When building your own inheritance plan, consider the future value of your savings and the impact to yourself and future generations of losing that wealth. If you have significant savings that requires a robust inheritance plan but can't manage all the details on your own, then evaluate the collaborative custody solutions above to determine if the cost and privacy compromises are worth it for the peace of mind they offer.

If you'd like a trusted partner that can tailor guidance to your specific needs and guide you on your Bitcoin journey, schedule a call with us.