The Problem of Digital Asset Inheritance
Traditional financial assets (stocks, real estate, bank accounts) have established legal inheritance frameworks. In self-custody cryptocurrency, if your private keys are known only to you, your wealth is mathematically lost forever if you pass away or become incapacitated.
The Golden Estate Rule:
Your legal will should reference a private Memorandum of Digital Assets that explains *how* to access custody instructions, without ever containing seed phrases or passphrases in the public court document.
How Non-Custodial Dead Man's Switches Work
Services like Sarcophagus use smart contracts and decentralized node networks (Arweave + Ethereum) to store encrypted recovery payloads. The creator must send an on-chain 'heartbeat' transaction every 90 or 180 days. If the heartbeat is missed, the smart contract automatically decrypts the key shards for designated beneficiary addresses.
Structuring a 2-of-3 Inheritance Multisig
- Key 1: Stored in your primary cold storage vault (held by you).
- Key 2: Stored in a safety deposit box accessible to your designated heir upon presenting a death certificate.
- Key 3: Held in escrow by a trusted estate planning attorney or corporate fiduciary.
- Your heir and the attorney can combine Keys 2 and 3 to recover assets without either party having unilateral control.