Crypto inheritance planner

One package: the seed on metal, your device PINs, and a plain letter that explains it all. Sealed in a tamper-evident envelope, in a safe or bank box your heir can reach.

• Permanent loss. One package is one point of failure. Fire, flood, a move, or a lost envelope ends everything, unless a second sealed copy lives somewhere else.
• Premature access. Whoever opens it early gets everything at once. The tamper seal shows it happened, but only after.
• Coercion. One known place holds the whole estate: a single target worth pressuring someone over.

Two people hold two halves. One keeps the seed, the other keeps the passphrase that unlocks it. (A BIP39 passphrase is any secret text you choose. It is nicknamed the “25th word”, but it isn’t a real wordlist word.) Neither can spend alone. Together they can.

• Permanent loss. The hard trade-off: lose either half and it is all gone. One death, one fire, one forgotten hiding place is enough. This doubles the loss risk. It doesn’t halve it.
• Premature access. Strong: one half alone opens nothing.
• Coercion. Two targets, each worth only half. An attacker has to reach both.

Three keys: yours, your heir’s, and a professional’s. Any two together can spend. So no one, including you, can spend alone. Day to day, you co-sign with one of the others. If needed, your heir and the professional can recover together, never seeing your seed.

• Permanent loss. Survives losing any one key. The real danger is neglect: aging wallet software, an unrecorded setup, and a recovery no one ever rehearsed.
• Premature access. Strong: no single person, not even the lawyer, can move anything alone.
• Coercion. Strong: pressuring one person gets one key, and one key isn’t enough.

Software splits your secret into several shares, say 5, of which any 3 rebuild it. They are spread across people and places. Fewer than 3 reveal nothing.

• Permanent loss. Real redundancy (5 shares, need 3), but only with compatible tooling. Note: the common standard (SLIP-39) uses its own wordlist, so you generally can’t split an existing BIP39 seed into these shares. You set it up when the wallet is created. Home-made schemes are where funds quietly vanish.
• Premature access. Strong below the threshold: 2 of the needed 3 shares open nothing.
• Coercion. An attacker needs 3 separate holders. But relatives who all know each other can be gathered in one visit.

For coins left on an exchange, use its own beneficiary or estate process where it offers one. Many don’t. Then it’s a documented estate path: an account list, never passwords, plus death-certificate paperwork.

• Permanent loss. Depends entirely on the exchange, your country, and your paperwork. Some accounts can be reopened through probate. Others can’t name a beneficiary at all, and coins can be stranded if the estate lacks documents or the exchange fails. Check your exchange’s current process. Don’t assume.
• Premature access. An heir’s access depends on legal paperwork, not secrecy. But the exchange itself always holds the keys.
• Coercion. Strong at home: nothing physical to hand over, and accounts have fraud desks and freezes.