I was riding my sexy motorcycle through the streets the other day when I was suddenly struck with an uncomfortable thought:

If a bus hits me right now and spilled my ass all over the road like a giant jar of strawberry jam, what would happen to my crypto?

The thought of having my wallets join the untold amounts of ghost accounts forever frozen on the blockchain was unsettling.

However, leaving crypto in a will is not easy. I can't help but imagine some asshole lawyer giving my private keys to a bunch of my greedy relations only to have them, and the same lawyer, race to figure out how to access my wallets.

Wills are contestable, people are people, and private keys are everything.

What to do?

The Weak Option: Trust a Lawyer

Initially, I thought that leaving wallet recovery instructions in a will prepared by a solicitor was out of the question. No matter which way I looked at it, I would have to include the private keys in the will. This would have my seed words out there in the world for anyone to see. My solicitor, his staff, someone who brakes into his office, the police if they ever raid his office, and my entire family and anyone in earshot when/if the will is ever read.

This was unacceptable. Not only was it possible to lose all my coins before I die, knowing what happens to families and wills, there would certainly be drama in the event of my death.

However, my solicitor did advise me of a way around this. I could give him a sealed envelope with instructions to hand that envelope to a selected person when I die. The envelope would be kept in his safe. No one would ever know what's in the envelope except the person who I advise him to hand it to upon my death.

This did provide a way around some of my security concerns. Nevertheless, only I know my seed words and I intended to keep it that way no matter what.

The Strong Option: Trust Someone Close to you

Fortunately, I'm not married, but what if you foolishly are? The obvious solution to is to let your significant other in on your crypto holdings. If they know how to access your accounts, problem solved.

But what if you're both on the same motorcycle when the bus driver's alcoholism catches up with him? Your accounts go ghost. And, how much do you really trust that person snoring next to you all night?

Unlike most people, if I ever do lose my mind and get married, I won't be doing it for love. No, if I ever get married I would do it 100% for looks. And, there's no way I'm trusting this Russian supermodel with my private keys.

Marriages fall apart all the time, often disharmoniously. Good luck trying to recover crypto in today's divorce courts.

What I decided to do was trust a friend, but with a twist.

I should mention that I trust this person absolutely. However, relationships are not public ledgers and trust is a five letter word.

What I did was give the location of where in the Australian outback I have buried account recovery instructions. I did not tell this person that this had anything to do with crypto or anything about private keys or wallets.

All this person knows is that in the event of my death, they should go to these GPS coordinates and dig up a box. Inside the box are instructions on what to do next.

Even though this person is my closest friend and confidant, I've been around the block too many times. I feel this extra step of paranoia removes any doubt and makes me comfortable enough to ride my motorcycle without worrying about my crypto.

The Future Option: The Smart Death Contract

My research on crypto and bus crashes did show me one thing: Estate planning, like taxation, is way behind cryptocurrency.

Reading @cozzasteem 's post on the subject here presents a possible way the problem will be dealt with in the future.

We already have smart contract tech, and it's likely that in the future all our medical records will be held on the blockchain – including our deaths. In the event of our deaths, a smart contract could be activated, sending our cryptocurrency to any account/s of our choosing.

In the future, blockchain may solve one of the biggest causes of family feuds: wills.

Does anyone want to do a Death Coin ICO?

Conclusion

No matter how morbid it may seem, until Elon Musk uses his tech Jesus powers to hack us out of the simulation we are in with magic trains and space cars, we are all going to die.

Hopefully, we die of old age on a beach somewhere that doesn't have a reserve bank, whilst spending the last of our crypto millions with our partners that we only married for their looks.

I guess how everyone deals with this will be different depending on their individual circumstances and how much they trust their spouse. Whatever you do, do something. Just keep in mind the sanctity of the private key.

Don't leave your accounts rotting on a blockchain for others to gawk at like Satoshi's billions.

All images courtesy of pixabay.com