The importance of making a "whitepaper" for your wife, husband or children in case you die
When "centralized" people die, centralized entities like the persons bank account are "taken care of" by the system they are a part of. You only need some phone calls, send your ID and you can unlock the diseased persons accounts and be entitled to what ever money is left behind.
When you die in a free decentralized marketplace there is no one who will look after you or your family. With freedom comes responsibility. And it is therefore your responsibility to make sure that all the information is secure and will be passed on to those you leave behind if you die.
That's why you make a "whitepaper" for your spouse or children if your are a single parent. If your children are too young to understand, ask your brother or someone else you trust with your life to store the whitepaper secure until your children are old enough (which usually means 25 +) Make sure at least one other person knows you own Crypto Currencies and if they are stored on paper, USB's etc.
In the Whitepaper you explain carefully HOW exactly this stuff works. If you're lucky everyone knows this is in the future, but if you were to be in a car crash tomorrow, your 25 year old son or daughter should learn it pretty quick.
You explain how it works so that your 90 year old gradma would understand it. You explain what the Exchanges do, How wallets work, and you emphasize how important it is that they read up on it, double check, send small amounts for testing, what private keys are etc.
I have made a 20 page instruction manual for my Wife which I have stored on paper and on a USB. They are secure in a secret place which only she knows about. If I die, she must read it. And the first thing it says is "let one person you trust with your life know that you have this, and that it is for our son"
In it I have explained how to do transactions, how the different exchanges work, what Steemit is, how to transfer, how to buy Bitcoin, and basically with text and pictures explained how it all works. Plus all the passwords and keys for everything.
Secrecy is important when it comes to your private decentralized finances, but it's worthless if the people that you love don't know what you own, where it is or how you access it. Sure, my wife could probably find out of to do it all. But she wouldn't have the passwords and private keys. And there are things that she maybe wouldn't think about - like not keeping any of it on an exchange etc.
Have you backed up your Private Keys? Will your family be able to access it if you die?
I updated my will and last testament with information regarding an encrypted password protected folder and files with all the pertinent information about my different holdings, passwords, etc. The official document itself is offsite (extremely secure location) and the copy I have at home has everything except for the main password (that only I know and is memorized), which is cut out. I have copies of the encrypted password protected folder on various USB sticks and a couple of different computers, in different physical locations. Access to the computers themselves is also protected by that same strong (uppercase and lowercase letters, plus punctuation and numbers) 15 character password that is written nowhere and only resides in my mind . . . until the day I die . . . literally. 😄
The only problem arises in a permanently incapacitated state, say like a coma or something, which is covered by putting the password on a sticker under a piece of furniture so it looks like an original sales tag reference, or something like that, and my wife knows about its existence.
This is SO important because you never know which day may be your last. Wouldn't be a bad idea to do a dry run either to make sure they know how to implement. Thanks for the critical tip!
That's true! Do a dry run ;)
Very good idea, but I have one advice : Don't always trust everyone in your family, some of my relatives are now some of the worst enemies I have.
No, it HAS to be someone you trust with your life - like I explained in the post, and that you know will listen to what you say, and respect your decision.
For you, I would recommend a dead man's switch, https://www.deadmansswitch.net/ They would only get to your money after you die. No way they can steal it before that, with this method.
Absolutely your are right. Most of the time we as a human being there is a no planning of death ! I should make a whitepaper after reading your post @scandinavianlife!
Awesome! Do it!
Very right, no body is planning for this. Very informative about the process of steemit work after death. Really a very useful information, thanks for sharing.
This post has received a 2.74 % upvote from @booster thanks to: @scandinavianlife.
This is actually some wonderful work! Followed
You can use a Dead Man's switch e-mail for that purpose too, for example, this one, https://www.deadmansswitch.net/ The way it works is that you write a few e-mails and choose the recipients. These emails are stored privately until they're sent. Your switch will email you every so often, asking you to show that you are fine by clicking a link. If something were to... happen... to you, your switch would then send the emails you wrote to the recipients you specified. Sort of an "electronic will", one could say.
Cool. Thats something to consider. What about safety?
Didn't check in detail about security. If you are in doubt, maybe you can write the secret, such as that half of it is in Dead Man's switch and half of it in whitepaper. Your wife, or whoever you are handing over the whitepaper to, could do nothing, unless she gets half of the information from that dead man's switch mail. Moreover, if the dead man's switch servers are compromised, and someone is able to read that mail, he could still do nothing because half of the info would be in the whitepaper.