E326 Why Not a Deadman’s Switch for Bitcoin Inheritance?

<p>A deadman’s switch is a seemingly elegant and trustless solution for bitcoin inheritance. But if you think it through, it currently has too many problems to work securely.</p> <p>A deadman’s switch is a protocol or mechanism where, if the creator misses a periodic check-in (ex. push a button every 3 months, reply to a monthly email, etc.), it's assumed the creator has died and will trigger an event.</p> <h2>Types of bitcoin dead man switches</h2> <p><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-44267" src= "https://anthonyspark.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Types-of-bitcoin-dead-man-switches-300x169.jpg" alt="Types of bitcoin dead man switches" width="300" height= "169" /></p> <p>With the first type of deadman's, upon failure to press the button, a pre-loaded transaction executes. Imagine that you set up your E*Trade account to sell a certain number of shares for a certain amount. Similarly, everything is “loaded up” in your bitcoin deadman’s switch, and the pre-loaded transaction automatically executes if the check-in is missed. What happens if you miss the check-in not because you are dead, but because you forgot? It all depends how you set up your plan. So it would be wise to have multiple check-ins required before the event is triggered.</p> <p>With another type of bitcoin deadman’s switch, upon failure to press the button, a secret gets delivered. The secret may be your seed phrase or pass phrase, and gets delivered by <a href= "https://www.deadmansswitch.net/" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">email, telegram</a>, or <a href= "https://www.deadmantracker.com/" target="_blank" rel= "noopener">phone call or sms text</a>. to your heir or executor.</p> <h2>Problems with a deadman’s switch that executes a bitcoin transaction</h2> <p><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-44268" src= "https://anthonyspark.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Problems-with-a-deadman-switch-that-executes-a-bitcoin-transaction-300x169.jpg" alt= "Problems with a deadman switch that executes a bitcoin transaction" width="300" height="