Written by: Pix
Compiled by: Saoirse, Foresight News
People in the cryptocurrency space often say, "Not your keys, not your coins." This sounds powerful, and indeed it is true. But behind this statement lies a mirrored logic—"Only your keys can own your cryptocurrency."
If no one else knows how to access your wallet, then the moment you stop breathing, your cryptocurrency effectively "ceases to exist." Of course, this is not literal disappearance—it still exists on the blockchain ledger, but from an economic perspective, it is no different from being burned.
So, how large is this "death buyer"?
Today, most cryptocurrency holders are young, with the majority between their late twenties and early forties.
There are very few holders over retirement age, which makes the issue of "cryptocurrency loss due to death" easy to overlook. Even so, the relevant data is still staggering:
-
Approximately 60 million people die globally each year (based on a global population of about 8 billion);
-
There are about 500 million cryptocurrency holders globally (equivalent to 1 in 16 people holding cryptocurrency);
-
Since cryptocurrency holders are younger than the global average population, their mortality rate is lower, conservatively estimated at about 0.2% per year;
-
Based on this calculation, about 1 million people (500 million × 0.2%) among the holders will pass away each year.
Currently, most cryptocurrencies are self-custodied, and holders rarely make estate plans for them. Even if only 10% of the deceased's wallets become inaccessible due to no one knowing how to access them, about 100,000 wallets would become useless each year. If we conservatively assume that the average balance of these inaccessible wallets is only $20,000, then about $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency would exit circulation annually. Moreover, this number will continue to grow over time—after all, the younger generation will also age.
Percentage of cryptocurrency "destroyed" by death each year
This leaves us with a key question: Since the advantage of self-custodying cryptocurrency is the removal of intermediaries, how can we pass on these assets without reintroducing intermediaries?
Inheriting Assets Not Designed to Be "Inheritable"
Most current solutions fall into two extremes: either simple but fragile, such as storing a seed phrase in a bank safe (easily lost or stolen); or secure but so complex that no one wants to use them in practice. Neither of these options is ideal, so I adopted a compromise—a simple three-step inheritance method that is easy to remember, difficult to crack, accessible anytime and anywhere, and 100% non-custodial (i.e., no reliance on intermediaries). The specific steps are as follows:
Step 1: Build a Dedicated Single-Page Website
Create a single-page website using a "niche domain" composed of 3-4 words—a domain that ordinary people would not easily type into a search bar but has personal significance to you, making it easy to remember. Prepay for hosting for 10 years or more and set up automatic renewal to ensure long-term accessibility.
Step 2: Encrypt and Convert the Seed Phrase into a Numeric String
First, choose a book you like, find the most common publisher of that book, and purchase 10 copies (ensuring the page numbers and layout are identical in each). Then, convert each word of your cryptocurrency wallet seed phrase into a numeric string: For each word in the seed phrase, find its location in the book and record the "page number - line number - word position in that line." For example, "112, 3, 5" represents "the 5th word on line 3 of page 112." Convert all seed phrase words into numeric strings using this method.
Step 3: Upload the Numeric String to the Dedicated Website
Simply publish the converted numeric string as a list on the dedicated website you built, in the following format:
By the way, this is a real numeric string corresponding to a seed phrase, linked to $500 worth of cryptocurrency. However, the website domain is fictional, and the real seed phrase is hidden in a book. Just one hint: I absolutely love good detective novels. Happy "treasure hunting"~
I know this might sound a bit "over the top," and some may think it unnecessary, but this method does make asset inheritance more flexible while ensuring security. You can further enhance security, such as by using rare books or self-printed copies of books to store the location information corresponding to the seed phrase; of course, you can also skip the hassle—just put a hardware wallet (like a Ledger) and a metal plate engraved with the seed phrase in a safe. Otherwise, your cryptocurrency may ultimately only "donate" to the blockchain (i.e., become permanently irretrievable).
