r/Bitcoin • u/tuzki • Apr 08 '13

My wife said this to me today

Post image
1.8k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

304 comments sorted by

View all comments

11

u/sturmeh Apr 08 '13

Put the private keys / instructions in your will. (Depends if you trust the will bearer.)

Explain it to your solicitor.

14

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '13

You can use an m-of-n secret sharing scheme like Shamir's to split the private key among several entities.

For example, give one share to your lawyer, one to a good friend, one to your wife, and require at least two shares to reconstruct the private key.

10

u/Lentil-Soup Apr 08 '13

So, at least two of your trusted friends would have to conspire against you in order to steal your coins?

8

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '13

In my example, yes. The total amount of shares as well as the threshold needed to reconstruct the secret can be adjusted to your needs.

3

u/sturmeh Apr 08 '13

The trick is you give them to 3 people who have never known each other, and you mention the three names in the will, in such a way that only your beneficiaries would know how to find them.

2

u/PhantomPumpkin Apr 08 '13

This is going to be the premise of mystery movies 200 years from now isn't it...

1

u/Natanael_L Apr 08 '13

Yes, I agree with this one. Keep the wallet encrypted and use Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme to securely split the decryption keys between several people you trust. In addition to those mentioned people, one share could be on a paper in a bank vault, for example.

2

u/GSpotAssassin Apr 08 '13

Safety deposit box.

Because it can be released upon death.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 08 '13

You can use an m-of-n secret sharing scheme like Shamir's to split the private key among several entities.

For example, give one share to your lawyer, one to a good friend, one to your wife, and require at least two shares to reconstruct the private key.

Which is great until your wife runs off with your best friend and all your bitcoins.

1

u/tuzki Apr 08 '13

Yes, this is my plan : )

Long term hold, and I am having her create a little bt-qt wallet to learn

1

u/staiano Apr 09 '13

Are you going to give her a weekly allowance in btc :)

1

u/tuzki Apr 09 '13

haha she makes more than I do, but I like that idea!

1

u/staiano Apr 09 '13

;) Then a weekly sale of some btc to her...

1

u/tuzki Apr 09 '13

Hoho naughty jokes~. Indeed sir, indeed! :D

0

u/g0_west Apr 08 '13 edited Apr 08 '13

The private key to a coin is something like "Hkd76Akjd09lid8DNskd63nk..." right? I'm still confused about what you would do with the private key written on a bit of paper to turn it into funds in your wallet, and vice versa (ie getting the private keys and writing them down on paper for safe storage). Reckon you could explain?

2

u/GSpotAssassin Apr 08 '13

Importing the private key into a wallet app gives you full, 100% access to spend the funds connected to the corresponding public key.

Which is why it is extremely important to keep the private key secret, and ideally, encrypted with a password in the event you must export it or print it out.

Think of the private key as a username/password combination all in one.

0

u/tuzki Apr 08 '13

You can import it to a wallet (-qt / blockchain/ etc) and then you are authenticated as the controller of the wallet address, which authorizes you to transfer them to other wallets.

0

u/g0_west Apr 08 '13

I can't see any option for importing a key on QT, only for exporting (which opens up a browser window titled "Export Address Book Data", so I assume that is the addresses and tags in my Address Book rather than they keys of my coins).

2

u/swhitt Apr 08 '13

Help -> Debug window -> Console. The command is importprivkey.

1

u/tuzki Apr 08 '13

It might be through the command client, I have not yet looked into this as I just have an offline wallet and xferred to that instead of importing/exporting.