Bitcoin inheritance plan
A Bitcoin inheritance plan your family can actually use.
Split recovery access between people you trust. No single person receives the full seed phrase, and your family can recover the vault when the required cards are brought together.
- No account
- Client-side encryption
- Free recovery, forever
Self-custody should not end with you
Hardware wallets protect your Bitcoin while you are here. They do not automatically tell your family what to do when you are not. DMSKey does not hold Bitcoin, connect to your wallet, or transmit your seed phrase — it creates an encrypted recovery package that your family can unlock only after the required number of custodians combine their share cards. Put the seed phrase, the BIP-39 passphrase location, the wallet descriptor, the device PIN instructions, and an executor letter inside, and split access across people you trust.
What you can choose to include in the encrypted vault
- Wallet recovery instructions
- BIP-39 seed phrase (only if you want heirs to recover the wallet themselves)
- Wallet descriptor
- BIP-39 passphrase location
- Hardware wallet model and physical location
- Device PIN instructions
- Executor contact and legal letter
- A test-recovery checklist
How a Bitcoin handoff works
What your family does when the plan is needed
A concrete walk-through of how a 2-of-3 plan plays out for your family — no engineer required.
- 1Your spouse finds the recovery package you left with the estate documents.
- 2She contacts the two custodians you named in the printed instructions.
- 3They bring their share cards together and import them into the recovery tool.
- 4The threshold is reached and the encrypted vault is decrypted locally.
- 5The seed phrase and your written instructions become available to restore the wallet.
How DMSKey compares to other inheritance approaches
Common ways people try to pass Bitcoin to heirs, rated on three properties that matter most.
Why this beats writing it on paper in a safe
No single point of failure
One paper in one safe burns in one fire. K-of-N spreads the secret across people and places, and a valid set of fewer than K shares does not reveal the protected secret.
No custodian gets full access alone
The threshold is enforced by Shamir's math. A valid set of fewer than K shares — even held by people who actively cooperate — does not reveal the secret itself.
Designed for heirs, not engineers
No command line, no JSON to hand-edit, no subscription to remember. The recovery tool tells your family which cards it has and what is missing in plain language.
Recoverable without a DMSKey account
The printed cards and the official offline recovery package are designed to recover the vault without a DMSKey login or any active service — keep the package with the cards.
One-time payment, no subscription
Free recovery on any vault, forever. DMS Full is a one-time purchase that unlocks larger K-of-N plans, removes the watermark, and adds the printable executor letter.
- Any K-of-N up to 255 shares
- No watermark on the cards
- Printable executor letter PDF
- Free recovery, forever
Common questions about Bitcoin inheritance
Does DMSKey hold my Bitcoin or replace a legal will?
No. DMSKey does not hold Bitcoin, connect to your hardware wallet, move any funds, or replace a legal will. It creates an encrypted recovery package — paired printable share cards plus an offline recovery bundle — that your family can unlock together when the threshold of cards is brought back. The estate plan and legal designation of heirs still need to happen separately.
What is the difference between seed-phrase inheritance, multisig inheritance, and an encrypted vault?
Seed-phrase inheritance hands the full BIP-39 phrase to one or more people in plaintext; a single mistake or breach is fatal. Multisig inheritance distributes signing authority on-chain across multiple keys; on-chain security is strong, but coordination is complex for non-technical heirs. An encrypted vault stores the recovery material (which may include a seed phrase, a wallet descriptor, a passphrase location, or written instructions) and splits the encryption key into K-of-N printed share cards — heirs reconstruct the key by combining the cards.
How do I pass Bitcoin to my heirs?
DMSKey splits the seed phrase and your written instructions into K-of-N printed share cards: any K of N cards together recover the vault, fewer than K do not. You hand the cards to people you trust, keep the offline recovery package with your estate documents, and the inheritance plan is in place.
What happens to Bitcoin when the owner dies?
Without an inheritance plan, the coins remain locked on-chain forever — the network has no concept of next-of-kin. An inheritance plan converts "locked forever" into "recoverable by a defined process."
How many custodians should I choose?
Most Bitcoin holders use 2-of-3 (spouse + sibling + lawyer is a common pattern) or 3-of-5 for redundancy across two households and a professional. Avoid 1-of-N (any single person can move the funds) and N-of-N (a single lost card ends the plan).
Can custodians see anything about my seed before I die?
A valid set of fewer than K shares does not reveal the protected secret. The cards may still contain operational metadata needed for recovery (vault id, version, K and N), but not the secret itself.
Can my family recover Bitcoin if DMSKey disappears?
The printed cards and the official offline recovery package are designed to work independently of the hosted service. The printed cards remain usable with a compatible implementation of the documented vault format.
Does this work with my hardware wallet?
DMSKey can protect a BIP-39 recovery phrase, but successful wallet restoration may also require a BIP-39 passphrase, the derivation path, the wallet type, descriptor, or multisig configuration. Include everything your heirs will need inside the encrypted vault.
Create a Bitcoin inheritance plan your family can actually use
Split access, print the cards, and rehearse recovery before storing them. You keep control today while giving your family a practical recovery path for the future.