There are millions of Bitcoin wallets all around the world. This is a fact.

Some use Bitcoin daily for transactions or the Blockchain to sign contracts; but someone else could decide to invest their money in Bitcoin long-term…

And what if this person dies? Who will get those Bitcoin investments? Is there any regulation about Bitcoin heritage?

“Of course it depends on the jurisdiction of deceased person”, said Cointelegraph Blockchain Legal Lawyer Dmitry Machikhin. “As I know the only State where such regulation was made is Delaware in U.S. Concerning this law, families are able to access the digital assets of deceased person, including BTC funds. Delaware is a domicile for several IT companies such as Twitter, but the law above is only for private persons - residents of Delaware”.

Another problem is represented by the private key of a Bitcoin wallet. If the deceased person could write their own private key on the will, then the process would be easy. But “in several countries the testament is a public document, so there cannot be contained any BTC information which could contradict BTC general conception”, continued Dmitry Machikhin.

This case, commented lawyer and bitcoin expert Stefano Capaccioli, “could be solved with multisignature addresses”.

Safe Exchange system architect Daniel Dabek suggested another possible solution, a sort of “keep-alive” method:

“In the decentralized exchange a person could request a public key from the heir. A “keep-alive” method would then trigger and notify the living person on a realistic interval. If there is no “keep-alive” response from the living person, then the network would transfer funds from the now deceased person to the heir’s public key included in the will of the wallet. This system could be implemented in centrally managed exchanges as well with the proper verification of death by the nation-state in question. Procurement of this legal evidence of death would then prompt the exchange manager to disburse funds to the heirs in the event that a public key was registered as part of the will. Exchange managers could then utilize a persistent storage system such as Safe Network where they would store scans of proof that could then be used as a reference in the future. Registering the proper public key as part of an official will would make matters simple. The proof and deployment of the process would be simple, the destination of funds is then obvious assuming the heir maintained the private key adequately”.

As Bitcoin has not relevant regulation - except for Delaware - “it is anything and nothing at the same time”, continued lawyer Stefano Capaccioli, “so every regulatory system should regulate the characteristics of bitcoin more consistent with the system”.

We also had the chance to talk with Serbian Bitcoin exchange Electronic Currency District CEO Aleksandar Matanovic, who added his point of view: