Brother Died, Bitcoin Access

[Imsupposedtobeworking]

My Family and I are in an awful position and hoping to find someone with experience in bitcoin. My brother had an unexpected serious brain trauma in his late thirties, rendering him completely paralysed with locked in syndrome. this left him with only the ability to move his eyes as form of communication. This happened whilst he was travelling on another continent, without adequate insurance. Many generous people and friends of my brother donated towards a fund to get him home. The donations were very generous, but not enough to pay all of my brothers bills + the cost of medically transporting him. My sibling and I ended up donating a chunk of both our individual savings and my mum remortagaged the house she had literally just paid off after decades a few months previously. Happily we managed to get him home and he spent the last three years of his life here before unexpecedly passing away this year. My Mum is over 70 and now working two night shifts a week in order to pay off this mortgage, this is not conducive to her health and my sibling and I help where we can but cant afford to pay off her mortgage. My brother had invested in bitcoins but refused to provide details in order to access this cash to help pay his medical bills / contribute towards my mums mortgage. I cannot judge my brother for this as his finances were the only part of his life that he had any autonomy over following his stroke. However, I would like my mother to no longer have to work at her age and after all she has been through with my brothers illness. He may have nothing saved in bitcoin, or he may have saved enough to help my mum pay off the mortgage she took out to get him home and also help towards his funeral costs - we just dont know. Does anyone here have insight into how a Bitcoin account can be accessed by next of kin?

@Cailleachian

Here's some tips or things to think about

Firstly where did he have the bitcoins?

On an exchange? eg Coinbase, Kracken, Binance, Gemini are all names of exchanges. If you have access to his email, go through it and see if you can find any emails from those or other bitcoin providers. If you can, get in touch with them directly. I know Coinbase has procedures for next of kin accessing accounts, and I suspect the others may as well.

On a software wallet (like exodus, and there are quite a few others). Go through his computer and search for a "wallet.dat" file. If you have that, you have the bitcoins. DO NOTHING FURTHER FOR NOW. The bitcoins are safe, they arent going anywhere, dont do anything in a rush.

On a mobile wallet (like Mycelium and there are a few others). Unless you can directly access the app (usually with a password), you need to find the seed phrase (see below).

On a hardware wallet (like Ledger or Trezor), If you can find a hardware wallet (google for what the two above look like, there are others, but only hardcore bitcoiners would go for the more obsure ones), these can be accessed by a pin number - typically 8 digits. If you know what he might use you can try, but you risk getting locked out if you put the wrong one in more than twice, so only try once.

If none of this helps then you are looking for either

• a seed phase - this will be 24 or 12 random words, the order is important. It would typically be kept on paper, not digitally

• or a private key - this will look like a long string of random alphanumeric digits.

If you have either of these you have the bitcoins.

If you do find a seed phrase or a private key. Do not do anything in haste. The bitcoins are safe and they arent going anywhere. In particular.

1. Do not put it into a computer until you know what you are doing
2. Do not share with anyone, ESPECIALLY randoms on the internet
3. Do not take a digital picture of it.

I’m glad OP has been given some actual advice.

@Bobbiebigbum

Surely you can't pay a mortgage off with but coin

That's like saying "surely you can't pay a (UK) mortgage off using gold". You don't need to use whatever asset you have directly.

The Bitcoin would be sold/traded for fiat money (e.g. GBP).

Sorry to hear about your whole family situation op.
When I was reading it my hackles went up as it felt like a scam set up.
Disclosing all of that before a simple question. In case you are posting elsewhere I’d simply ask the query - how/can you access Bitcoin holdings of a relative who has passed away.
Support op.

Perhaps HMRC can advise - maybe they have previous cases like this?

HMRC will certainly want a share of the profits if the coins are ever recovered

@Shelddd

Esme333 your broken English and cryptic speak make you sound like a scammer.

i thought this, it sounds complete crap, so i asked my son in law, he deals in bitcoin for a living pretty much since it came out and guess what... The 'font of all knowledge' seems to have disappeared.

@lljkk

I would be furious at my brother if he was doing this.

Well he’s dead so being furious with him won’t be much use

@esme333

What i really should of said is

''Hai, download linux kali, put it on a live usb, and use the tools on there to systematically gather what is required, and there we go''

Sorry, there is also parrot, arch linux, backtrack and a few others.

But kali, the way forward to reckless retrieval of virtual property.

Research metasploit and BeeF, and you will be amazed how easy it is.

Oh, also, don't forget to download your word lists and hash'

Nobody is impressed

OP, it might seem like a mental idea, but would you consider going to the press e.g a consumer programme or money advice column with this? They may be able to contact the provider of the wallet in which he stored his Bitcoin and make some headway, or at least bring attention to the fact that there’s very little in place for next of kin.

@Cailleachian

Here's some tips or things to think about

Firstly where did he have the bitcoins?

On an exchange? eg Coinbase, Kracken, Binance, Gemini are all names of exchanges. If you have access to his email, go through it and see if you can find any emails from those or other bitcoin providers. If you can, get in touch with them directly. I know Coinbase has procedures for next of kin accessing accounts, and I suspect the others may as well.

On a software wallet (like exodus, and there are quite a few others). Go through his computer and search for a "wallet.dat" file. If you have that, you have the bitcoins. DO NOTHING FURTHER FOR NOW. The bitcoins are safe, they arent going anywhere, dont do anything in a rush.

On a mobile wallet (like Mycelium and there are a few others). Unless you can directly access the app (usually with a password), you need to find the seed phrase (see below).

On a hardware wallet (like Ledger or Trezor), If you can find a hardware wallet (google for what the two above look like, there are others, but only hardcore bitcoiners would go for the more obsure ones), these can be accessed by a pin number - typically 8 digits. If you know what he might use you can try, but you risk getting locked out if you put the wrong one in more than twice, so only try once.

If none of this helps then you are looking for either

• a seed phase - this will be 24 or 12 random words, the order is important. It would typically be kept on paper, not digitally

• or a private key - this will look like a long string of random alphanumeric digits.

If you have either of these you have the bitcoins.

If you do find a seed phrase or a private key. Do not do anything in haste. The bitcoins are safe and they arent going anywhere. In particular.

1. Do not put it into a computer until you know what you are doing
2. Do not share with anyone, ESPECIALLY randoms on the internet
3. Do not take a digital picture of it.

Solid advice OP

Everyone seems to be missing the obvious that for whatever reason he didn’t want his family to have access to it.

You could google Sam Volkering. He is a crypto expert who often does a sort of " any questions" thing. A bit like the financial advice people in the papers. Maybe worth a try.

@MintyMabel

Everyone seems to be missing the obvious that for whatever reason he didn’t want his family to have access to it.

Well, in that case, hopefully he contacted the people who he did want to have the money and they have access to it. Meanwhile, mum can carry on working herself to death to pay for the house she remortgaged to get him home.

Everyone seems to be missing the obvious that for whatever reason he didn’t want his family to have access to it

While he was alive. There is an increasing problem with digital estates. By default without a will his wealth goes to his next of kin. Unless he wanted to do the digital equivalent of sticking a few grand on a bonfire to spite his family he should have made a will and secured his wealth for whoever he wanted to receive it. Where people don't have wills its commonly because they don't think they are going to die just yet rather than because they want their estate destroyed and lost.

By not managing this digital estates are lost for good.

Well, in that case, hopefully he contacted the people who he did want to have the money and they have access to it.
Perhaps he had.

Meanwhile, mum can carry on working herself to death to pay for the house she remortgaged to get him home.

That was her choice. What happened to respecting the wishes of those who had died? We hear that so often whenever people ask questions about using an inheritance for something other than what was indicated in a will.

@MintyMabel

Well, in that case, hopefully he contacted the people who he did want to have the money and they have access to it. Perhaps he had.

Meanwhile, mum can carry on working herself to death to pay for the house she remortgaged to get him home.

That was her choice. What happened to respecting the wishes of those who had died? We hear that so often whenever people ask questions about using an inheritance for something other than what was indicated in a will.

And your evidence that they are “using an inheritance for something other than what was indicated in a will.” Or indeed that there was a will is from where?

for 3 years he put his family thru financial hardship looking after himself. That's crappy. I don't care how much sympathy you can muster for his "personality change". We're not talking about simple daily crankiness or frustrations. OP said he refused to share the codes. He chose to not even try to help them. Selfish.

@knittingaddict

I don't think you can access it without a long code number.

There was a recent scam where someone was "banking" customers bitcoin. The person died on honeymoon, in India I think, and the money was inaccessible because no one had the code. Even in such a high profile case the code issue could not be circumvented.

I read about this, millions worth of Bitcoin lost. Although people suspect he’s possibly faked his death and taken the money.

Personality change? The guy was completely paralysed apart from the use of his eyes. Imagine lying there for three years unable to move or to talk, completely reliant on other people for every aspect of your life and unable to communicate with them other moving than your eyes. Give him a break.

@lljkk

for 3 years he put his family thru financial hardship looking after himself. That's crappy. I don't care how much sympathy you can muster for his "personality change". We're not talking about simple daily crankiness or frustrations. OP said he refused to share the codes. He chose to not even try to help them. Selfish.

You really have no idea how an Aqcuired Brain Injury can affect a person's personality, do you?

@esme333

I was the first person to say, DO NOT DISCLOSE ANYMORE!!

Now you are clarified. Read up for reference, change topic for drama.

Pick the latter

Yes you were, and no @esme333 has not written directly to me. Thanks for the advice.

@NautaOcts

This sounds really hard And is also an example of one of the downsides of Bitcoin that I hadn’t thought about. With any other investment or bank you would be granted probate and eventually able to access the deceased’s funds and assets. But I guess with Bitcoin unless the person stored the codes somewhere secure yet accessible after their death (not even sure where that would be!) it’s probably lost forever.

My brother was very young and most likely thought this would never happen, so apart from a few things he communicated to us during his illness, we have no will.

Please dont judge my brother. None of us here can really say what it must have been like in his situation. Its also really hard for me and my sibling to process this as of course we were frustrated at times. Some of the messages here remind me of when we were trying to get him home, thankfully the helpful voices outweighed the few voices reminding us as he had no insurance why should anyone help. No family would ever shrug their shoulders and leave a loved one to their fate in the same situation my brother was in. My Mum would not hesitate to do the same thing over and over and over again. The current situation is, my brother has now passed and I dont want my mum working herself to death. If we do gain access, it will go to probate, but as my Mum is next of kin Im hoping that she can atleast pay off some of the house she has remortgaged. Sorry for rambling its all a bit raw still.

Thank You to all the helpful voices here. Ive gained some really sound advice. Im going to ask MN to delete this thread now, as its super outing. I do realise this sounds like a scam, I honestly wish it was, but I just thought I needed to provide details in order to gain insight and to be honest its been therapeutic too. Thanks Everyone.

GOOD LUCK!!