Dead Man’s Switch: Chainlink and NGRAVE Provide Remedy for Crypto Death Problem

The concept of keeping one’s private key or recovery seed hidden for safety reasons comes with its own downside. Since no one can predict death, unless, in times of sickness, it is quite hard for our family and loved ones to access our cryptocurrency portfolio once we say a sudden goodbye to life.

Blockchain companies are continuously looking for solutions that can allow crypto users to securely pass their digital assets to their loved ones upon death without compromising the safety of their portfolio. One such remedy to the death problem has been introduced by the blockchain network, Chainlink, in collaboration with NGRAVE, a blockchain security service provider.

The solution, a hardware wallet designed to store cryptocurrencies, comes with a dead man’s switch feature for transferring deceased user’s funds on to assigned beneficiaries. However, the assets will not be transferred until the death is confirmed by decentralized oracles on the Chainlink network.

Both platforms believe that the dead man’s switch solution will create an advantage for the family of a deceased person who can’t afford the bills of a lawyer to enjoy the wealth of their lost ones rather than allowing it to die with them.

Smart Contract Wills

This idea has become a popular subject of discussion because it appears to be less expensive and faster in many cases when compared to the legacy system of lawyers and wills.

The solution employs smart contracts and automated aspects to ensure that all digital assets are safely transferred to assigned beneficiaries without any hindrance, especially in cases of untimely death.

The dead man’s switch is powered by the private key backup hardware wallet of NGRAVE, a third-party KYC provider, and Chainlink‘s decentralized Oracle network.

Other cryptocurrency firms are also exploring similar solutions to solve the cryptocurrency death problem.  In October last year, Coinfomania reported that Casa, a leading provider of Bitcoin multi-sign key security, launched a new service that allows Bitcoin holders to securely pass their assets to an heir before death strikes.

Although there are other manual solutions to this issue, users mostly have to make several copies of their keys and share them among several people. However, a high level of trust is required to initiate such methods.