Inheritance Planning

Self-custody means only you can access your Monero — which raises an uncomfortable question: what happens to it if something happens to you? Without a plan, your XMR could be lost forever, invisible to the people you would want to inherit it. In this lesson you will learn how to pass on your Monero responsibly, without weakening your security while you are still here.

Why Inheritance Is Different for Monero

With a traditional bank account, heirs can present a death certificate and the institution releases the funds. Monero has no such institution. As we saw in Self-Custody Philosophy, whoever holds the seed phrase controls the funds — and no one else can recover them. If your seed dies with you, so does your Monero.

On top of that, Monero is private by design. Your balance is not visible on the blockchain, so heirs may not even know how much exists or where to look. A plan therefore has two jobs: make the funds recoverable by the right people, and make them discoverable in the first place.

The Core Tension

Every inheritance plan walks a tightrope:

• Make access too easy, and you create a security hole today — anyone who finds your instructions could steal your funds now.
• Make access too hard, and your heirs may never recover anything.

The goal is a plan that stays secure while you are alive but becomes usable by trusted people when needed. Nothing here is legal advice — for significant amounts, consult a professional about your local laws and estate process.

Building a Plan That Works

Good inheritance plans tend to share these elements:

1. A clear instruction document — explaining that you hold Monero, which wallet you use, and the steps to restore it (download from an official source, choose "Restore from seed", enter the words). Assume the reader is a beginner.
2. Access to the seed — and the passphrase, if you use one. These are the keys to everything.
3. A trusted person or process — someone who will receive or locate the materials, or a legal mechanism that releases them at the right time.

Keep technical instructions current: if you switch wallets or add a passphrase, update the document.

Don't Forget the Passphrase

If you use an optional passphrase, your heirs need both the seed and the passphrase — the words alone open a different, empty wallet. A passphrase you never recorded for inheritance is a common way funds are accidentally lost forever. Decide deliberately how that second secret will reach your heirs.

Approaches to Consider

• Sealed instructions with your estate documents — for example, in a safe deposit box or with a lawyer, released through your will. Be mindful that wills can become public, so reference where the seed is rather than writing the seed into the will itself.
• Splitting the secret — giving different trusted people different parts, so no single person can act alone but together they can recover. This adds safety but also complexity, so document it clearly.
• A guided "in case of emergency" packet — combining the recovery steps from Backups and Recovery with the location of your seed and passphrase.

Whatever you choose, the protections from Securing Your Seed still apply: keep materials offline and away from cameras and the cloud.

Protecting Security Today

An inheritance plan must not become an attack surface while you are alive:

• Don't leave full, ready-to-use instructions somewhere easily found.
• Choose heirs and helpers you genuinely trust, and consider keeping the actual secret separate from the instructions until needed.
• Watch for scams aimed at "helping" with crypto inheritance — the same caution from Phishing and Scams applies.

Test the Plan Without Risk

Ask yourself honestly: if you were gone tomorrow, could your chosen person find the materials and follow the steps? Where possible, walk a trusted heir through the process on an empty test wallet — without revealing your real seed — so they understand restoring before they ever need to.

Planning for inheritance is an act of care: it lets your financial autonomy outlast you instead of vanishing with a forgotten seed. Balance recoverability against security, account for any passphrase, and keep your plan current. With this, you have completed the security and self-custody journey — consider testing yourself with the security quiz to lock in what you've learned.