Bitcoin Inheritance

A digital safe with more than one key, held by people you trust.

Bitcoin Inheritance encrypts your files and splits the key among people you choose, with Shamir's Secret Sharing. You set how many of them must come together to recover the files. Two of three, three of five, whatever fits. No single guardian can open anything alone.

Each guardian gets a bundle with everything they need to recover. Recovery is opening a file in a browser, offline*, with no accounts and no servers. If this website disappears, recovery still works.

Read the guide Create bundles Recover files

Bitcoin Inheritance and Bitcoin Butlers

Bitcoin Inheritance is built by Bitcoin Butlers and is free software under the Apache licence; the source and its full attribution are in the repository. We use the tool for the records a multisig wallet needs beside its seeds. Those records are the wallet descriptor, the cosigner public keys and the instructions your family will need one day.

The tool is free, forever, and it runs on your own computer. The service is the practice. A Butler guides your placement session over video, and an annual drill rehearses the recovery with your guardians. We see screens, never bytes, and we never hold a bundle.

Seed words never go in a bundle. Seeds belong on steel or in a codex32 kit. Read about the placement session.

How it works

You choose who to trust and how many must agree. Your files are encrypted, the key is split into pieces, and each person keeps one. When enough of them come together, the files are unlocked.

Any three of five can recover the files

Your File → Encrypt → Split key into 5 pieces → Distribute to guardians
↓
Any 3 guardians → Combine pieces → Unlock → File recovered

What each guardian gets

Each guardian receives a self-contained bundle. It is a ZIP file with a recovery tool that works in any browser, offline, with no installation. If this project disappears, recovery still works.

No bundle names another guardian. A guardian learns who else holds a piece from the owner's will or estate papers, never from what they are holding. That is what stops any two of them agreeing to open it between themselves.

README.txt and README.pdf. Instructions, their own piece of the key, and where to look for the other guardians.
recover.html. The recovery tool. For small archives the encrypted files are embedded in it.
MANIFEST.age. Your encrypted files, as a separate file when the archive is large.
METADATA.yaml. What the bundle is, in plain text, with the scheme version.
OWNER.age. Optional. The recovery passphrase locked to your own key, so you can recover alone.

On trust and verification

Encryption uses age, a modern and well-regarded tool
Recovery works without this project existing. Each bundle is self-contained
Everything runs locally. Your files never leave your device
The code is open source. Read it on GitHub
A security self-review explains the cryptographic choices
Read more about what protects your data and what could go wrong

See how it works

Open Create bundles and add two or three guardians with made-up names.
Add one harmless file.
Write what your heirs need to know. Each box shows you an example.
Generate the bundles and download them.
Unzip one bundle and open its recover.html. Drag the README.txt files from the other bundles onto the page. When enough pieces are in, the file unlocks.

This is what a real recovery feels like. Do it once with a test file before you trust the tool with anything important.

Show me what each step looks like

The Guardians step, with two names filled in. — Name the people who will hold a piece of your recovery key.

The Files to Protect step, with files added. — Add the files you want to protect. They never leave your browser.

The step that asks what your heirs need to know, with example text in every box. — Two groups of prompts. Each one says where its text goes, and each box shows an example until you start typing.

The generated bundles, one per guardian. — One bundle per guardian, ready to download.

The recovery page with pieces arriving. — Pieces arriving. When enough are in, the files unlock on their own.

What this is and isn't

It is:

A free tool that runs in your browser, offline*
A way to split the key to your backup among people you trust
Open source (Apache-2.0)
Self-contained. Recovery works without this website

It isn't:

A custodian. We never hold a bundle, a share or your files
An account or a cloud product
A place for seed words
A backup on its own. Media rots and people move. Drill it every year

Bitcoin Inheritance keeps growing. Check the changelog to see what's new.