Your digital will on the blockchain

Accidents, by their very nature, strike when we least expect them. Imagine the immense burden on your loved ones: beyond the emotional devastation, they're suddenly confronted with the overwhelming responsibility of your digital life. They likely don't know the passwords to your computer or phone, which bank accounts you hold, or how to access your cryptocurrency or even the PIN for your credit card. This is why making a (digital) will isn't really for you; it's a profound act of care for your loved ones, friends, and business partners. It's about easing their burden significantly during an already painful time, allowing them to navigate the practicalities and begin to regain control over their lives or business operations as smoothly and swiftly as possible after you're gone.

Think of a "Digital Will" not just as a traditional "Last Will and Testament" adapted for the internet, but as a specific plan that dictates what happens to your entire digital presence when you're no longer around. In our deeply digital age, the question of "what happens to all my online stuff?" is more critical than ever. Your digital life is vast. It's not just your social media profiles or online identities. It encompasses websites you've built, vlogs you've recorded, blogs you maintain, and crucial access to the computers, phones, and even work-related systems you use daily. And it certainly doesn't stop there. Today, a huge part of your financial life is digital: access to bank accounts, cryptocurrency wallets, the 2FA keys that protect them, vital pincodes... a significant slice of our existence is now encoded in bits and bytes. Ensuring your loved ones can inherit these "digital assets" is far from trivial. Traditional notaries and executors often hesitate to manage this complex digital legacy. Why? Things change at lightning speed, and the potential liability issues are genuinely concerning for them. Consider this: what happens if your crypto wallet is unexpectedly drained, and the Notary was the only other person you'd entrusted with the private keys? This highlights exactly why a specialized approach to your (digital) inheritance is essential.

While definitions can vary, the common understanding is that a "digital will" is often an informal guide detailing your digital property and how to access it, whereas a traditional will primarily handles the inheritance of physical assets. But let's be clear: the lines between physical and digital are rapidly blurring. In every practical sense, a Bitcoin is as real as a dollar bill. And for a growing number of digital properties, the practical truth of "access is ownership" holds undeniable weight. This is where Inheritor steps in. With Inheritor, you gain the power to manage the inheritance of all your property rights, seamlessly bridging this evolving landscape. With Inheritor, we're not just offering a tool; we're ushering in a new paradigm: digital inheritance. Its full meaning and impact will undoubtedly shape themselves as we move further into this interconnected future, but its foundation begins here.

Everyone should have their inheritance fully arranged, covering all your assets – both digital and physical. Seriously, ask yourself: what happens if you don't make it home tonight? And then, really think about what that would mean... and what you'd leave behind unresolved.

"What if...?" We get it. You're bound to have questions about various scenarios: What if you lose your phone? What if you're offline for an extended period? Or even the bigger ones: What if the Inheritor app disappears from the App Store? What if our company, or even Apple itself, ceases to exist? Here's the key: the blockchain has your back. No worries. Your core inheritance instructions, secured on-chain, are designed for resilience beyond any single app or entity. For a deeper dive into how these safeguards work, please check out the detailed information elsewhere on our site, or feel free to contact us directly.

Inheritor allows you to access a smart contract on the Ethereum or Arbitrum blockchain that manages your inheritance. This smart contract is central to your digital inheritance, serving three critical functions: it securely custodies the encrypted details of your legacy, acts as the unwavering gatekeeper to its access, and ultimately functions as the automated executor of your documented final wishes. Inheritor itself is a passive app that allows you to control this smart contract the most simple way. When you pass away, the smart contract releases access to your inheritance to the beneficiary. Only the designated beneficiary can open the digital file (inheritance) with blockchain certainty and security. More details about how Inheritor works you can find in our white paper:

In short, fundamentally, yes. Here’s why Inheritor carves out its own unique space: A traditional will addresses the legal transfer of your overall estate, but it doesn't, by itself, hand over the digital keys to your online life or specific digital assets. That practical, secure access is a separate, often complex challenge. A password manager is for your active use, safeguarding your daily logins. It’s not built to orchestrate the secure inheritance of critical access codes or your broader digital estate. While some are tacking on family sharing, these are often limited patches, not comprehensive solutions, and quickly lead to a fragmented mess if you use multiple services. Multi-sig wallets, great for securing crypto with multiple living approvers, are designed for operational control among the living, not for executing your wishes posthumously as a testamentary instrument. Online vaults or secure storage (from bank deposit boxes to services like Apple's Advanced Data Protection) almost always mean relying on a third party. Yes, they can be secure, but the crucial point is access for your beneficiary. If you don't come home tonight, your loved ones often face an uphill battle, if not an impossible one, to access what's stored there. Inheritor, by contrast, is engineered from the ground up to directly empower your chosen beneficiary with verifiable, secure access to your designated digital legacy when it matters, bypassing these typical roadblocks and third-party dependencies. It's built specifically for the clear, secure, and user-controlled transfer of digital inheritance.

With Inheritor, you finally get to arrange your (digital) legacy, your way – sidestepping the usual headaches of traditional solutions. Right from your iPhone, you can securely pass on any digital file, filled with whatever content you choose, directly to your chosen beneficiaries. This means you can effortlessly share photos, cherished memories, crucial passwords, pincodes, private keys, personal videos, and audio messages. And with Inheritor, it’s cryptographically guaranteed: only your designated beneficiary can access your secrets and messages, precisely when the time comes. Need to make changes? Updating your digital wishes is refreshingly simple. Adding new inheritances, or revoking existing ones, takes just a few clicks. All of this happens without relying on any single third party and without the hassle of creating yet another account. Just download the app, and when you're ready, an Apple subscription is all it takes to get started. Welcome to on-chain digital inheritance with Inheritor – secure, personal, and finally in your control!

Inheritor employs a "dead man's switch" mechanism. At intervals you select, you simply "check in" with the smart contract via the app on your phone – a quick process that takes just a few seconds to confirm that all is well. Now, if a check-in is missed, don't worry – inheritances aren't released prematurely. A robust series of safeguards is automatically triggered to ensure everything is okay before any action is taken. (You can find more detailed information about these protective measures elsewhere on our site.) For those seeking the highest level of assurance regarding this process, our premium version introduces an optional human verification layer. If you miss a check-in, a trusted person you designate can be prompted to confirm your wellbeing. Should this person confirm your passing or irrevocable incapacitation, you can have complete peace of mind that your beneficiaries will receive precisely what you intended for them, when they should.

It's a surprising truth: even in developed nations, only about a third of adults have a formal will. In many other parts of the world, that figure drops even more dramatically. This isn't usually down to indifference. Let's be honest: the thought of navigating the formal process with a notary, facing potentially high fees, can be genuinely intimidating. And once you've finally got that will sorted? It's not a 'set and forget' document; it needs to be maintained as life evolves. The classic response? "I'll get to it tomorrow... I'm feeling fine today." It’s an all-too-human way to postpone a task that feels complex and a bit morbid. Beyond these hurdles, there's the human element. Notaries and traditional executors, for all their professionalism, are still people – and people can sometimes be influenced or make errors. Contrast this with the prevailing mindset of the current generation: a strong preference for 'peer-to-peer' solutions. They're looking to manage their affairs directly, on their own terms and timelines, often bypassing traditional authorities. The expectation is clear: solutions should be inherently digital, remarkably affordable, incredibly straightforward, and intuitively user-friendly.

Inheritances via Inheritor are designed to meet key requirements for legally binding digital agreements. By executing the testator's clear, pre-defined intent through a smart contract, which includes unambiguous acceptance by a uniquely identifiable beneficiary, such agreements are increasingly recognized as final in various jurisdictions. Furthermore, the transparent and immutable nature of blockchain technology means that the transfer of access and, crucially, clearly defined property rights—whether for purely digital assets or tokenized physical property—achieved via the Inheritor smart contract, can align with principles underpinning frameworks like eIDAS (EU) and ESIGN/UETA (US). This process creates a non-fungible record, effectively a digital deed of transfer, for each inherited right, ensuring its unique and verifiable passage. Inheritor actualizes the principle: when a testator willingly uses the platform to grant a beneficiary access and control over clearly identified assets with the explicit intent to transfer ownership upon death, we move closer to 'access becoming verifiable ownership' in a practical, secure, and deliberate manner for those designated assets. Now, like the validity of Bitcoin as a store of value was questioned in the past, we are sure that people can and will challenge inheritance claims in some cases, just as they do with traditional wills. However, this doesn't negate the growing practical reality and robustness of technologically secured transfers. Just remember that with Inheritor: It is cryptographically provable that an inheritance originates from a uniquely identifiable testator. It is cryptographically provable that only the designated, uniquely identifiable beneficiary will have access to the inherited rights. It is cryptographically provable that the inheritance instructions and the record of transfer (the digital deed) have not been altered or amended. Beyond the robust technical framework, there is the profound emotional aspect of respecting the last will of the deceased. In the vast majority of cases, these last wishes are, and should be, respected. Therefore, we look forward to a future where digital inheritance, encompassing both digital and appropriately tokenized physical assets, becomes the norm instead of the exception. We believe systems like Inheritor can offer an enhanced, efficient, and transparent practical reality for honoring testamentary intent, much like blockchain technology is transforming other fields.