The estate value at 2025 Bitcoin prices was approximately $2.3 million.

Survives

Case description

A 2025 estate case involved a Bitcoin holder who had purchased a significant amount of Bitcoin in 2013 and held it continuously in a self-custody wallet. The estate value at 2025 Bitcoin prices was approximately $2.3 million. The holder had left a comprehensive written guide for their beneficiaries explaining what Bitcoin is, how hardware wallets work, and where the seed phrase was located. The guide was found and the seed phrase was recovered. However, the guide had been written in 2016 and referenced a specific software wallet that had been discontinued. The beneficiaries required the assistance of a technical specialist to migrate from the legacy software format to a current hardware wallet, a process that took approximately two days.

Custody context

Stress condition	Owner death
Custody system	Hardware wallet (single key)
Outcome	Survives
Documentation	Unknown
Year observed	2025
Country	United States

Structural dependencies observed

Single point of failure

Outcome interpretation

Access remained possible under the reported conditions.

Source

Privately Reported

Evidence type

News article

Evidence link

https://www.wealthmanagement.com/estate-planning/bitcoin-after-death-2025-estate-guide

Related cases involving owner death

119 cases involve owner death 274 cases involve hardware wallet (single key) View archive statistics →

This archive documents observed custody survivability failures. It does not attempt to document all Bitcoin losses or security incidents. Submit a case

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Framework references

Where Bitcoin Custody Intersects Legal and Fiduciary Authority

Where custody creates gaps in estate planning, fiduciary duty, and professional responsibility.

Professional Scope Boundary Matrix

What each professional or product covers, what they do not, and where gaps form between them.

The Independent Assessment Layer in Bitcoin Custody

How independent diagnostic layers emerge when multiple parties depend on shared infrastructure.