Owner death — hardware wallet (2025)

Blocked

Case description

A 2025 German estate case involved a holder who had stored their Bitcoin seed phrase using a proprietary splitting scheme that divided the 24 words into three groups of 8, stored in separate locations. Two groups were recovered from documented locations. The third group had been stored with a trusted friend who had predeceased the Bitcoin holder in 2024. The friend's estate had been settled and the friend's belongings distributed before anyone was aware of the Bitcoin custody significance of the documents. The third group of words could not be located. A recovery specialist confirmed that with only 16 of 24 words known, brute-force recovery was computationally infeasible.

Custody context

Stress condition	Owner death
Custody system	Hardware wallet (single key)
Outcome	Blocked
Documentation	Unknown
Year observed	2025
Country	Germany

Structural dependencies observed

Single point of failure

What this illustrates

There was only one way in. When that path was gone, so was access. Access was not recoverable.

Outcome interpretation

Access was not possible under the reported conditions.

Source

Privately Reported

Evidence type

News article

Evidence link

https://datarecovery.com/rd/crypto-inheritance-creating-a-recovery-plan-for-your-family/

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.