What happens to your Bitcoin if something happens to you?
Find out in about 30 minutes. Answer simple questions about how your Bitcoin is held. See how your custody setup behaves under stress. Get a survivability profile and print-ready reference documents your spouse, executor, or attorney can read without your help.
For anyone who holds Bitcoin in an app, exchange, hardware wallet, multisig setup, or managed by a service. No keys shared. No accounts connected. No balances disclosed.
An evaluation of how a Bitcoin custody system behaves across seven stress scenarios, and reference documents designed to be read cold — by someone who has never seen the setup and may not understand Bitcoin.
CustodyStress
Bitcoin Custody Survivability Profile
Date: 2026-01-12·Reference: SAMPLE-CS-7K4R v1.0
Modeled Survivability State
Custody Constrained
Modeled outcome only. Describes system behavior under stated assumptions. Not a guarantee.
Assessment Assumptions
The Person Responsible is unavailable
No new information can be added to the system
Stress and confusion are present among recovery participants
Cooperation from all parties is not guaranteed
What Happens Under Common Scenarios
Legend
• Survives: Access and control remain viable under stated assumptions.
• Constrained: Access remains possible but depends on conditions, timing, or coordination.
• Compromised: Access and control do not remain viable under stated assumptions.
Scenario
Modeled Outcome
Death / Absence
What happens if the original owner is no longer available to assist or provide information.
Survives
Device Loss
What happens if all primary devices and any information stored at home or work are lost or destroyed.
Survives
Physical Coercion
What happens if the owner is forced to act under immediate threat and attackers can access the premises.
Constrained
Cognitive Failure
What happens if the owner cannot recall details, passwords, or instructions.
Constrained
Legal Seizure
What happens if authorities can search all physical locations and seize any keys or phrases found on the premises.
Survives
Forced Relocation
What happens if the owner must relocate internationally on short notice without access to banks, offices, or storage locations.
Constrained
Where Stress Shows Up First
Shows which modeled stress condition limits recovery earlier than others — not an overall failure.
Most sensitive scenario:Physical Coercion
What happens if the owner is forced to act under immediate threat and attackers can access the premises.
Indicates relative sensitivity, not a point of failure.
Key Stress Factors
Liquidity
Partial access under stress
This examines how reliably access can be executed or verified during disruption.
Dependency
Conditional external dependency
This examines how much access depends on specific people, services, or organizations remaining available.
Durability
Moderately time-sensitive
This examines how much time the system can tolerate before access becomes harder or limited.
Observations That Influenced This Assessment
One recovery path relies on a collaborative custody service holding one of the required signing keys. If that service becomes unavailable, unresponsive, or discontinues operations, that particular recovery path would be blocked. Alternative recovery paths exist using only owner-held keys, which limited the overall impact.
The person who legally inherits the Bitcoin is different from the person who can technically perform the recovery. These two people would need to coordinate: one has the legal authority to act, the other has the technical knowledge and access. If they cannot communicate or cooperate, recovery may be delayed or blocked.
Access credentials for two of the three signing keys are stored in a single password manager. If access to that password manager is lost — because the master password is forgotten, the account is locked, or the provider changes its recovery process — the owner would still hold the physical devices but would be unable to use them to sign transactions. This creates a hidden dependency where a 2-of-3 structure behaves as if a single point of failure exists at the credential layer, even though the keys themselves are geographically separated.
Who has legal authority and who can move the Bitcoin
How the system works in normal conditions and how it behaves under stress
Partial access and complete access
What is written down and what can actually be done
Independent recovery and coordination-dependent recovery
Scope and Boundaries
Applicable situations
A survivability assessment of Bitcoin self-custody systems under stress
A model of redundancy, backup paths, and operational continuity
A test of sequencing, documentation access, and human coordination
A model of immediate, delayed, partial, or third-party–assisted custody access
A point-in-time assessment conducted under explicit stress assumptions
Out of scope
Financial, technical, legal, or estate-planning advice
Setup guidance, instructions, or recommendations
Wallet, coordinator, or inheritance-product comparisons
A formal security audit or certification
A guarantee of safety, recoverability, or correctness
A reassurance or confidence-scoring product
Recorded fields include:
what apps, devices, or services are involved in holding the Bitcoin
who is allowed to act and who must agree
what the system depends on (people, services, or things)
what delays can affect access
conditions that prevent access to the Bitcoin
assumptions that require someone else to cooperate
Assessment process and reference records
1
Describe what exists — People, devices, credentials, documentation, and dependencies.
2
Apply defined scenarios — Loss, unavailability, coercion, and operational disruption.
3
Review outcomes — A survivability profile describing how the custody system behaves and print-ready reference documents.
The record may be run again if wallets, recovery paths, or the people involved in custody change.
Print-ready reference documents
A completed assessment produces a set of print-ready reference documents designed to be read cold — by someone who has never seen the setup and may not understand Bitcoin.
Reference documents produced
1.
Survivability Profile
How your custody system behaves under stress.
2.
Inheritor Opening Document
Plain-language starting point for a first-time reader.
3.
Custody System Overview
Wallets, devices, credentials, backup paths, and dependencies.
4.
Custody Coordination Notes
Companion page for handwritten notes.
5.
Estate–Custody Alignment Summary
Where legal authority and custody access align or diverge.
6.
Custody–Estate Coordination Reference
Discussion aid for roles, authority, and access.
7.
Role Participation by Scenario
Which roles must act and where recovery can be blocked, per scenario.
8.
CustodyStress Input Snapshot
Frozen record of your declared inputs.
Click any document to view a sample populated with mock data.
Each document includes a reference ID, assessment date, and methodology version. The Survivability Profile and Input Snapshot include a deterministic integrity digest.
Privacy and data
All assessment data is processed locally
No responses are retained for training or analytics
No accounts required
No assessment data shared with third parties
Details
The assessment does not request: Seed phrases, private keys, wallet addresses, wallet types, device locations, passwords, PINs, recovery codes, or personal identifying information.
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