Conflicting Bitcoin Recovery Documents and the Selection Problem

Multiple Conflicting Recovery Documents

This memo is published by CustodyStress, an independent Bitcoin custody stress test that produces reference documents for individuals, families, and professionals.

How Conflicts Arise

Someone dies or becomes incapacitated. Their bitcoin needs to be recovered. Searching through their belongings, the family or executor finds documents related to bitcoin access. More than one document exists. The documents say different things. Conflicting bitcoin recovery documents create a selection problem. The reader cannot follow all documents at once. They cannot follow them in sequence when the documents contradict each other. Which document is correct?

This analysis addresses how the presence of multiple documents with incompatible instructions produces paralysis, error, or both. The reader expects documents to agree or at least to coexist. When documents actively conflict, the reader faces a choice the holder never intended them to make.

---

How Conflicts Arise

Conflicting bitcoin recovery documents do not usually arise from a single writing session. They accumulate. The holder writes instructions at one point. Time passes. Their setup changes. They write new instructions. The old instructions remain. Now two documents exist, reflecting two different states of reality.

Versioning failures create this pattern. The holder may believe they replaced the old document. But the old document was in a safe, or with an attorney, or in a file folder that was not checked. The new document went somewhere else. Both survive. Neither references the other. Neither states that it supersedes anything.

Different purposes generate different documents. A holder might write one set of instructions for a spouse and another for a child. If the documents describe different access paths or reference different materials, they conflict. The holder may have intended the documents for different scenarios. The reader does not know which scenario applies now.

Professional involvement adds layers. An attorney may have a document in their files. A financial advisor may have been given different information. The holder may have updated one professional but not the other. Each professional holds a piece that contradicts pieces held elsewhere.

---

The Shape of a Conflict

Conflicts between documents take different forms. Some conflicts are direct. One document says the seed phrase is in the desk drawer. Another says it is in the safe deposit box. Both cannot be true if only one seed phrase exists. The reader faces a choice between locations.

Other conflicts are procedural. One document describes a three-step process. Another describes five steps that do not match the three. Following one set of steps prevents following the other. The processes cannot both be correct for the same setup.

Numeric conflicts appear often. One document lists twelve words. Another lists twenty-four words. One references a PIN of four digits. Another references a passphrase with letters and numbers. If the holder had one device with one set of access requirements, only one document matches the current reality.

Reference conflicts point to different objects. One document names a hardware wallet brand that the holder no longer uses. Another names a different brand. The reader finds a device but cannot tell which document describes it. Maybe neither does. Maybe one does. The documents do not make this clear.

---

Why Selection Becomes Impossible

Faced with conflicting bitcoin recovery documents, the reader needs to choose. But the basis for choosing is missing. Which document is newer? Which reflects the actual current setup? Which did the holder intend to be used? These questions have answers, but the reader often cannot discover them.

Dates help sometimes. A dated document appears newer than an undated one. A document dated 2023 appears newer than one dated 2019. But dates can mislead. The older document might be correct if the holder reverted to an earlier setup. The newer document might describe plans that were never completed. A date is a data point, not a guarantee.

Physical condition provides weak signals. A crisp document might be recent. A worn document might be old. But a document stored in a dry safe stays crisp for decades. A document handled frequently wears quickly even if recent. Physical appearance does not reliably indicate which document matches reality.

Content cannot verify itself. A document that says "this is the current and correct version" has no more authority than one that says nothing about its status. The holder could have written that phrase on any document. Words claiming currency do not make a document current.

---

The Cost of Wrong Selection

Selecting the wrong document leads somewhere. The reader follows instructions that describe a different setup than the one that actually exists. What happens next depends on how the wrong instructions interact with the real setup.

Sometimes nothing happens. The instructions simply fail. The reader looks for something where the wrong document says it is. The thing is not there. The reader realizes the document did not match reality. No damage occurs, but no progress occurs either. Time is spent. Frustration accumulates.

Sometimes damage happens. A document might list a PIN that was correct once but changed later. The reader enters the old PIN. The device rejects it. After enough rejections, the device may lock or wipe. What would have worked with the right document becomes a brick because the wrong document was followed.

Partial matches create confusion. If the wrong document contains some correct information and some incorrect information, the reader experiences intermittent success. Some steps work. Others fail. Figuring out which parts of the document are reliable and which are not becomes a puzzle layered on top of the existing puzzle.

---

Multiple Documents Without Conflict

Not all multiple documents conflict. Some complement each other. A holder might keep the seed phrase in one place and the PIN in another. Two documents, two pieces of information, no contradiction. This is not the scenario this memo describes.

The problem arises when documents cannot both be correct. When one says the seed phrase is twelve words and another says twenty-four. When one describes a device the holder did not own at the time of death. When the procedures described are mutually exclusive. These are conflicts. They force a choice where no choice was intended.

Readers may not immediately recognize a conflict. They might find one document, follow it, encounter failure, and only then discover the second document. The second document offers a different path. Was the first document wrong? Is the second document wrong? Both? The discovery of conflict often comes after an attempt has already failed.

---

External Resolution Attempts

When conflicting bitcoin recovery documents appear, readers often seek outside help. They want someone to tell them which document is correct. The forms this search takes vary, but the outcome is often the same: no one can determine which document the holder intended.

Attorneys can review documents. They can identify which appears more formal, which has signatures, which was notarized. But legal formality does not determine technical accuracy. A notarized document describing the wrong setup is still wrong. The law cannot make incorrect instructions correct.

Bitcoin experts can assess technical plausibility. They can say which document describes a valid seed phrase format or a coherent recovery process. But plausibility is not identity. Both documents might describe technically valid setups. The question is not which setup is possible but which setup is the one that exists.

Family members might offer opinions. They might remember conversations with the holder. They might recall updates or changes. These memories are valuable but fallible. What someone remembers the holder saying does not override what the documents say. It adds another voice to the confusion.

---

The Absence of Resolution

Conflict between documents persists when the holder is not available to resolve it. Living holders can be asked: which document is right? Dead or incapacitated holders cannot answer. The conflict becomes permanent. No new information will arrive to settle it.

This permanence defines the failure. It is not merely that confusion exists now. It is that confusion cannot be dispelled through any action available to the reader. The holder knew. The holder is not present. The knowledge is gone. The documents remain, disagreeing with each other, indefinitely.

Readers facing this permanence sometimes attempt all paths. They try one document's instructions. If those fail, they try the other. This strategy may work if one path is correct and the other simply fails. It may fail catastrophically if the wrong path causes irreversible damage before the right path can be tried.

Doing nothing also has consequences. If the reader refuses to choose, the bitcoin remains inaccessible. The conflict between documents becomes a reason for inaction. The inheritance freezes. Time passes while the documents continue to disagree and no one acts.

---

Prevention That Did Not Happen

Holders can prevent this failure by maintaining one current document and destroying old versions. But this prevention did not happen. The holder is gone, and multiple documents exist. The prevention that would have worked is no longer available. What remains is the consequence of its absence.

The reader cannot go back and organize the holder's documents. They cannot ensure only one version exists. They work with what they find. What they find is a mess. The mess is now the problem, and the only person who could have prevented it is the same person who created it.

---

Outcome

Conflicting bitcoin recovery documents create a selection problem that has no available solution. Multiple documents exist. They describe different things. Only one can be correct for the actual setup, but no method exists to determine which one. The holder knew. The holder is gone.

The reader must choose without a basis for choosing. Dates, physical condition, and content claims do not reliably indicate which document matches reality. Following the wrong document may cause damage. Not choosing may cause permanent inaction. Neither outcome is what the holder intended.

The conflict persists because resolution requires information only the holder possessed. No outside expert can determine intent from conflicting texts. The documents remain, disagreeing, while the bitcoin waits for a choice that cannot be confidently made.

---

System Context

Examining Bitcoin Custody Under Stress

Documenting Bitcoin Custody

Document Bitcoin Custody for Family Understanding as Context Capture

← Return to CustodyStress