If you’ve ever asked yourself this question, of a more pragmatic than philosophical, we can give you the answer. A matter such as this surely involves a significant amount of money for some people. For this reason, a set of developers are up to the task of creating a system that is used by the heirs of a dead person to recover your Bitcoin. This is the button of a dead man.
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The cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, and beyond
Recently, in London released a project of a few developers to experiment with the reuse of the current protocol to Lightning. In this idea to send private messages as a kind of “button man dead”. It is constituted as a system that can not be censored and that would keep the cryptocurrencies safe for their heirs. These developers are looking for an alternative that can be used Lighning Network as the basis for the “button man dead”, and that this is the solution to the problem of the inheritance of cryptocurrencies as Bitcoin. In general, it is a button that must be pressed weekly. If you do not press the “dead man” a week, it is assumed that the user is dead and the service dispenses automatically a “secret”, that the heirs can use to retrieve the cryptocurrencies.
More details on the project Button of the Dead Man
Infrastructure engineer Lightning Labs, Joost Jager, has been exploring the use of the messaging protocol from the last year. In the conference of Advancing Bitcoin in London, Jager organized a workshop to find out how to build the button of a dead man with Lightning. If successful, he said, would demonstrate to the world that Lightning can be used as a messaging system as well as a payment network. However, it is noteworthy that these buttons are not new. In the workshop, Jager pointed out that Edward Snowden used one in the case of his death before the journalists could reveal the contents of the documents that I wanted to make public. The objective of the workshop was to explore one of the features relatively new of Lightning, “keyend” (formerly known as payments spontaneous). It is so experimental that are not even described in the specifications of Lightning yet. But it offers a way to send data (called “custom records” in the NLD, the implementation of the protocol in which you are working Jager) together with a transaction.
Imagine a user who wants to spend an inheritance of Bitcoin (BTC). That user would communicate with a “service”, by pressing a “button” that would send a message every week or something to notify that the user is still alive. If the button is not pressed for a week, it is assumed that the user of Bitcoin is dead or incapacitated and it is time to transmit the Bitcoin, at which time the service dispenses automatically a “secret”, that can be used to retrieve these cryptocurrencies. Beyond that, Jager thought that should be added some additional features, although you could make the program more difficult to implement. The program should maintain the privacy of the sender and of the receiver, he said, and should allow the sender to obtain evidence that the service still has the secret. The developers were divided into small groups to think about how to build a service that met all these, and other objectives. The developers of the workshop came up with some ideas, that Jager was published on GitHub. Included an implementation of the argument, that puts into practice several of the ideas, although said that the code “is extremely limited and does not implement everything described”. This design is not necessarily the best way to go, ” said Jager, but it is a proof of concept that it hopes can inspire other implementations.
Imagination vs. reality
Jager said that the reason to “primary” by which he chose to be the “dead man” for the workshop was that it is a use-case is sufficiently complex as to show what Lightning can do as a messaging system. In addition, Jager added that “a lot of people try to settle your inheritance of cryptocurrencies, and need to decide who to trust. This could be an alternative, assuming that the faults are removed and the whole process is hidden under a frame easy-to-use”. This is unlikely to occur in the short term, but its developers expect that you people can get to imagine and work on the possibilities. After all, it is as well as are the great inventions of the world.
Other opinions about it
Attorney Pamela Morgan, an expert in inheritance of cryptocurrencies, and author of a book dedicated to helping people develop a plan to convey their criptoactivos, agree with Jager. For Morgan, this type of technology is far from being ready. Even said that will not encourage users to put money in any experimental system of “buttons of a dead man” for the moment. In addition, he stressed that programs or projects do not solve the complex challenges that it presents a distribution of the inheritance of cryptocurrencies someone. The odds of a catastrophic loss are spacious for the time. This does not mean that we cannot categorize these ideas and projects “button of the dead man” as something promising. Despite the fact that at the moment there are few enthusiasts of cryptocurrencies that have some kind of plan on what to do with their coins when they die, it is comforting to see that there are people exploring possible solutions. Meanwhile, Jager is working on strengthening the system of messages of Lightning so that it can be used in this area. In other words, Jager, and Lightning will continue to work for the “dead man” becomes a reality sooner rather than later. The following two tabs change content below. A degree in Liberal Studies from the Metropolitan University. Lover of innovation and a believer of the technology for the future.