A family recovery plan for your bitcoin

Understand first: How a bitcoin wallet works

If something happened to you, could the people you trust find your bitcoin and recover it? A short written plan answers that. It tells them what exists, where to look, who to call, and what never to do. It does not hold your keys.

What the plan must never hold

Never write recovery words, a PIN, a passphrase, or a password on the plan. With those, a stranger who finds the plan can take the bitcoin or come much closer to it. The plan is a map. The keys stay where you already protect them.

Fill in the sheet

Download the family recovery sheet One page. Free.

Print it and fill it in by hand. Nothing is typed into this site.

• Who to call first. A person you trust who understands bitcoin, and a second in case the first cannot be reached. Add the lawyer or the person who holds your will.
• What exists. Name each place in general terms: an account at an exchange, a wallet on a phone, a hardware wallet by its maker and model. No amounts and no addresses.
• Where to look. Say where the device is kept. For the backup, either say where it is and keep the sheet somewhere else, or say who knows where it is. A sheet kept beside the backup protects nothing.
• Whether a passphrase is in use. Say yes or no, and who or what holds it. Never write the passphrase itself.
• The maker's official website. Copy it from the box or the device. Your family should use that address and no other.

What your family needs to know

A PIN protects one device. Trezor's guide says that wiping a device does not destroy the wallet: it can be recovered from the backup. So your family does not need your PIN, and they should not guess at it. Trezor says its Safe 7 wipes itself after 10 wrong PINs in a row. Check what your own maker says.

A passphrase is different. If you use one, the backup alone does not open the wallet. Trezor says there is no recovery for a forgotten passphrase, because nobody can look it up or reset it. Keep it apart from the recovery words, and make sure the plan leads to both.

An exchange account is a legal matter. The company holds the keys, so your family has to go through the company. Kraken, for example, deals with the legal representative of the estate, and asks that person for a death certificate, the document that appoints them, a photo ID, and a signed letter. In March 2026 Kraken also said that it offers no way to name a beneficiary on an account.

Nobody honest asks for recovery words. Ledger says it never asks for its customers' recovery phrase, and that nobody else should. A caller, an email, or a website that asks for the words is a thief.

A search is a poor way to find help. Pages that borrow a wallet maker's name can sit above the maker's own. Your family should type the address written on the sheet, and never follow a link from a search or a message.

What a sheet cannot do

A sheet is not a will. Who inherits, and who may act for you, are legal questions, and the answers depend on where you live. Ask an estate lawyer. Tell the lawyer that the plan exists and where it is kept.

Rehearse without exposing a secret

1. Check your own backup. Use the maker's own check. Trezor calls it checking the wallet backup, or a dry-run recovery: it confirms that the words were written down correctly. Do this alone.
2. Walk through the sheet. Hand the sheet to the person you named. Ask them to say out loud whom they would call, where they would look, and what they would refuse to do. Fix whatever made them hesitate. The sheet holds no secret, so nothing is exposed.
3. Practice on a separate wallet. Set up a second wallet with its own recovery words and a small amount. Let the person recover it from those words while you watch and say nothing. They learn the steps. Your savings, and the words that protect them, stay out of it.

Keep it current

Date the sheet. Review it once a year, and whenever something changes: a new device, a backup that moved, a new exchange account, a different person to call.

Keep the sheet on paper, in a place the right person can reach, and tell them it exists. A plan nobody can find helps nobody.

It takes an evening. It spares your family a search they should never have to make.