Do not move the coins. Do not try to log in anywhere. Do not type a seed phrase into anything. Do not accept help from anyone who contacted you.
The coins themselves do not expire. A private key does not lapse, and no authority closes a self-custodied wallet for inactivity. The estate around them is a different matter: filing deadlines, valuation dates and tax liabilities all run to a timetable, and an account held at an exchange may be subject to dormancy or unclaimed property rules in some jurisdictions. The single greatest risk in the coming weeks is you acting quickly. Slow is correct.
What you are actually dealing with
If the deceased held Bitcoin themselves rather than on an exchange, there is no institution to contact. No customer service line, no death certificate procedure, no court order that can compel release. Nobody is holding it on their behalf.
What exists is a secret. Usually a sequence of words, sometimes stored on a device, sometimes on paper or metal. Whoever has that secret can move the coins. Whoever does not, cannot, regardless of what any will or court says.
This has two consequences that shape everything below. If the secret is lost, the asset is gone permanently and no legal process recovers it. And if the secret reaches the wrong person, the asset is gone permanently and no legal process recovers that either.
Your job is to prevent both, in that order.
The first week
Secure the physical material
Before anything else, take custody of anything that might hold keys: hardware wallets, USB devices, paper or metal backups, notebooks, laptops, phones. Put them somewhere only you can reach.
Houses of the recently deceased see a lot of traffic. Family, cleaners, contractors, estate agents. A hardware wallet looks like a memory stick and a seed backup looks like a scrap of paper. Both get thrown away or pocketed with equal ease.
Do not throw anything away
Not the notebook with random words in it. Not the metal plate with letters stamped on it. Not the old phone. Not the envelope in the filing cabinet marked with nothing.
Clearing a house is the single most common way inherited Bitcoin is destroyed. Nothing gets discarded until you know what it is.
Look for the instructions
A careful holder will have left a letter of instruction. Look with the will, with their lawyer, in a safe or deposit box, or with someone they trusted.
If you find one, follow it and largely ignore the rest of this page. It was written by someone who knew their own setup, and it beats generic guidance every time.
Establish your authority before acting
Get the grant of probate, letters of administration, or whatever your jurisdiction issues. Until you hold it, you generally have no authority to deal with estate assets, and acting without it can expose you personally.
This does not stop you securing physical items. It does stop you moving or selling anything.
Find out what exists, without touching it
You can often determine holdings without any access to keys. Public addresses or an extended public key let you view balances on a block explorer, read-only. Wallet software can be opened in watch-only mode.
This is enough to value the estate. Establish what is there before you attempt to control it.
Get help, but choose it yourself
You will probably need someone technical. Choose them, do not let them choose you.
Nobody who contacts you unsolicited is helping you. Recovery scams monitor obituaries and probate filings specifically. The offer will be plausible, sympathetic and professional. Every one of them is a theft attempt.
Find your own person: someone you already know and trust, or a professional recommended by your lawyer. And even then, they should never need to see the seed phrase.
What might be there, and what each means
Exchange accounts
The easiest case. Exchanges have deceased-customer procedures. You will need the death certificate, your grant of authority, and identification. It will be slow and bureaucratic but it is a known process. Contact them in writing, through official channels only.
A hardware wallet
A small device, often looking like a memory stick. It is protected by a PIN. Devices differ, but behaviour on repeated wrong entries differs by manufacturer, model and firmware version. Some impose escalating delays, some wipe the device after a set number of attempts, and some do neither. Find the documentation for the specific device before trying anything. Do not guess the PIN. A wiped device is recoverable only from the seed phrase, so if you do not have that, guessing can destroy everything.
A seed phrase backup
Usually twelve or twenty-four words, though other lengths exist, on paper, in a notebook, or stamped into metal. This is the master key. Whoever holds it controls the coins.
Treat it as you would a large amount of cash. Do not photograph it. Do not type it into anything until you understand what you are doing. Do not read it aloud on a phone call.
A passphrase
Some setups add an extra word or phrase on top of the seed. If one exists and you do not have it, the seed alone will open an empty wallet and you may wrongly conclude the coins are gone.
If a letter of instruction mentions a passphrase, or if the recovered wallet shows a zero balance you did not expect, this is the most likely explanation. Do not give up at that point. Get help.
Multisig
Several keys, of which a certain number are needed. You may need to locate keys held by different people or in different places, plus a configuration file describing the arrangement. Without that configuration, the keys alone may not be enough.
This needs someone experienced. Do not improvise.
Valuation and tax
You will need a value for the estate. Two practical problems arise that do not with other assets.
Which price? Bitcoin trades continuously across many venues at slightly different prices. Your jurisdiction may specify a valuation date but is unlikely to specify a source. Pick a reputable, documented source, record exactly what you used and when, and be consistent. Keep a screenshot.
Where does the tax money come from? If the estate owes tax and the only substantial asset is Bitcoin, coins may have to be sold. That requires access, authority, and a decision about timing. Raise this with your lawyer and a tax adviser early, because a volatile asset can move a great deal between the valuation date and the moment you are able to sell.
Record every step: what you found, when, where, what you did with it, who was present. As executor you may have to account for your handling of the estate. With an asset that moves irreversibly and is easy to allege has been misappropriated, your own contemporaneous record is your protection.
Distributing to beneficiaries
When the time comes to transfer coins to a beneficiary, two things matter.
Verify the receiving address independently. Address-swapping malware is common and Bitcoin transactions cannot be reversed. Confirm the address through a second channel, and send a small test amount first, always.
Make sure the recipient is ready. Handing coins to someone who does not understand custody is handing them a problem they may lose. Give them time to set up properly, and give them the same warnings you have read here.
The short version
- Secure everything physical. Throw nothing away.
- Look for a letter of instruction before anything else.
- Get your legal authority before you move anything.
- Determine holdings read-only, without attempting access.
- Choose your own technical help. Ignore anyone who approaches you.
- Never guess a PIN. Never type a seed into an unknown device or website.
- Document every step.
- Test every transfer with a small amount first.
- Take your time. Nothing here expires.
Everything here is written to stay true. It explains how the machinery works rather than what today's numbers are, because thresholds, rates and deadlines change every year and a stale legal page is worse than no page at all. Where a current figure matters to your decision, this page tells you how to find it rather than guessing on your behalf.
General information, not legal advice. This site does not provide legal advice, and no professional or advisory relationship is created. Executor duties, personal liability, probate procedure and estate taxation vary substantially between jurisdictions. Acting as executor carries real legal responsibility. Engage a qualified lawyer licensed where the estate is being administered, and take tax advice before selling anything.