How it Works: Vault12 Digital Inheritance
Vault12 Digital Inheritance is the first solution to offer a simple, direct, and secure way to ensure all your digital assets can be accessed by future generations, for all types of investors.
Traditional approaches to the inheritance of assets, when applied to digital assets, create complexity and risk.
Your portfolio of digital assets is continually changing — you cannot rely on doing an inventory once, or for that matter continually, without assistance.
This simple and direct approach reduces the uncertainty around assets not being available to the designated recipient. Avoids having to approach and petition each service individually during probate to gain access.
View Video: How it Works
Built by Vault12, an app, and platform for protecting, backing up, and securing your digital assets, Vault12 Digital Inheritance enables you to designate a beneficiary (could be an executor, trustee, or beneficiary)who can then inherit your entire portfolio of digital assets stored in your Vault when the time comes — no need to continually update an inventory or issue updated instructions.
Digital assets, including cryptocurrency, financial login information, legal documents, medical records, and more can be added to a Vault12 digital Vault.
The Vault is protected by a network of Guardians — these are friends, family, and business associates — people you know and trust.
A beneficiary is designated by the Vault owner from amongst the Guardians and a declaration is digitally signed and transmitted to the beneficiary, and to lawyers as needed.
Upon the passing of the Vault owner, when the beneficiary is ready to access the digital assets, a designated number of Guardians approve the request and the assets are restored and transferred to the beneficiary.
Should the beneficiary attempt to access the assets prior to the owner’s passing, the owner can veto the request.
Let’s see the process step by step
Starting Point — Make sure you are using the latest app and that your Vault is already setup, Guardians have been assigned and assets added. To see how to do this watch this video.
I. Configuring Inheritance
As the Vault owner, you need to turn on the Digital Inheritance capability and assign a beneficiary from your group of Guardians. Depending on what you and your Trust &states lawyer have agreed in terms of a Will or a Living Trust, the designated individual could be the Beneficiary or the Executor, or in fact the Trustee — this is entirely up to you and lawyer.
Click on the setting icon and select “Inheritance”, this will enable you to designate one of your Guardians as the inheritor.
2. Once designated, you will be asked to fill in some details like full legal names, and these will be inserted into a legal declaration that documents the assignment of your digital assets to the designated Guardian at some point in the future.
3. Once you’ve reviewed the declaration and signed it, a copy is sent to the beneficiary together with an invitation to accept. You may want to call your beneficiary at this point to discuss your wishes for the future.
II. Activating Inheritance as the beneficiary
When the time comes to access the inherited digital assets, the beneficiary opens the Vault12 app, selects the Vault to be inherited, and actives Inheritance. This will send a safeguard message to the Vault owner — just in case the Beneficiary is actually jumping the gun. The owner has a set period of time, say 48 hours, to veto the request.
2. Once the Vault is ready, the Beneficiary is asked to contact the owner’s Guardians.
The Guardians are contacted out of band e.g. by phone by the beneficiary and asked to do a Vault Recovery.
The Vault recovery/asset unlock process is the same process that Guardians may have enacted multiple times for the owner — so nothing new for them to do.
3. Once the minimum number of Guardians have confirmed a Vault Recovery, the assets are transferred to the Beneficiary.
The Inheritance process is complete, and the new Beneficiary will be free to disburse the assets are specified by the Vault owners Will or Living Trust.
The Vault12 Digital Inheritance capability is designed to ensure that all digital assets — not just cryptocurrency — that are backed up in the original Vault, can be passed on to a designated individual in the future.
Vault12 Digital inheritance is part of the Vault12 app and is now available in the App Store, Google Play, macOS, and Windows. Download on https://vault12.com/download.