Bitcoin Wallets Now Offer Timelocked Inheritance Keys, but the Coins Must Keep Moving
A post on X has revived an idea several wallets already ship, a recovery key the bitcoin network refuses to honor until months have passed with no activity. It works for inheritance and for disaster recovery, but there is fine print, and October's fast blocks are running its clock early.
The user @MatheyBTC wrote on X last Sunday that "an inheritance key is also continuity" [1]. He pictures someone who loses everything at once, "devices, papers, computers," to "a fire, a theft, a confiscation." If that person left a recovery key somewhere else with a three-month timelock, he argues, they can move their funds again once the delay runs out. "Inheritance, backup + redundancy in the same setup," he concludes [1]. His post is in Spanish, and the quotes are NodeWitness translations.
Three wallets have turned it into a product. Liana, Nunchuk and Bitcoin Keeper build this kind of delayed key into their setups [2][3][4].
A rule the network enforces
Using miniscript, a language that makes such conditions easier to write, the wallet combines two paths. The primary one works like any other wallet, signed by the owner's key or keys. The recovery path adds another key, held by an heir or a third party, which can only sign once the delay is met [6]. Wizardsardine, the company behind Liana, stresses that none of this relies on its code or servers, because consensus rules impose it [7].
Relative timelocks have a ceiling. The BIP68 specification sets aside only 16 bits to encode them [8], so the maximum is 65,535 blocks, about 455 days if every block takes the ten-minute target. Expressed in time, the unit is 512 seconds [8] and the cap shrinks to roughly 388 days. Longer horizons require an absolute timelock, which Liana does not yet support. A request to add one has been open in its repository since 2022 [9].
Fast blocks pull the clock forward
When the delay is counted in blocks, the real calendar depends on how fast the network is producing them. Nunchuk's example is a 12,960-block timelock, "about 90 days" [5]. In the current difficulty epoch, our node measures an average of 9 minutes 23 seconds per block [10]. At that rate, those 12,960 blocks would pass in 84.5 days, five and a half days early. A coin received in block 973,514, the latest our node had validated this Wednesday, would become spendable by the recovery key at block 986,474 [10].
The gap doesn't last. Difficulty retargets every 2,016 blocks, and our node expects a 6.6% increase tomorrow, Thursday, which should bring block times back toward ten minutes [10]. Our difficulty adjustment page tracks it live. Either way, the date a wallet displays is only an estimate, as Nunchuk's own guide warns [5].
Three wallets, three designs
Each product tackles the same problem in its own way.
| Wallet | How the heir gains access | What the owner must do | Terms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liana (Wizardsardine) | A recovery path with its own key or keys after a period of inactivity [6] | Move every coin before the delay expires [6] | Free, open-source software. Its network of professional recovery agents is not available in the EU [2] |
| Nunchuk 2.0 | The quorum decays, for instance from 2-of-4 to 1-of-3, once the timelock expires [3] | Migrate funds to push back the deadline under the on-chain protocol [3] | Honey Badger subscription plans. A more flexible off-chain protocol is also offered [3] |
| Bitcoin Keeper | A dormant inheritance key joins as a signer, turning a 2-of-3 into a 2-of-4 [4] | "Re-vault" to delay activation [11] | At launch in December 2024, only on the Diamond Hands tier [11] |
Liana was built around the delay from the start. Its website says timelocks are on by default [2], and the project's repository describes a sample wallet that a manager can always spend from, that any two keys among a spouse and two children can unlock after a year, and that a third party can recover after a year and three months [6].
Nunchuk unveiled its version on November 12, 2025, calling it the first assisted inheritance solution with an autonomous on-chain failsafe [3]. To keep thieves out, the beneficiary needs two separate secrets, the inheritance key and the wallet configuration, which the company calls the "map" to the vault [3]. One alone won't do.
At Bitcoin Keeper, lead developer Ben Kaufman explained it with an example. A 2-of-3 wallet with an inheritance key set to one year becomes a 2-of-4 once that year is up, with no action from anyone, enforced by the chain rather than by Keeper [4][11].
The fine print
The first catch is discipline. In Liana, the clock starts when each payment arrives, and an owner who wants the recovery path to stay shut has to spend every coin at least once within the window [6]. The app offers shortcuts to "refresh" coins with a send-to-self transaction [6] and flags it on screen when less than 10% of the time remains [12]. Wizardsardine notes that early activation should be avoided, since it would hand premature access to whoever holds the recovery key, whether a relative or a service provider [12].
Refreshing costs a fee. Today it is close to negligible, with our node showing 2 sat/vB for next-block confirmation and 1 sat/vB to confirm within an hour [10], but fee markets shift, and the bill grows with the number of coins to move.
The second is a poor fit for savings that never get touched. @darosior, who opened the 2022 request in Liana's repository, wrote there that the roughly 15-month limit doesn't suit cold wallets where not every coin moves about once a year [9]. He also warned that a non-technical heir may struggle to sweep the funds, because not all coins become available at the same block height [9].
The third is that a script doesn't transfer ownership. Bitcoin Keeper says so in its help pages. No technology, it states, can guarantee legal transfer of title, which is why it pairs the tool with templates such as a letter to an attorney and recovery instructions for the heir [13]. A will is still needed, and the seed phrase doesn't belong in it, as our bitcoin inheritance planning guide explains.
Coins nobody moves
The underlying worry is money left without anyone able to use it. According to our HODL waves, the snapshot at block 973,007 shows 6,876,561 BTC unmoved for more than five years. That is 34.2% of the bitcoin our node counts, up from 18.9% in January 2018 [10].
That band blends patient savers, forgotten coins and funds whose owners have died, and the chain can't tell them apart. In 2017, Chainalysis estimated that between 2.78 million and 3.79 million bitcoin were lost for good, 17% to 23% of the supply at the time, based on statistical sampling of coin age and activity [14]. Other estimates have circulated since, though none can be confirmed from a node, as we noted in our piece on Michael Saylor and his keys.
What these wallets change is narrower. If the owner dies, the coins needn't join that dormant band. The hard part is making sure the family knows they exist, keeps both the key and the map, and understands the wait, and no script can do that on its own. More on custody and succession is in managing your bitcoin and privacy and self-custody.
Sources
Source type in parentheses. All web pages were accessed on October 26, 2026.
- @MatheyBTC, post on inheritance keys, October 25, 2026. Recovery key with a three-month timelock. Quotes translated from Spanish by NodeWitness. (Primary, author's statement)
- Wizardsardine, Liana. Timelocks on by default and recovery agent network unavailable in the EU. (Primary, product website)
- Nunchuk, Nunchuk 2.0: Autonomous Inheritance, November 12, 2025. Decaying quorum, two secrets to claim, on-chain and off-chain protocols, Honey Badger plans. (Primary, vendor announcement)
- Ben Kaufman, Welcome to Keeper 2.0, Medium. Dormant inheritance key, 2-of-3 becoming 2-of-4, on-chain enforcement. (Primary, product developer)
- Nunchuk, Miniscript 101: A Technical Guide. Absolute and relative timelocks, node rejection, 12,960-block example and the approximate date caveat. (Primary, vendor documentation)
- Wizardsardine, Liana repository on GitHub. Primary and recovery paths, family setup example, coin refresh requirement. (Primary, project documentation)
- Wizardsardine, What is a Bitcoin recovery key?. Consensus-enforced timelock and the 65,535-block limit. (Primary, vendor blog)
- Bitcoin Improvement Proposals, BIP68, Relative lock-time using consensus-enforced sequence numbers. 16 bits for relative lock-time and the 512-second unit. (Primary, technical specification)
- @darosior, Absolute timelocks support, issue #48, Liana repository, opened October 7, 2022. Roughly 15-month limit, fit with cold wallets, difficulty for heirs. (Primary, project documentation)
- NodeWitness, node status, difficulty adjustment, fees and HODL waves, read October 28, 2026. Block 973,514, 563-second average block time in the epoch starting at block 971,712, estimated 6.6% increase, 2 sat/vB next-block fee and snapshot at block 973,007. Timelock calculations by NodeWitness. (Primary, own data)
- No Bullshit Bitcoin, Bitcoin Keeper v1.3.0: Miniscript Support, Inheritance Keys & Remote Sharing, December 12, 2024. Re-vaulting and Diamond Hands availability. (Secondary, specialist press)
- Wizardsardine, Managing recovery paths in Liana. Alert below 10% of the timelock, risk of premature access, coin refresh. (Primary, vendor blog)
- Bitcoin Keeper, Inheritance with Keeper, not a one-size-fits-all solution. Legal ownership and templates for the attorney and heir. (Primary, official help)
- Fortune, Lost Bitcoins: 4 Million Bitcoins Gone Forever Study Says, November 25, 2017. Chainalysis estimate of 2.78 million to 3.79 million BTC lost. (Secondary, press)
More in Privacy and self-custody
Last updated: October 28, 2026