Crypto-Wills: Transferring Digital Assets by Maintaining Wills on the Blockchain

Jainam Chirag Shah*, Mugdha Bhagwat, Dhiren Patel, Mauro Conti

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volumeChapterScientificpeer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Traditional methods of transferring assets post demise are tedious and problem-ridden. These methods do not account for the increasing variety of digital assets (including crypto-assets) present today. Hence, when a person dies, his/her tangible assets can be distributed according to his/her Will, or the prevailing legal framework. However, his/her digital assets are left inaccessible (due to their inherent security) and are, in turn, lost forever. In order to provide a reliable and secure way of transferring digital assets, we propose a system to execute Wills after the demise using blockchain. The proposed solution maps the assets using ERC-20 and ERC-721 tokens and enables the owner of the Will to deploy a smart contract mentioning his wishes. The contract is executed based on the defined consensus mechanism, and the assets are transferred to the beneficiaries.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationLecture Notes in Networks and Systems
PublisherSpringer
Pages407-416
Number of pages10
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Networks and Systems
Volume120
ISSN (Print)2367-3370
ISSN (Electronic)2367-3389

Keywords

  • Blockchain
  • Crypto-assets
  • Cyber security
  • Proof of Vote
  • Security tokens
  • Smart contract

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