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My husband passed away a few weeks ago and he had a bitcoin account. Is there any way that I can recover that and transfer it?
Needing to recover husband's bitcoin account
Answers
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I'm sorry for your loss.
If your husband is keeping bitcoin at a big name bitcoin exchange, you may want to contact the exchange administrator to inquire about the procedure.
If the bitcoin is outside an exchange, then accessing it requires knowing a very long password or a very large number, possibly starting with "0x" (meaning hexadecimal). It would probably be written somewhere on paper, but may also be hidden in a password-protected file or stored in a special USB or other crypto device.
If you have reason to believe your husband may have significant money in this, you should really find a knowledgeable friend whom you trust to help you find the access credentials for the money. Unless you are pretty tech savy yourself, you should strongly consider immediately selling the bitcoin for "real money".
On the other hand, if you have no evidence that your husband had money in bitcoin (other than, as you said, "a link that said Bitcoin") you may want to understand that there are a lot of people with interest in Bitcoin who do not hold a meaningful amount of Bitcoin.
Lastly, as said already, do not trust anyone on the internet. Do not give anyone any passwords or any numbers you do not fully understand until you get help from a knowledgeable friend or have educated yourself very carefully. It is extremely easy to steal Bitcoin, it is nearly instantaneous, and it is almost completely outside of legal protections.
3I'm sorry to hear of your loss. It may be possible to recover your husband's BTC, but the answer will entirely depend on how and where you husband stored them: it may require you to locate a piece of paper with 12/24 words written on it, or find a hardware device that he stored them on, or to open a certain application on his computer or phone, or log in to a certain service online, etc. Try searching his email/computer/personal files for words like bitcoin, wallet, btc, blockchain, crypto, etc, to see if you can find any clues. – chytrik – 2019-11-26T03:45:54.923
4Additionally, if you happen to find his wallet/stash DO NOT share the 12/24 word phrase, private keys, or wallet file with anyone online. Anyone with this information will be able to spend his coins (ie, rob you). Anyone legitimate that is offering help will not ask you for this information. I highly recommend moving slowly and being sure of what you are doing, before doing it. There should be no rush, best of luck. – chytrik – 2019-11-26T03:49:10.993
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Possible duplicate of My husband died, I have lots of codes and words... help
– RedGrittyBrick – 2019-11-26T14:00:10.100I have never posted on here so it is not a duplicate. I have nothing but a link on his browser that says bitcoin. – Colleen Wallace – 2019-11-27T01:05:32.157
@ColleenWallace What does the link go to? How do you know he actually held bitcoin (or do you)? – David Schwartz – 2019-11-27T11:18:25.903