"Not your keys, not your coins" is one of the oldest Bitcoin sayings. It's correct, but it has an uncomfortable shadow side. When you alone hold your keys, you are the single point of failure — not Coinbase, not Binance, not a hacker. You.
What happens to your Bitcoin if something happens to you? Hospital, accident, cognitive issues in old age, death. These questions are surprisingly rarely discussed in Bitcoin communities. For small amounts it's irrelevant — for a meaningful stack it becomes a real problem.
We're looking here at what's technically possible without giving up self-custody. The focus is on three terms that together form an interesting solution: Miniscript, Liana, and the BitBox02. This is education, not concrete inheritance-law advice.
The standard problem: one backup, one risk
Anyone setting up a hardware wallet is asked to write down a seed phrase — usually 12 or 24 words. That's the master backup. Whoever has those words has the Bitcoin.
That's elegant security-wise, but it creates a dilemma:
Option 1 — Show the seed phrase to no one. Maximum protection from theft. But if you die, the Bitcoin is gone. Nobody can access it. Not your family, not your notary, nobody.
Option 2 — Hide multiple backups in different places. Reduces the "one fire destroys everything" risk. But increases the theft risk, because every hiding spot is a potential leak. One backup found by someone gives full access.
Option 3 — Tell family or notary. Solves the inheritance problem. But creates a trust requirement: these people could in theory steal from you anytime without you noticing.
That's the Bitcoin inheritance problem in a nutshell: every simple solution trades one risk for another.
What Miniscript changes
Miniscript is an extension of the Bitcoin scripting language, productively usable on mainnet since 2023. Simplified, it allows attaching conditions to Bitcoin under which coins may be spent. The most important condition for our topic: time locks.
With Miniscript, you can construct a wallet such that:
- a primary key can spend at any time (that's you)
- a second recovery key can only spend after, say, 12 months of inactivity
- optionally: further keys with longer lock periods and multi-sig conditions
Concrete example: you give a time-locked recovery key to your brother or notary. As long as you regularly send a small transaction to your own wallet ("refresh"), the time lock resets. Your brother can do nothing with his key.
But if you don't send a refresh transaction for 12 months — because you've passed away, are in a coma, lost mental capacity — his key becomes active. He can move the coins to a new address and distribute them to heirs.
That's the inheritance problem, solved technically through code, without revealing your master key to anyone.
Liana — the wallet software
Miniscript is a protocol feature. To make it usable, you need wallet software that understands it. The most well-known such wallet is called Liana, developed by the Wizardsardine team. It's open-source, free, runs on desktop (Windows, Mac, Linux), and focuses entirely on advanced recovery setups.
With Liana, you can set up a wallet defining any number of paths:
- Primary path: your key, anytime
- Recovery path 1: family, after 6 months inactivity
- Recovery path 2: notary or lawyer, after 12 months inactivity
- Recovery path 3: 2-of-3 multi-sig between heirs, after 24 months inactivity
Each path has its own condition. You can combine them by trust level and desired security.
Important: Liana currently requires you to run your own Bitcoin node. That's a non-trivial setup step — initially several hours to days of syncing, then ongoing maintenance. Liana is also still beta software. Wizardsardine itself currently doesn't recommend it for very large amounts.
That's the honest assessment: Liana today is an interesting tool for technically sophisticated users wanting to secure smaller to medium amounts with advanced inheritance logic. It's not the turnkey answer to the inheritance question for the average Bitcoiner.
What the BitBox02 contributes
Hardware wallets need to explicitly support Miniscript, otherwise the construction doesn't work. This is where the BitBox02 comes in — it was one of the first hardware wallets with full Miniscript support and is recommended in Liana setups as primary hardware signer.
In practice that means: you connect your BitBox02 to Liana, register the wallet descriptor (a small file describing the conditions) on the device, and can then sign transactions with your BitBox — while the time-locked recovery paths are all checked correctly.
Trezor now supports Miniscript too. Coldcard does as well (in the Edge firmware variant). Anyone wanting to build advanced inheritance logic is best served by these three manufacturers. Ledger doesn't support Miniscript in full scope.
The refresh problem
Miniscript wallets have a mechanism that's often overlooked: the refresh requirement. A recovery path's time lock doesn't measure "12 months since setup" but "12 months since the last transaction on this specific UTXO." If you do nothing, time eventually runs out — and the recovery key can spend even though you're still alive.
The solution is a regular refresh transaction: you send your coins to a new address of the same wallet. The time lock resets. Liana reminds you before expiry, and the transaction is trivial — you only need your primary key, i.e., your BitBox02.
But: you have to do it. If you forget — illness, long travel, technical issues — the time lock can accidentally expire. That's a new risk you don't have with classic single-key wallets.
What Miniscript does NOT solve
To be clear about where the technical limits lie:
1. Inheritance-law topics are not solved. Miniscript regulates who technically gains access to coins. It doesn't regulate who legally becomes owner, whether inheritance tax applies, or how forced-share rights work. These questions belong to a lawyer and tax advisor, not to the wallet.
2. Heirs need to know what to do. A recovery key alone isn't enough. Heirs need the key, the wallet descriptor (often on a microSD), instructions, and ideally someone who can help technically. Writing a "Bitcoin instruction for my family" is part of a good self-custody setup.
3. There's no protection from coercion. When your brother can spend with the recovery key after the lock period, he can do so under duress. That's a property of Bitcoin as a bearer instrument, not a bug of Miniscript.
4. Complexity is a risk in itself. A wallet with three recovery paths, four keys, three different lock periods, and a 2-of-3 multisig condition is mathematically elegant — and in an emergency hard to explain. The more complex the setup, the greater the chance something goes wrong in a crisis. Start with the simplest scheme that fits your life situation.
The honest practical recommendation
For Bitcoin holders with a meaningful stack (say, from 0.5 BTC or the equivalent of a small car) wanting to take the inheritance problem seriously, there are three realistic paths:
Path 1: Classic single-key setup with explicit inheritance plan. Hardware wallet, seed in steel backup, a sealed instruction with the notary containing backup locations and explanation. Pragmatic, technically unspectacular, recommended by many lawyers and Bitcoin advisors. The trust model shifts toward the notary — defensible because notaries are professionally bound.
Path 2: Multi-sig with collaborative custody. Providers like Casa, Unchained, Nunchuk offer 2-of-3 or 3-of-5 setups where one key is held by the provider and released in case of inheritance. That's commercially structured inheritance, with ongoing costs and a third-party trust model. Works robustly but isn't pure self-custody.
Path 3: Miniscript with Liana. Technically elegant, no ongoing costs, no third-party trust. Currently beta software, with Bitcoin-node requirement, with refresh obligation. Something for the technically secure niche, not for everyone.
Which path is right depends on stack size, technical competence, and trust model with family. There is no single answer.
Bottom line
The Bitcoin inheritance problem is real and underestimated. Miniscript is an elegant technical answer, and Liana plus BitBox02 is the most practically usable implementation today. For a niche of technically sophisticated Bitcoiners with moderate amounts, it's a very good solution.
For the broad majority of DACH Bitcoiners holding a serious stack and wanting to pass it to the next generation, classic inheritance setups with notary deposits or collaborative multi-sig solutions are more realistic today.
What remains: self-custody without an inheritance plan is half self-custody. Anyone unable to pass on their Bitcoin because nobody knows how to reach it has effectively lost it — the only difference is that it only becomes apparent after their own death.
FAQ
Do I need Miniscript if I only hold small amounts? Probably not. For a few hundred euros the setup effort isn't worth it. A classic hardware wallet setup with seed backup is sufficient, and a loss in case of inheritance would be bearable. Miniscript becomes interesting from a stack whose loss would represent real damage to heirs.
Can I use Miniscript without my own Bitcoin node? Currently barely. Liana requires its own node, which is the biggest hurdle for many. There are early efforts to change this, but as of 2026 self-running a node is mandatory. Anyone hesitant about that should look at collaborative multisig providers instead.
What happens if I forget the refresh transaction? Once the lock period has elapsed, the recovery key holder can theoretically spend. That's a risk you don't have with classic single-key wallets. Practical recommendation: choose conservative lock periods (e.g., 12 months instead of 6), mark refresh dates in your calendar, keep Liana reminders activated.
Why doesn't Ledger fully support Miniscript? Ledger has Miniscript support in limited form, but not in the full scope needed for Liana-typical setups. Trezor, BitBox02, and Coldcard are further ahead here. For serious Miniscript setups, these three are currently the standard choice.
Is my wallet still recoverable with just the seed phrase afterwards? No, that's an important difference: Miniscript wallets need the wallet descriptor in addition to the seed. Without the descriptor, no software knows which conditions apply to the coins. The descriptor isn't secret — anyone with it can see your wallet balance — but it's needed for recovery. You must store it together with the seed backup.