Website Premise
What am I trying to achieve?
I want to enable my charitable giving in a way that can amplify the present value of what I have to give.
Bitcoin may be volatile in the near term but it is nearly certain to be safe from inflation and should grow in purchasing power by at least the productivity rate far into the future. This enables longer term thinking (what economists call “low time preference”).
To enable a multiple of present values, I seek to apply Bitcoin’s properties to long-term giving (50 years or more).
To enable long-term giving I need a very low-cost system.
To enable a low-cost system I cannot depend on the skills of highly-paid professionals. Additionally, I want a system of giving that is out of the reach of hackers, meddling governments, corporations, or evil persons.
To enable a system out of reach of malevolent operators*, the best option I see is Bitcoin, especially if I can properly employ such technical features as time-lock addresses (abbreviated as TLAs).
In short, I want an estate plan relying on Bitcoin and its script rather than the trust of men I’ll never know. I seek an estate plan… without the State.
* malevolent operators can include: government at all levels and in any country; bureaucracies including spy agencies, military, and police; corporations; criminals; and all others who seek your assets for their use.
Summary of goals
This website /or/ white paper will explore creation of a user-configurable estate plan based entirely on Bitcoin. This appears to be an underexplored use case, one that could evolve into a valuable means of transferring assets and donating to charitable organizations or giving to heirs.
This idea may have immediate appeal to older persons planning charitable giving from their estate but the ideas will (???) work equally well for younger people preparing for retirement
Given the upcoming financial tsunami when Boomers transfer their tens of trillions, the right concept could ignite powerful interest in Bitcoin.
For my estate, I seek to eliminate the middleman, not out of anger, but because those services are no longer optimal in the age of digital assets. This peer-to-peer concept offers more predictable and precise control without human error or fees instead employing cryptography and its math.
Naturally, such a venture will confront many challenges and will likely encounter resistance from the legacy estate planning industry and legal system. The State may consider it a threat. As Bitcoin is anti-fragile, so can be such an estate plan perhaps, one able to surmount the challenges and obstructions it may face.
It is the purpose of this white paper to describe the goal, to suggest a possible solution within Bitcoin Script (still primitively understood by me), and to solicit assistance for development and implementation.
SATplan
I seek a non-traditional arrangement I have named SATplan… Stateless, Autonomous, Trustless — an estate plan… without the state, and without middlemen.
I hope for a charitable philanthropic distribution program that works according to code and which does not need either government mechanisms to enforce it nor trustees to manage it.
Technically this seems achievable with diligent planning and careful code writing. From a legal viewpoint, it may face greater difficulties.
SATplan employs multiple benefits of Bitcoin aiming to operate for 50 years or more after my death, a low-time-preference goal that serves very specific personal interests. It can also assure organizations of mathematically-certain long-term contributions.
Conventional estate plans require trustees. Simplistically, their duty is to manage assets and send donations as specified in an estate plan though the legal demands behind such basic actions can be complex. Further, in the passage of 50 years, the initial trustee personnel will be replaced by younger people whom I will never meet. Society attitudes may change in ways impossible to forecast. Trustees may apply new fees without my having any knowledge of it (contracts I would be asked to sign no doubt ensure this privilege).
The state often changes the rules making them difficult to anticipate. Nonetheless, for this white paper, certain shortcuts will be employed to keep the presentation briefer. An example: taxes will not be factored as a problem because recipients presumably have tax-sheltered status.
Time-lock and Superposition — I have come to a primitive understanding of Bitcoin Script term time-lock addresses (TLAs) and a physics metaphor of superposition. I believe these capabilities within Bitcoin may offer an innovative if unorthodox solution.
If I understand this tool correctly I might designate organizations to receive donations, amounts to be paid with dates (identified by blocks as a calendar proxy), and code would execute this without ongoing human involvement — once plans are laid and PSBTs are created and time-locked for subsequent deployment.
Code must further be written to provide a query-and-response system to assure recipients are ready (or, putting a finer point on it, that they still exist). Recipient organizations must maintain a wallet and designate personnel to oversee response to the query. Ideally, code will allow the benefactor to make adjustments until a final commitment, at which time these plans are locked-in and become immutable.
Recipient organizations have been selected carefully and most have already passed a 50th anniversary, suggesting they could last another 50. In the event of an organization failing, funds would remain in the original benefactor’s wallet — TBD: with the time-lock removed? — and be employed according to a stipulation within my estate plan (a broader version of which anticipates a specific future scenario).
Ostensibly, this plan could succeed with authorities because any subsequent removal from that original benefactor’s wallet would be subject to taxes at the time, perhaps resolving this dilemma by assuring tax authorities will receive the portions they believe are warranted.
Is this legal? Because the plans are completely stipulated in advance, even though spanning 50 years, the concept might be framed under current law that allows such foresight planning. Yet the capricious eagerness of politicians to continue unsustainable spending could eventually stimulate an attack on SATplan, especially so after I put the developed code into open source. Others could also use this system; if adoption grew sufficiently, authorities might view it as an irresistible target.
Since I will be dead and have no heirs for authorities to harass and since the code cannot be altered, one outcome is that authorities go after the beneficiaries. Such would not be a popular action but desperate governments may take desperate actions. At present, I can envision no way they could unlock these funds and take them without violating the underlying Bitcoin code. Assuming my understanding is accurate, time-lock and superposition prevent anyone from moving these funds until the date (block) of execution.
A pivotal, unresolved question relates to ownership of Bitcoin after my death (noting key use-case differences for two wallets I expect to leave behind). Time-lock may address my charitable ambitions, but I am uncertain about my “forever” wallet. I seek an alternate means than giving my recovery phrase to a trustee. It remains to be seen if the legal system will permit another alternative… or if the Bitcoin protocol makes such concerns trivial.
Future developments in computing, technology, and cryptography are impossible to predict. Neither can I anticipate the multiple directions Bitcoin and related technologies may take. I must place faith in well-written and triple-checked code to execute SATplan as designed. This goal leans heavily on the demonstrated stability and security of Bitcoin. Although 15 years (in 2024) is not sufficient history to forecast the future, Bitcoin has been exceptionally resilient and presents the best opportunity I’ve seen in my life.
Note that none of this preliminary discussion mentioned the BTC-fiat price or Bitcoin’s long-term gain potential measured in purchasing power. Anticipated distribution of the charitable funds will be discussed elsewhere. Yet the exceptional asymmetric opportunity presented by Bitcoin at this time and looking forward 50 years could massively amplify the philanthropic giving I have in mind. This is a core element of my overall Bitcoin estate plan. Initially, SATplan and its code will be developed to execute at a basic level.
All this appears to represent fresh ground. Legal questions and technical challenges must be addressed. Original code must be written.
Perhaps I am the only one to want this. Fortunately, I have the resources to pursue this on a personal level and unless I run into an insurmountable barrier, I will go forward with it.
However, I am a longtime aviation journalist, recently retired, and I intend to write about SATplan and to explain what I think it can do for others. I will offer any code I have developed for free to anyone who may wish to use it. I imagine it could develop some potential for adoption. In theory, this should work in any country although local laws may attempt to prevent it. In other areas of this white paper, I will address perceived threats to SATplan arrangements.
Today, estate plans appear to be captives of government rules about estates and inheritance, and of course, any taxes to which authorities feel entitled. Additionally, Trustee fees will over a long passage of time will steadily and significantly erode the principal (LINK to infographic).
SATplan may address all these issues. This is my mission and armed with the power of Bitcoin plus sufficient determination, I expect to succeed.
🧡 Estate Planning Without the State (0124)‼️ — Eliminate the Middleman (and the fees, trust, loss of privacy
Second SAT plan post
Interested in leaving assets to your kids? Sure, others can help you …for a fee. Yet do you need them? Do you want them? Want to support a favorite organization after you’re gone? How can you best help them — maybe a lot better? How can you turbocharge your giving, perhaps by multiples? This is…
SAT plan
First Blog Draft (17aug24): Everyone with substantial assets should have an estate plan. Many have not started such plans but those who have almost always end up with estate lawyers who recommend trustees. Estate lawyers and trustees claim they will take care of your assets and will distribute them according to your wishes. Maybe they…