— Reader Notice —
Bitcoin Estate Plan.com
is presently being assembled.
Launches summer 2025.
The following article
describes the concept…
Website Premise
What am I trying to achieve with Bitcoin Estate Plan?
I want to enable my charitable giving in a way that can amplify the present value of what I have to give, leveraging the asymmetric opportunity presented by Bitcoin in 2025. The growth potential in real value represented by bitcoin is almost inconceivable.
Bitcoin will be volatile in its price discovery phase but it is certain to be safe from inflation. Years in the future, when volatility subsides, Bitcoin will continue growing in purchasing power. This enables longer term thinking (what economists call “low time preference”).
To supercharge my giving, I wish to exploit Bitcoin’s properties for 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 bad actors, the best option I see is Bitcoin, especially if I can properly employ such technical features as time-lock, a part of Bitcoin’s underlying code that allows money to be spent on a specific time schedule.
In short, I want an estate plan relying on Bitcoin and its code rather than the trust of men I’ll never know. I seek an estate plan… without the State.
Eliminate the Middleman
This website 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 should also be useful for younger people.
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 may encounter resistance from the legacy estate planning industry and legal system. The State could regard it a threat.
Yet, just as Bitcoin is anti-fragile, so can be a Bitcoin Estate Plan, one able to surmount the challenges and obstructions it may face.
It is the purpose of this website 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.
I will be exploring the idea in great detail and plan to chronicle what I learn on these pages. For example…
SATplan, a Blog
I seek a non-traditional arrangement I have named SATplan… Stateless, Autonomous, Trustless — an estate plan… without the state, and without middlemen. The name SATplan deliberately uses “Sat,” a reference to the satoshis that form portions of a whole Bitcoin (much like dollars and cents). Each Bitcoin is composed of 100 million Satoshis.
SATplan is a blog that will form a historical record of my progress to goal. I hope it may be illuminating as I document the steps taken to achieve Bitcoin Estate Plan.
I hope to unleash a tool for philanthropy 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 resistance.
SATplan employs multiple benefits of Bitcoin aiming to operate for 50 years or more after my death, a low-time-preference goal that serves my specific personal interests. It can also assure organizations — or your heirs — 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 structures 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 website, certain shortcuts will be employed to keep the presentation briefer. An example: taxes will not consume much discussion partly because recipients presumably have tax-sheltered status.
Time-lock — I have acquired a basic understanding of a Bitcoin Script term, time-lock. 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 on specified dates into the future, and Bitcoin code would execute this without ongoing human involvement — once plans are laid and time locks are created for later implementation.
More detail is needed and I am speaking to experts about how to resolve questions. I am seeking a method to assure recipients are ready — or, putting a finer point on it, that they still exist. Recipient organizations must maintain a cold hardware wallet and designate personnel to oversee this asset. Recipients will need to provide a plan of succession for such a designee to assure the program continues over the decades.
I will hire coders to create a user-facing module to allow me (and others) to manage this program. Progress is at a early phase but the goal is to enable the benefactor to make adjustments until a final commitment, at which time these plans become locked-in and immutable. As I presently understand time lock, no one can change this payment arrangement… not government regulators, not courts, not corporations, not hackers — not even me. It appears to be nearly untouchable until the date planned for execution.
My 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, it is my goal to have funds remain in the original benefactor’s wallet to be employed according to a stipulation within my estate plan, which anticipates a specific future scenario.
Other users of this concept may wish to give to grandchildren, for example. They could do so annually over many years.
A pre-announced and documented plan should be acceptable to legal authorities as well as tax authorities because beneficiaries will not be subject to taxes. Organizations will qualify for tax-exempt status. Heirs also enjoy shelter from taxes (within limits).
Is this legal? Because the plans are completely stipulated in advance, 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 code I had developed into open source. Thereby, others could also use this system and if adoption grows 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 action would be highly unpopular but desperate governments may take desperate actions. At present, I can envision no way malevolent operators could unlock these funds and take them without violating underlying Bitcoin code that appears to be inviolable. Assuming my understanding is accurate, time-lock prevents anyone from moving these funds until the specified date of execution.
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 16 years (in 2025) is insufficient 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 charitable funds will be discussed elsewhere.
Bitcoin’s asymmetric potential could massively amplify our philanthropic giving. This is a core element of Bitcoin Estate Plan.
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 I am going forward with it. However, I believe others will want to use this idea.
My Goals for
Bitcoin Estate Plan
and SATplan
Because I am a longtime aviation journalist, recently retired, I intend to write about SATplan and to explain what I think it can do for others. I will offer for free to anyone who may wish to use it the code I pay to have developed. 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 website, I will address perceived threats to SATplan arrangements.
Estate plans as created today appear to be captives of government rules about estates and inheritance, and of course, any taxes to which authorities feel entitled. Additionally, conventional trustee fees over a long passage of time will steadily and significantly erode the principal (LINK?).
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 🔸
🔸 Eliminate the Middleman 🔸