https://github.com/steemit/condenser
I consider Steem blockchain to be a long-term project. Steem’s users are highly motivated to build their positions up and vest liquid coins into Steem Power and most of them actually do so. As Steem is apparently mentioned to accompany one in his or her path of life, we shall take into consideration the possibility of unforeseen and unfortunate events that may make certain users unable to use their accounts. For that cases, steemit.com as the official front-end should offer an easy-to-use tool for inheritance of accounts.
Apparently, the possibility of inheriting crypto assets is an issue nowadays. According to Andy Little’s article, almost 4 million BTC is lost forever and the same fate met around 800 million XRP with a single death of one investor. Yes, everybody is responsible of his or her assets and thus people should manage their crypto accordingly. On the other hand, how many Steem users have already thought about the possibility they may not be capable of controlling their coins, including Steem?
Hence, I believe, that introducing a simple inheritance solution may be a great advantage of Steem.
Of course, any tool of that kind requires trust of the end users. It also brings security risks as it always contains confidential informations. User shall never keep their private keys online; the tool hence shouldn’t require them to do so. Instead, users shall be asked to keep the access keys physically in two different secure places, a bank vault or a secret cache in their homes for instance. Steemit inheritance tool will contain clues how to discover and collect the private keys physically and, if needed, a set of instructions how to use them and how to take profit of the inherited Steem.
The keen thing is the trigger that activates Steemit inheritance tool. I believe it shall be customizable as much as possible while maintaining the best possible secureness. Since many blockchain interactions (voting, commenting, claiming rewards) may be processed automatically, the only interaction the trigger shall take into consideration is publishing new posts. If user does not publish any post for certain time, I would suggest 18 months (should be customizable by the user), the tool shall start trying to reach the account owner. As privacy is an important issue either, he owner may optionaly provide contacts, where he or she wish to receive notifications before his instructions are sent to the legitimate heirs.
Owner contacts may typically be e-mail addresses, cell phone number, Telegram account or so. The messages shall always contain a link that stops or delays the process. In case of no reaction of the account owner within addition 6 month (while sending warnings monthly), the owner is considered to be unable to act and inheritance instructions are sent to contacts provided upon setting up the tool. In case the owner does not provide any own contacts, the tool instantly sends instructions to the heir(s).
I expect that most of the contacts will consist of public email providers such as Gmail. They are not the best solution for such purpose. I would personally recommend ProtonMail, which allows to send end to end encrypted mails. A partnership with ProtonMail may be beneficial for both Steemit and ProtonMail in that case. However, choosing the provider is on everybody’s responsibility.
Adding a simple tool that allows easily manage inheriting of Steem accounts (and possibly other coins as well) may be a great advantage of Steem blockchain. Unlike many of the other crypto wallets, Steem can with high certainty tell when the user is not active anymore, and when he or she actually stopped being active. Implementing the tool may lure publicity. A possible partnership with one of the secure e-mail service providers may be concluded.
