[Cryptography] Business opportunities in crypto

Henry Baker hbaker1 at pipeline.com
Fri Apr 16 10:38:57 EDT 2021


At 01:52 PM 4/13/2021, Jerry Leichter wrote:
>> I had lunch with a colleague the other day and we were
>> discussing business opportunities in the crypto space.
>> 
>> I suggested several possibilities, and I'd love to know
>> if anyone is already working on such things.
>> 
>> 1. Digital Wills. Almost everyone now has tens of id/pw
>> pairs that access bank accounts, social media accounts,
>> etc., but these data are incredibly toxic, as even a
>> small % of these data could be used to take over your
>> identity and destroy your life. Nevertheless, if you
>> pass on, someone has to be able to access these accounts
>> to properly administrate your assets according to your
>> will. Clearly, some number of people -- your lawyer,
>> your family members, the govt, etc. -- need to know
>> some of the bits, but only when your death certificate
>> is filed can your accounts be accessed, and then only
>> by a combination of those people, and not by any
>> individual person.
>
>The Wall Street Journal had an article about exactly this topic a couple of days ago.  I think it's behind a paywall, but if you reach it via search you should be able to see it.  Search for the title "A Digital Vault to Store Information for your Heirs." There are a couple of companies doing this already, but as the article points out, you really need to (a) trust them; (b) trust they will actually be around - something that's tough for a startup to do.  I'd guess banks - who've had centuries establishing this kind of reputation - will end up getting involved.

Thanks!

After some googling, I believe that 'digital vault' is
apparently becoming the term of art for this sort of thing.



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