How to set up Bitcoin inheritance in Liana
Liana's timelock system lets you pass on your bitcoin without involving lawyers, custodians, or guesswork.
How it works
In Liana, recovery keys with timelocks become spendable only after a set period of wallet inactivity. Your heir holds the recovery key but cannot use it until the timelock matures. As long as you use the wallet or run a refresh sweep, the timelock never expires during your lifetime. There is no custodian involved: the rules are enforced by Bitcoin itself.
Planning your setup
Before opening Liana, think through two questions:
- Who gets the key? This could be one person with a single recovery key, multiple heirs sharing a multisig recovery path, or a trusted third party holding one of the keys. Each approach has different trade-offs between simplicity and redundancy.
- How long should the timelock be? Twelve months is a common choice: long enough to survive hospitalization, extended travel, or an incapacity event, yet short enough to be practically useful when the time comes. You can adjust this when you set up the wallet.
Getting your heir's key
Your heir generates a key on their own hardware wallet and shares their extended public key (xpub) with you. They do not need to be present for your wallet setup, and they do not need Liana installed yet. The xpub lets you add their key to your spending policy without giving them any current access to your funds.
Alternatively, you can set up a dedicated signing device on their behalf, initialize it yourself, and store it in a tamper-evident bag along with its mnemonic backup. This approach works well when the heir is not yet technically set up or when you want the inheritance package to be fully self-contained and ready to use.
Setting it up in Liana
When creating a new wallet, choose the Simple Inheritance template. Add your primary key (your hardware signer), then add your heir's xpub as the recovery key. Set the timelock duration. Liana generates the wallet descriptor, a text string that encodes the full spending policy, including who can spend, when, and under what conditions.
Sharing the descriptor with your heir
Your heir needs the wallet descriptor to recover the funds when the time comes. Liana supports encrypted descriptors, which means sharing copies widely is safe: the descriptor alone cannot be used to spend your funds, and encryption protects your address and balance history from anyone who shouldn't see it. Give a copy to your heir directly, leave one with a notary, solicitor, or lawyer, store one in a digital dead man's switch, or do all of the above.
Keeping the timelock alive
The timelock only matures if your wallet is completely inactive for the full configured period. To prevent this during your lifetime, make at least one transaction (send, receive, or a refresh sweep to yourself) before the timelock expires. Liana will warn you as the deadline approaches. If your wallet has no natural spending activity, a refresh sweep (sending all funds back to yourself) is all it takes to reset the clock.
What your heir needs to do
When the time comes, the recovery process is straightforward:
- Install Liana on their computer
- Restore from the wallet descriptor you left them
- Connect their recovery signing device
- Wait for the timelock to mature, if it hasn't already
- Sweep the funds to a wallet they fully control
They never needed to trust you with their keys, and you never needed to trust them with yours. The protocol handles it.
Need help?
For community support, join the Telegram or Discord. For professional guidance on inheritance planning (key custody, descriptor storage, and legal integration), see Liana Business.