Make a crypto emergency plan your family can understand

An emergency plan should help someone take the next sensible step when you cannot explain things yourself. It does not need to teach every part of crypto. Start with a page a trusted person can find, read and use without unlocking a device or making a transaction.

Start with the situation, not the recovery words

Temporary illness, a missing device and death are different situations. Say who should be contacted in each case and who is responsible for checking authority before anyone acts. Someone helping during a hospital stay should not have to interpret instructions written only for an estate.

Describe the scope in ordinary language: whether the plan covers self-custodied assets, exchange accounts or both. Avoid making a public inventory of balances and addresses. The first page needs to establish that a plan exists, not disclose everything needed to spend.

Give each person a clear role

Name a first contact and a backup contact, with independently verifiable contact details. Explain whether each person provides technical help, handles estate administration or knows how to locate controlled documents. A technically capable friend is not automatically entitled to act for the owner or the estate.

Make discovery possible without making spending easy

Separate the readable overview from recovery material. A note can describe an access process without containing a phrase, passphrase or exact secret location. Remember that even location information can be sensitive. Our guide to instructions without sharing secrets explains that separation.

Record whether a passphrase or other dependency exists in an appropriately protected part of the plan. Trezor’s documentation explains why a backup plus a different passphrase opens a different wallet. A family member should not interpret an empty wallet as proof that there were no assets.

Practise the handoff, not the transaction

Ask the intended reader to find the overview and explain what they would do first. Do not reveal secrets or move assets for this exercise. Use a partner conversation to uncover unfamiliar terms, then clarify the difference between technical access and legal ownership.

If a suspicious message arrives during an emergency, keep the device and records unchanged while verifying it through independently found official support. Receiving a message does not establish compromise. Review the plan after major family or wallet changes, not only after something goes wrong.