What to do when a Unchained account holder dies
Contact Unchained's Estate Center / Inheritance Support — 6-step process, 6 required documents, and not published as a service-level commitment. in practice the paperwork and the key are separate clocks: title moves at the speed of the probate court (or immediately, for an ira beneficiary, a vault tod beneficiary, or a sitting trustee), while key recovery moves at the speed of finding the decedent's seed backup. an estate with perfect court paper and no recovered key does not get paid.
Customer Support
PO Box 662, Austin, TX 78767
Inheritance Support
PO Box 662, Austin, TX 78767
When an account holder at Unchained passes away, the next step depends on how the accounts were set up. Accounts with beneficiary designations or trust ownership transfer outside of probate. Accounts titled solely in the deceased's name require the estate's legal representative to work with Unchained's Inheritance Support ((844) 486-2424) to access and distribute the funds.
Death claims at Unchained can be started through an online portal, which streamlines the initial notification and document upload. Phone and mail options are also available.
Death claim process
Here is the step-by-step death claim process at Unchained:
Filing a claim
- Email inheritance@unchained.com (the dedicated inheritance address) or call (844) 486-2424
- Provide the deceased client's name and, if known, the account or vault information
- Start from the Estate Center at https://www.unchained.com/estate-center, which carries Unchained's downloadable guide for people handling a loved one's bitcoin
- A Short Certificate, Certificate of Appointment, or Letters Testamentary (whichever the appointing court issues)
- Certified death certificate
- Birth or marriage certificates, or proof of a legal name change, where the claimant's relationship or identity has to be tied to the court paper
- Government-issued photo ID of the executor, trustee, or beneficiary
- Locate the seed backup the decedent passed on. Under the Unchained Inheritance Protocol the decedent should have delivered a sealed package containing an inheritance seed phrase card, a key succession and transfer-of-title checklist, and two executor/trustee letters
- Executor/Trustee Letter A was meant to be read when the key was first handed over, during the client's lifetime; Executor/Trustee Letter B is the sealed one, opened only on death or incapacity, and walks the executor through bitcoin recovery
- With one decedent key recovered and Unchained co-signing with its key, the two-of-three threshold is met and the bitcoin can be moved to the heir
- If NO key was passed on and the decedent held both client keys with no backup, the bitcoin is not recoverable by Unchained. Unchained cannot reconstruct a lost client key; its single key is not enough
Required Documents
- Certified death certificate
- Court-approved appointment paper: Short Certificate, Certificate of Appointment, or Letters Testamentary
- Birth certificate, marriage certificate, or proof of legal name change, where needed to tie the claimant to the court paper
- Trust certificate or trust agreement (for trust-held vaults)
- Government-issued ID of the claimant (executor, trustee, or beneficiary)
- The decedent's seed backup, i.e. the Unchained Inheritance Protocol materials (Executor/Trustee Letter B, inheritance seed phrase card) — required for key control, not just paperwork
Claims Contact
What to know at this institution
Unchained is not a conventional custodian and a death claim here is not a conventional payout. The 2-of-3 collaborative custody model means Unchained can never move a client's bitcoin alone and can never be compelled to release it alone, so the entire estate outcome turns on whether the decedent set up key succession while alive. The lifetime setup is the Unchained Inheritance Protocol (executor/trustee letters A and B, a key succession and transfer-of-title checklist, an inheritance seed phrase card), supplemented by the "Connections" feature, which lets a client register trusted family members so they know where things are and whom to call, without granting them access before death. Unchained also refers clients to Gannett Wealth Advisors (plan design) and Gannett Trust (trust formation and qualified custody) for more complex arrangements. Dedicated inheritance contact: inheritance@unchained.com.
Processing timelines at Unchained: Not published as a service-level commitment. In practice the paperwork and the key are separate clocks: title moves at the speed of the probate court (or immediately, for an IRA beneficiary, a vault TOD beneficiary, or a sitting trustee), while key recovery moves at the speed of finding the decedent's seed backup. An estate with perfect court paper and no recovered key does not get paid. Incomplete documentation is the most common cause of delays—submitting all required documents with the initial claim helps avoid additional processing time.
Unchained requires several documents to process a claim, including Certified death certificate, Court-approved appointment paper: Short Certificate, Certificate of Appointment, or Letters Testamentary, and Birth certificate, marriage certificate, or proof of legal name change, where needed to tie the claimant to the court paper, and additional documentation depending on the account type. Certified copies are typically needed—photocopies are generally not accepted for death certificates or court documents.
Frequently asked questions
Because Unchained is not a conventional custodian. Its vaults are 2-of-3 multisignature: you hold two keys and Unchained holds one, and two keys are required to move the Bitcoin. Unchained states that an inheritor needs two separate things, legal title and key control. Court paperwork such as a Short Certificate, Certificate of Appointment, or Letters Testamentary establishes legal title, but Unchained can only add its single co-signing key. If the decedent never passed on one of their two keys, Unchained cannot move the Bitcoin no matter how complete the estate paperwork is. Executors should contact inheritance@unchained.com early, before assuming this works like a bank claim.
The Inheritance Protocol is the lifetime package that solves the key-control half of the problem. It contains an inheritance seed phrase card on which you record a copy of a seed phrase protecting your vault, a key succession and transfer-of-title checklist, and two letters: Executor/Trustee Letter A, which your executor reads when you hand over the key while you are still alive, and Executor/Trustee Letter B, which stays sealed and is opened only on your death or incapacity and walks the executor through Bitcoin recovery step by step. It is designed so a non-technical executor can recover the key without prior Bitcoin expertise.
Unchained names three situations where inheritance is simplest: an Unchained IRA with a named beneficiary, a personal vault with a transfer-on-death (TOD) beneficiary, and a trust account with a trustee already added. In each case legal title is settled in advance by the designation or the trust, so no probate order is needed to establish who is entitled to the Bitcoin. Note that for the personal vault, the TOD designation only settles title, not key control, so you should still complete the Inheritance Protocol.
A Trust Vault is created under a trust entity account, so the trust, not you personally, owns the Bitcoin from the outset. Nothing has to be re-titled at your death: the successor trustee simply steps into the existing trust account and the vaults under it, and no probate court is involved. Trustees can be granted varying levels of access and additional trustee seats are available. A TOD beneficiary on a personal vault also bypasses probate, but it settles only title, and TOD recognition varies by state, so Unchained points clients toward a trust for more complex arrangements and refers them to Gannett Trust for trust formation and qualified custody.
Unchained's Inheritance Support can be reached by phone at (844) 486-2424 and email at inheritance@unchained.com for questions throughout the claims process.
If the deceased held multiple Unchained accounts, each may require a separate claim or have different documentation requirements. The Inheritance Support can confirm which accounts require individual attention and which can be processed together.
Sources
Data sourced from Unchained primary sources (19 pages reviewed). How we research.
Customer Support
PO Box 662, Austin, TX 78767
Inheritance Support
PO Box 662, Austin, TX 78767
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