[rufusroflpunch]

This is baffling. It would be remarkably easy to memorize 12 words, then keep no active wallet anywhere. When you want to send coins, start up a desktop wallet, enter the 12 words, send some Bitcoin, then delete the wallet.

[cesarb]

If this was a really old Bitcoin wallet, it could be from before the "12 words" thing. IIRC, older wallets randomly generated each key, instead of deriving them from a seed passphrase (which also meant you had to be really careful with your backups, since an old backup of the wallet wouldn't have its newer keys).

[rufusroflpunch]

I am sure you’re right. But you could just send the funds to a new address in the new wallet. He could have done that at any point in the last 5+ years.

[323]

And one day you hit your head and can't remember the words anymore.

[gardenhedge]

maybe buy twelve items that represent the words and have them around the house

[tedunangst]

I saw that movie!

[gardenhedge]

What is the movie?

[Scoundreller]

Would he want to have all the funds in 1 wallet?

(I understand these hardware wallets let you load up as many as you want.)

[rufusroflpunch]

He was more or less doing that already anyway. He could at least have used an even moderate amount of modern Bitcoin opsec.