[gradschool]

> Someone will probably tell me about some theoretical situation where it is a positive force

Challenge accepted. My positive use case for cryptocurrency pertains to someone like me being over sixty and worried about being swept up into the guardianship system. With most of my assets in crypto and assuming decent opsec, they would be inaccessible to the guardian. If a judge ordered me to grant access, could I be cited for contempt by refusing to comply given that I had already been legally ruled incompetent? If I were cited regardless, would the threat of incarceration carry any weight given that I would be already incarcerated in an old age home? Unless there's some principle the guardian is trying to uphold, the rational course would be to choose a different victim.

[lxgr]

> With most of my assets in crypto and assuming decent opsec, they would be inaccessible to the guardian.

The flip side of this is that there’s also a decent chance of your assets becoming completely inaccessible to anyone, including you or any of your successors (if applicable), unless you’ve made careful preparations involving time locked contracts or similar.

And yes, you’re probably safer against the enforcement of court rulings you might disagree with, but you are extremely vulnerable to blackmail or cyberattacks compared to traditional bank accounts.

[LiquidSky]

Elder abuse is certainly a real problem, but the guardianship/conservatorship system also does address a real problem: many seniors actually do become mentally unable to manage themselves.

You're worried about falsely being forced into a guardianship, but what happens if you actually do develop Alzheimer's or some other form of dementia and your family legitimately needs access to your assets to care for you? It's easy to say you'd just give them access before it gets really bad, but an insidious part of the problem is that someone suffering from such a decline either doesn't, or refuses to, recognize it happening.

[Symbiote]

Before she died, my grandmother couldn't remember where she'd hidden her most valuable jewellery.

She was an excellent card player 10 years before that, probably because she could recall most/all of the playing cards in the discard pile, so I'm sure she could have remembered a Bitcoin wallet passphrase — until the last few years.

[lxgr]

I’ve unfortunately seen that as well.

Paranoia is a common side effect of dementia, and I’ve seen lots of anguish and money (legal/bank fees) spent on recovering non-life-changing savings that were just too well hidden. At least there was a fallback option to get them back – crypto would have been permanently lost.

Finding a middle ground between security and availability is hard even as a healthy adult and only gets worse with age.

[washadjeffmad]

That's what happened to my grandfather, and the same happened to a friend's father two years ago.

There are greater protections against elder abuse today, but often by the time their broker or finance manager finds out, the damage has been done.

[8note]

whats the benefit to you though?

youre going to be incarcerated in an even worse kept old folks home, and anything you actually try to spend on will be both spied upon - you getting a nurse to type in the secrets for you, or confiscated an sold before yoy could enjoy the results.

i think you'd be better off trying to tackle the problem directly, and get legal changes to how guardianship works, since itll still screw over your crypto assets

[gopher_space]

> worried about being swept up into the guardianship system.

Functionally speaking you'd have to be incapable of calling a lawyer on your own, which means you'd already be under someone's care. Even if you're being scammed dry, the absolute last thing you want in that situation is a lack of funding.

Find someone who understands end of life financial planning and set up whatever trust-like scheme they recommend.