How to Set Up Bitcoin Inheritance Using Liana Wallet Timelocks

Your Bitcoin doesn't care that you died. Without explicit planning, it will sit in cryptographic limbo forever, inaccessible to your family and functionally destroyed. Traditional estate planning tools like wills and trusts can help, but they introduce lawyers, courts, and custodians into a system designed to eliminate exactly those dependencies.

Liana Wallet offers a different approach: trustless Bitcoin inheritance enforced directly on-chain through timelocks. The coins remain fully under your control during your lifetime, but if you stop moving them for a configured period, your heirs can sweep the funds using their own keys. No lawyers required. No custodians. No monthly fees.

Here's how to set it up.

How Liana's Timelock Inheritance Works

Liana uses Bitcoin's native `OP_CHECKSEQUENCEVERIFY` (CSV) opcode to create two spending paths for your coins. The primary path lets you spend anytime with your main key. The recovery path gives designated heirs the ability to spend, but only after a specified period of wallet inactivity.

The key insight is that timelocks in Liana don't lock your coins. They lock the conditions under which recovery keys become valid. You always retain full spending ability through your primary key.

When Bitcoin arrives at your Liana wallet, each unspent transaction output (UTXO) starts its own countdown. If you configure a 12-month timelock and don't touch a particular UTXO for 12 months, your heir's key becomes valid for that specific output. Move the coins before then, and the timer resets.

Step 1: Choose Your Timelock Duration

Liana expresses timelocks in blocks rather than calendar time. Since Bitcoin produces roughly one block every 10 minutes, the math works out to:

• 52,560 blocks ≈ 12 months
• 65,535 blocks ≈ 15 months (the maximum allowed by Bitcoin's 16-bit CSV encoding)

Most inheritance setups use something in the 12-15 month range. This provides enough buffer to cover extended travel, hospitalization, or temporary incapacity without triggering a false positive. It's also short enough that heirs won't wait years in a genuine death scenario.

The longer your timelock, the fewer refresh transactions you'll need to perform (more on this shortly). Many users opt for the maximum 65,535 blocks to minimize ongoing fees.

Step 2: Generate Keys for Owner and Heir

Liana's Simple Inheritance template requires two keys:

1. Your primary key (stored on a hardware wallet you control)
2. Your heir's recovery key (stored on a separate device they hold)

The heir's device should be set up and secured now, not after your death. This typically means purchasing a second hardware wallet, generating the heir's key on it, and giving the device to your designated beneficiary with basic instructions on storage.

Your heir doesn't need to understand Bitcoin deeply. They just need to keep their signing device safe and accessible. The actual recovery process is designed to be straightforward.

Step 3: Create the Wallet in Liana

Download Liana from Wizardsardine's official site (verify signatures if you're security-conscious, which you should be for inheritance planning). During wallet creation:

1. Select the Simple Inheritance template
2. Connect your hardware wallet and register it as the primary key
3. Import your heir's public key (xpub) from their device
4. Set your chosen timelock in blocks
5. Complete descriptor generation

Liana will create a Miniscript descriptor encoding your entire spending policy. This descriptor is crucial; it defines who can spend under what conditions and must be preserved for heirs to recover funds.

Step 4: Back Up and Distribute the Descriptor

The wallet descriptor is what allows any Miniscript-compatible software to reconstruct your wallet's spending rules. Without it, your heir's signing device is useless.

As of Liana v13.0 (released September 2025), you can create encrypted descriptor backups. This lets you store copies in less-secure locations without exposing your transaction history or balance to snoops.

Liana's official guidance recommends distributing descriptors to multiple parties:

• Directly to your heir (encrypted with their public key)
• To a solicitor, notary, or estate attorney
• Via a digital dead-man's-switch service as backup

The descriptor alone cannot spend your Bitcoin. It only reveals policy information and enables balance monitoring. Actual spending requires a valid signing device, so distribution doesn't create theft risk.

Step 5: The Refresh Obligation

Here's the tradeoff that makes Liana's trustless model work: you must periodically move your coins to prevent the inheritance path from activating while you're alive.

If you set a 12-month timelock, you need to perform a refresh sweep at least once every 12 months. This simply means sending your Bitcoin back to yourself, which generates new UTXOs with fresh timelocks.

Liana's desktop app tracks your timelock deadlines and warns you as refresh dates approach. A simple sweep transaction performed before expiry resets all timers.

This creates real operational overhead. Users on public forums have noted that every UTXO must be refreshed individually, which means transaction fees add up if you have many separate deposits. Some users consolidate UTXOs during refreshes to reduce future costs, though this has privacy implications.

For the maximum 15-month timelock, you're looking at roughly one mandatory transaction per year. Many users schedule this for a consistent date (early December, for instance) to build it into annual routines.

Step 6: What Happens When You Die

If you die or become permanently incapacitated and stop refreshing, the timelock period eventually completes. At that point, your heir's recovery key becomes permanently valid.

The recovery process for heirs is documented as:

1. Download and install Liana
2. Restore the wallet using the descriptor you left them
3. Connect their signing device
4. Wait for any remaining timelock maturity if needed
5. Sweep all funds to a wallet under their full control

Heirs should move coins to their own standard wallet rather than continuing to use the Liana inheritance setup. This avoids them inheriting your refresh obligation.

Advanced Configurations

The Simple Inheritance template covers most family situations, but Liana supports more complex arrangements:

Decaying multisig: Start with strict requirements (like 3-of-5 keys) that relax over time. Initially, multiple family members must cooperate. After a longer timelock, fewer keys are needed, ensuring funds remain recoverable even if some keyholders become unavailable.

Multiple recovery tiers: Configure different heirs with different timelocks. For example, your spouse might gain access after 12 months, while a professional key agent only becomes valid after 15 months as a final backstop.

Key agents: Liana's ecosystem includes vetted professional key agents who can serve as recovery fallbacks. They hold keys that only activate after extended timelocks and have no visibility into your wallet until activation.

Long-Term Considerations

Liana's model assumes that Miniscript-compatible tooling will remain available decades from now. Since descriptors are portable and Miniscript is part of Bitcoin Core, this seems reasonable, but it's not guaranteed.

Some analysts suggest leaving technical documentation alongside your descriptor, explaining how to reconstruct the wallet in alternative software if Liana were discontinued. This is probably overkill for most families but worth considering for very long time horizons.

The other consideration is that this is genuinely self-sovereign. There's no customer support line if your heir loses their device or misplaces the descriptor. The system works exactly as configured, for better or worse.

Is This Right for Your Situation?

Liana's timelock inheritance eliminates counterparty risk and ongoing fees, which makes it attractive for Bitcoin holders who prioritize self-sovereignty. But it introduces operational obligations and technical complexity that traditional solutions avoid.

If you're comfortable with annual wallet maintenance and can ensure your heirs receive the necessary descriptor and device, Liana provides a genuinely trustless inheritance path. If you want something you can set and forget, or if your heirs aren't technically inclined, a hybrid approach combining Liana with traditional legal instruments might be more practical.

The best inheritance plan is one that actually works when needed. Test your setup by walking through the heir recovery process before you need it. Make sure your designated beneficiaries know where to find their device and descriptor. And document everything clearly, because you won't be around to explain it.