Block’s Bitkey rolls out bitcoin inheritance fix for ‘multibillion-dollar problem waiting to happen’
Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter Inc., speaks during the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, Florida, U.S., on Friday, June 4, 2021.
Eva Marie Uzcategui | Bloomberg | Getty Images
For over a decade, bitcoin has been lauded as a revolutionary financial asset — decentralized, self-sovereign and resistant to confiscation — all contributing to an astronomical increase in value.
But one problem has remained largely unsolved: What happens to your bitcoin when you die?
While traditional financial institutions allow for the seamless transfer of stocks, mutual funds and retirement plans, bitcoin’s self-custodial nature makes inheritance and estate planning inherently thorny. Coinbase requires probate court documents and specific will designations before releasing funds, while physical wallets offer little to no support, potentially leaving all that digital value stuck on a private key.
Jack Dorsey‘s Block says it’s created a fix, and the company is now bringing it to market.
In November, Block’s Bitkey self-custody bitcoin wallet introduced an inheritance feature that lets users set a beneficiary for their bitcoin holdings, creating a simple system for transferring the digital currency in the case of death. The feature is being rolled out on Wednesday.
“A lot of people have significant amounts of bitcoin at this point, or appreciating bitcoin, that’s sitting in a place where it’s not going to get to their loved one,” said Jason Karsh, who joined the company in July and is now Bitkey’s head of business. “It’s just kind of a multibillion-dollar problem waiting to happen that we’re hoping to solve by making it super easy to recover in the case of your death.”
Karsh said that with other bitcoin storage products, beneficiaries typically have to provide extensive legal documentation. And hardware wallets often require a user to store seed phrases in a way that exposes their bitcoin to unnecessary risks.
Bitkey is one of the remaining pieces of Dorsey’s crypto strategy at the company he originally started as Square. The same month that Block announced the inheritance product, the company said it was winding down its unit called TBD, which was created in 2021 to focus on bitcoin. TBD was designed to be Block’s platform for developers in an effort to create a more decentralized, secure and private internet.
In shuttering TBD, the company said it would still be investing in Bitkey as well as a bitcoin mining initiative, while continuing to allow users to buy bitcoin through the Cash App.
Unlike traditional crypto exchanges that profit from holding user funds, Bitkey makes money through hardware sales and, potentially, transaction fees. The Bitkey device is a self-custody bitcoin wallet that users purchase to store their private keys securely.
For the inheritance offering with Bitkey, the company lets the user create a separate key for the beneficiary that’s uploaded to Block’s servers. The beneficiary has no access to the key until six months after the owner dies. The funds will then be securely transferred to the beneficiary’s own Bitkey wallet.
Beyond Bitkey, Dorsey said in the company’s latest earnings report that Block expects to deliver its first bitcoin mining chips this year, and is “building the infrastructure to scale faster, investing in next generation chip design and mining systems.”
According to a Tesla Semi customer, the electric truck program is suffering more delays and a price increase that is described as “dramatic.”
Tesla Semi has seen many delays, more than any other vehicle program at Tesla.
It was initially unveiled in 2017, and CEO Elon Musk claimed that it would go into production in 2019.
In late 2022, Tesla held an event where it unveiled the “production version” of the Tesla Semi and delivered the first few units to a “customer-partner”: PepsiCo.
More than 3 years later, the vehicle never went into volume production. Instead, Tesla only ran a very low volume pilot production at a factory in Nevada and only delivered a few dozen trucks to customers as part of test programs.
But Tesla promised that things would finally happen for the Tesla Semi this year.
Tesla has been building a new high-volume production factory specifically for the Tesla Semi program in a new building next to Gigafactory Nevada.
The goal was to start production in 2025, start customer deliveries, and ramp up to 50,000 trucks yearly.
Now, Ryder, a large transportation company and early customer-partner in Tesla’s semi truck program, is talking about further delays. The company also refers to a significant price increase.
California’s Mobile Source Air Pollution Reduction Review Committee (MSRC) awarded Ryder funding for a project to deploy Tesla Semi trucks and Megachargers at two of its facilities in the state.
Ryder had previously asked for extensions amid the delays in the Tesla Semi program.
In a new letter sent to MSRC last week and obtained by Electrek, Ryder asked the agency for another 28-month delay. The letter references delays in “Tesla product design, vehicle production” and it mentions “dramatic changes to the Tesla product economics”:
This extension is needed due to delays in Tesla product design, vehicle production and dramatic changes to the Tesla product economics. These delays have caused us to reevaluate the current Ryder fleet in the area.
The logistics company now says it plans to “deploy 18 Tesla Semi vehicles by June 2026.”
The reference to “dramatic changes to the Tesla product economics” points to a significant price increase for the Tesla Semi, which further communication with MSRC confirms.
In the agenda of a meeting to discuss the extension and changes to the project yesterday, MSRC confirms that the project went from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks while the project commitment is not changing:
Ryder has indicated that their electric tractor manufacturer partner, Tesla, has experienced continued delays in product design and production. There have also been dramatic changes to the product economics. Ryder requests to reduce the number of vehicles from 42 to 18, stating that this would maintain their $7.5 million private match commitment.
In addition to the electric trucks, the project originally involved installing two integrated power centers and four Tesla Megachargers, split between two locations. Ryder is also looking to now install 3 Megachargers per location for a total of 6 instead of 4.
The project changes also mention that “Ryder states that Tesla now requires 600kW chargers rather than the 750kW units originally engineered.”
Tesla Semi Price
When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.
However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2023. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.
New diesel-powered Class 8 semi trucks in the US today often range between $150,000 and $220,000.
The combination of a reasonable purchase price and low operation costs, thanks to cheaper electric rates than diesel, made the Tesla Semi a potentially revolutionary product to reduce the overall costs of operation in trucking while reducing emissions.
However, Ryder now points to a “dramatic” price increase for the Tesla Semi.
What is the cost of a Tesla Semi electric truck now?
Electrek’s Take
As I have often stated, Tesla Semi is the vehicle program I am most excited about at Tesla right now.
If Tesla can produce class 8 trucks capable of moving cargo of similar weight as diesel trucks over 500 miles on a single charge in high volume at a reasonable price point, they have a revolutionary product on their hands.
But the reasonable price part is now being questioned.
After reading the communications between Ryder and MSRC, while not clear, it looks like the program could be interpreted as MSRC covering the costs of installing the charging stations while Ryder committed $7.5 million to buying the trucks.
The math makes sense for the original funding request since $7.5 million divided by 42 trucks results in around $180,000 per truck — what Tesla first quoted for the 500-mile Tesla Semi truck.
Now, with just 18 trucks, it would point to a price of $415,000 per Tesla Semi truck. It’s possible that some of Ryder’s commitment could also go to an increase in Megacharger prices – either per charger or due to the two additional chargers. MSRC said that they don’t give more money when prices go up after an extension.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the 500-mile Tesla Semi ends up costing $350,000 to $400,000.
If that’s the case, Tesla Semi is impressive, but it won’t be the revolutionary product that will change the trucking industry.
It will need to be closer to $250,000-$300,000 to have a significant impact, which is not impossible with higher-volume production but would be difficult.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports12 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway