David staged his own demise on a Tuesday. Everyone agreed it went better than expected.
The M. family held a full inheritance rehearsal on Thursday — David "gone," Sarah at the keyboard, the whole recovery walked end to end — using a practice vault on testnet while the real one slept soundly in the next room.
Sarah reached the funds. She did it once on her own, then again to be sure, then a third time because it had felt, the first two times, suspiciously easy. The test coins involved are worth, by design, nothing at all.
David, dead for the duration of the exercise, observed from a chair and offered notes. "It's the only funeral I'll get to attend," he said, applauding his widow's competence.
The plan was tested while it was still cheap to find out it worked.
Everything above is satire. Here is how it actually goes when you fix it.
What it does
The assistant lets the family rehearse the inheritance on testnet — a complete practice run with worthless test coins — so everyone learns the exact steps long before it's real. The actual vault is never touched, never moved, never put at risk. A fire drill, for the one fire you only get to face once.
David: How do I know Sarah could actually do this if I'm gone?
Assistant: We rehearse it. I'll set up a practice vault on testnet and walk Sarah through reaching the funds, start to finish. Worthless coins, real steps. Your actual vault never moves.
The worst day is the wrong day to read the instructions for the first time. So you read them on a Tuesday, with nothing at stake.