If I die (let's be honest, that will probably happen), would my wife or family get my coins? What if they don't know my passwords/private key?
I believe that most of us heard the story of a crypto company CEO that died years back, and due to the fact that he was the only one who knows the private keys of where the company stores their cryptocurrency, there was no other way for the company to continue due to they have lost access to the cryptocurrency that was being held by their CEO. Even the wife doesn’t even know about it.
So, if you should die without any of your family members at all knowing your private keys or passwords to your wallet, there is no way that they can be able to gain access to it. So, we are just going to say that your cryptocurrency that you have in that wallet is lost for good.
that is when the holder of the private key dies, and doesn't tell anyone, so the asset is gone. even living people have lost their private keys, and many have asked if they can be recovered, but unfortunately if the private key or phrase is lost there is nothing that can be done to recover it.