1 billion worth of Ripple, lost ?

[Fact]

On Sunday, Matthew Mellon flew in a private jet to Cancun, Mexico, intending to check into a rehabilitation clinic. But the 54-year-old banking heir, who had been battling an addiction to opioid pills, never made it to the treatment facility.

“He never checked in,” says Alberto Sola, medical director of Clear Sky Recovery, a rehab clinic in Cancun. “He was supposed to check in to the clinic on Monday morning. Then Monday morning they told us he had died.”


In addition to leaving behind three children, Mellon’s death raises many unanswered questions, including what will happen to the estimated $500 million of XRP digital currency he owned. Mellon’s XRP had been worth well over $1 billion earlier in 2018 and he told Forbes in March he had been adding to the position as the price of the cryptocurrency plunged.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2018/04/19/the-last-days-of-banking-heir-matthew-mellon/#dea8f065d528

[Nanagyasi]

It is quite unfortunate but I think this raises concern about the fact that we need to trust a person with the details of our account so that in situations like this, the person can retrieve the money

[Alpha]

That is the problem of not trusting anyone the earnings will die with the owner. No one can recover the great lost of ripple unless there are someone who knows the entire system of blockchain.

[owmivmen]

may be transferred to the trust person of the owner of the ripple. if lost I can not think how future ripple will be. whether the stock will be reduced very much because most coin ripple holders have died?

[Thanos]

I don't think that should be a problem, since ripple is centralized they should transfer all his asset to his offspring. 

[troiano9]

Its a centralized currency, I don't understand why anyone thinks this is a problem. Once the courts get involved Ripple will have to transfer the funds to whoever is getting his fortune laid out by the will.

[sugarchrisp]

Why would it be lost?  I mean, if he's got hundreds of millions of dollars there's no way he doesn't have the key/wallet somewhere safe with several layers of redundancy.  It would be treated the same as any asset when divided up from his will.