Umut Kundukan

Umut Kundukan is the Founder and CEO of BitInPeace, a non-custodial crypto inheritance platform designed for Bitcoin and Ethereum self-custodians. His work focuses on one of the most difficult long-term challenges in digital asset ownership: how self-custodied crypto can be transferred securely when a holder becomes inactive or passes away. With two decades of software engineering experience, Kundukan brings a background in payments, telecommunications, fintech, real-time transaction systems, and regulated technology environments to the problem of digital asset inheritance.

Overview

Kundukan’s career is defined by technical leadership in systems where reliability, security, and scalability are essential. Before founding BitInPeace, he worked as a Technical Leader and Principal Engineer on large-scale software projects for major European enterprises. His experience includes secure payment platforms, real-time transaction processing systems, and order management infrastructure, all of which require strong engineering controls and operational resilience.

BitInPeace reflects Kundukan’s effort to apply that background to crypto self-custody. In traditional finance, inheritance processes are usually handled through banks, legal representatives, custodians, and estate planning frameworks. In crypto, however, users who hold their own private keys may leave no practical path for heirs to recover assets if access credentials are lost. Kundukan founded BitInPeace to address this gap without requiring users to hand over custody of their assets.

Career and Background

Kundukan has more than 20 years of software engineering experience across payments, financial technology, telecommunications, and enterprise software. His work in regulated environments gave him experience with strict compliance requirements, high-availability systems, and technology platforms where failures can have material financial or operational consequences.

This background is relevant to crypto inheritance because the product category requires careful design. A platform must help users create continuity plans without introducing new attack surfaces, exposing private keys, or creating unnecessary dependence on a centralized custodian. It must also balance automation, user control, security, and legal practicality in a market where user expectations and regulatory standards are still developing.

BitInPeace

BitInPeace is a non-custodial platform for digital asset inheritance. Its core purpose is to help crypto holders plan secure, inactivity-triggered transfers of their Bitcoin and Ethereum assets. The platform is designed around the principle that users should be able to prepare inheritance instructions while maintaining control of their assets during their lifetime.

The problem BitInPeace addresses is especially important for long-term crypto holders. Self-custody gives users direct control over their digital wealth, but it also places responsibility for key management entirely on the holder. If a user dies, becomes incapacitated, or loses access without a recovery plan, assets may become permanently inaccessible. BitInPeace seeks to provide a structured solution for this continuity problem.

Technology and Product Focus

Kundukan’s technical approach emphasizes non-custodial design, security testing, and infrastructure reliability. BitInPeace has undergone extensive technical testing and has been validated through an AWS Well-Architected review, reflecting attention to operational standards and cloud architecture practices.

Key areas associated with Kundukan’s work include:

• Crypto inheritance: Planning tools for transferring digital assets when a holder becomes inactive or passes away.
• Non-custodial design: A model intended to preserve user control without requiring private keys to be entrusted to a custodian.
• Bitcoin and Ethereum support: Initial focus on the two largest self-custodied asset ecosystems.
• Security and reliability: Engineering emphasis shaped by payments, fintech, and regulated enterprise systems.
• Future asset coverage: Expansion plans that include inheritance needs for DeFi positions and real-world assets.

Relevance to Crypto Markets

Kundukan’s work is relevant because crypto adoption depends not only on buying, storing, and using digital assets, but also on managing them across a full financial life cycle. Inheritance remains an underdeveloped part of the self-custody stack. Wallets, exchanges, and DeFi protocols often focus on active users, while estate planning and intergenerational transfer receive less attention.

As more individuals hold meaningful wealth in digital assets, inheritance planning becomes a practical requirement rather than a niche concern. Kundukan’s focus on non-custodial continuity places BitInPeace within a broader movement to make crypto ownership safer, more durable, and more compatible with real-world financial planning.

Risks and Considerations

Crypto inheritance products must manage significant technical, legal, and user experience risks. Inactivity triggers, beneficiary instructions, wallet access, jurisdictional estate rules, and asset recovery processes must be designed carefully. Users should also understand that non-custodial inheritance planning does not replace legal advice, estate documentation, or secure personal key management.

Kundukan’s leadership at BitInPeace reflects a long-term view of digital asset ownership. His work addresses a critical question for self-custody: how crypto wealth can remain secure during a holder’s lifetime while still being transferable to the next generation when needed.

• BitInPeace Founder & CEO