April 18, 2022

Do you hold crypto assets or are you looking into owning some? You need a plan for how you’ll hold it during your life and what happens to it after you pass away.

Crypto is only becoming more possible but this raises plenty of questions for people who hold crypto assets about what happens to those assets when they pass away. If you do not have a specific plan for cryptocurrency assets in your will, these could all disappear permanently when you pass away. Crypto transactions live on a blockchain and are verified independently by a network of computers, which means they are assets handled and stored differently than those inside traditional banks.

Crypto is considered a probate asset because it will need to go through probate before it can be legally transferred to your beneficiaries when you pass away. A beneficiary is an organization or a person who you want to inherit a particular asset when you pass away. In order to make sure that the right person has access to all of these details, you need to list out all of the crypto assets in your estate plan, name where they are stored, and which beneficiary should receive them.

Furthermore, you’ll also need to appoint an executor as part of your will, and this is the person responsible for administering your last will and testament. A digital property executor may also need to be appointed and it may be a separate person who is familiar with cryptocurrency. For more support in drafting a comprehensive strategy for your cryptocurrency in your estate plan, set aside a time to meet with a lawyer.