» Digital Assets

What Are Digital Assets and Cryptocurrencies in a Will?

July 22nd, 2020

Imagine if, at the moment of your death, a large portion of your assets just...vanished. Or that those assets continued to exist, but your loved ones couldn’t find them, access them, or maybe didn’t even know about them. The fruits of your labors, your careful investments, forever locked away from the people you meant to have them.

If that sounds like a nightmare scenario, you should know that it has already happened to some owners of cryptocurrency who died without creating an estate plan for their digital assets. Cryptocurrency is a type of digital asset. The best known type of cryptocurrency is Bitcoin, but there are others, such as LiteCoin and Ripple.

According to the BBC, research estimates that as of early 2020, up to 3.8 million Bitcoin, with a value of about $30 billion, has been lost. Much of the loss is due to owners of the cryptocurrency dying without giving heirs a way to access these digital assets.

How Does Cryptocurrency Work?

Essentially, cryptocurrency is a digital form of currency—digital cash, if you will—that e… Read More

Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets in Ohio

December 6th, 2018

Imagine the following scenario: Your sister, your only sibling, is a single mother of two young children. She hasn't gotten around to making an estate plan because, well, she's the single mother of two young children. You know she does all her banking online, but you don't know the details. If she died suddenly, and you needed to administer her estate, would you know where to begin? Would you even be able to gain access to the information you needed? This is just one of many scenarios that makes fiduciary access to digital assets in Ohio an important issue.

A fiduciary is someone who manages assets for the benefit of someone else, and is required to do so in the beneficiaries' best interest. So "fiduciary" is an umbrella term that refers to, among other things, the executor of a will, the administrator of an estate where there is no will, a guardian, an agent under a power of attorney, or the trustee of a trust.

As a fiduciary, you have the responsibility to act in the best interest of the beneficiaries of an estate or trust, but until recently, it may have been difficult to gain access to the data or documents you needed to do so. Once upon a time, there were pape… Read More

Guidance for Fiduciaries Regarding Digital Assets

November 21st, 2017

When you think of assets, what springs to mind? If you're like most people, the answer is bank and investment accounts, real estate, and other tangible things with financial value. But you have other things of value that you can't put your hands on—that is, unless your hands are on your computer, phone, or tablet. In other words, your so-called "digital assets."

A decade ago, few people thought about digital assets. But now, when so many people have a social media presence on multiple platforms, and manage much of their financial life online, management of digital assets is increasingly important. And if you are not able to manage your own digital assets, either after your death or because you have been somehow incapacitated, what guidance is available for the person charged with doing so--your fiduciary? Or, what if you happen to be a fiduciary, in charge of managing assets or making decisions for someone else's benefit? What rights and limits do you have to access someone else's digital assets?

Managing Digital Assets for Someone Else

There are a number of scenarios in which you might act as a fiduciary with regard to another person's digital assets. O… Read More