For many, the experience of adding crypto coins to their financial portfolios has proven to be the thrill of a lifetime. As a new type of holding with a unique set of tools and rules, cryptocurrency is wealth with its own wow factor.
But at some point, the giddiness of fiscal discovery should be followed by a sobering reality: life is short. While established roadmaps have long existed for the orderly passing on of most worldly properties, titles, debts, rights and obligations upon a person’s death, the same can’t be said for cryptoassets.
Think ahead to the days right after your last days on earth. How qualified is your will’s executor to manage your balance sheet of bitcoin, ether, Ripple, ZenCash and Ada? Are your loved ones ready to receive your private keys and open your hardware wallet?
Looking Ahead
A recent episode of The Tatiana Show[1] podcast tackled this inconvenient question when co-hosts Tatiana Moroz and Joshua Scigala interviewed Pamela Morgan, Esq.[2], an attorney/educator/entrepreneur/author who’s been working exclusively with Bitcoin and open blockchains since 2014. The impetus for the appearance was the publication of her new book, Cryptoasset Inheritance Planning: A Simple Guide for Owners[3].
As is the case with most how-to tomes, the inspiration for Morgan’s came from a real-world problem she kept encountering. “I started asking annoying lawyer questions,” Morgan says of her cryptocurrency-holding clients. “Like, ‘If you have a bunch of cryptoassets, can your family access them?’ If you have people who depend on you financially, if you want to have other people in your life, or charities or political causes you like to support, to be able to take advantage of your bitcoin or your other cryptoassets, you have to do something. If you do nothing,
