Don’t Let a Crypto Inheritance Get Stuck on the Blockchain

If someone you know has cryptocurrency that you might inherit, let me just say ahoy matey! I hope your pirate spirit is alive and your treasure-hunting skills sharp, because that's what it might take to get those assets. And if you're the one holding crypto, know that if you do nothing, it's very possible those funds will die with you.

In the US, cryptocurrency is considered a digital assetrather than money in terms of probate and estate law. With money and physical assets, you can sign a beneficiary form and create an estate plan or write a last will and testament naming who should get what when you die. With digital assets, however, the law says we should not assume that a deceased person wanted their private materials—everything from emails to photos—given to another person unless they explicitly said so. This puts cryptocurrency, as a digital asset, in an...

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