Crypto inheritance planning

Crypto inheritance planning is one task with one golden rule: your estate documents say what exists and where; they never contain the secret material itself. Everything else follows from that.

Prefer a printable version? The crypto inheritance planning checklist is the same plan as a tick-off workbook you can print and keep with your estate documents.

The four layers

1. The inventory. Know what you hold: exchange accounts, self-custody wallets, hardware devices, DeFi positions, NFTs, paper backups. Use the same checklist as an executor would (crypto estate inventory), you are building the document your family will need.

2. The map. A document (with your lawyer, notary or in a place your trusted people can reach) that says:

• which exchanges you use and under which accounts;
• which devices exist and where they are;
• where the recovery material is stored (a safe, a bank box, a trusted person), not what it is;
• who the right first contact is for each category (exchange support, a specific adviser).

3. The handover. Decide the mechanism per category: exchange inheritance tools where available, a will (crypto in a will), multisig (bitcoin multisig), a password-manager emergency process, or a trusted custodian arrangement. Compare the options honestly in options for passing on crypto.

4. The review. Plans rot. Update the map when you change exchanges, move devices, or your trusted people change. Schedule a check at least yearly and after any major change.

The safe-documentation rule

Write down that a seed backup exists and where. Never write the words, never photograph the plate, never email the file. If a document containing secrets must exist, it belongs in a lawyer’s or notary’s sealed vault under their professional custody rules: decide that with the professional, not alone.

A worked example

The difference between a plan and a secret dump is concrete. A good estate map says: “Exchange accounts: two (see account list); hardware wallet: Trezor in bank safe-deposit box B-14; recovery material: sealed envelope in the same box; passphrase: may exist (contact [named person] for the access instructions.” That tells your family what exists, where, and who knows more) without a single word that would let anyone move the funds on their own.

The same map, written badly, contains the seed phrase itself, a photo of the recovery card, or the exchange password “so the family can get in”. That document is not a plan; it is the fastest way to lose the estate to anyone who reads it.

Reviewing the plan

Plans rot quietly: you open a new exchange account, move coins to a new device, or the trusted person moves abroad. Schedule a yearly check and an update after any major change, a new wallet, a new exchange, a death in the family, a divorce, a move. The goal is that a competent person could act on the plan without you present.

What planning is not

It is not an invitation to share secrets with family “just in case”, the person who knows your seed phrase controls your crypto today. It is also not investment advice: the goal is that your assets reach the right people, not that they grow.

Where to go next

For the will-specific part, continue to crypto in a will. For what happens if you become unable to act before death, see crypto and incapacity.