DIY Digital Assets Inheritance Planning: How To Create A Digital Estate Plan & Let Your Family Know Where & How To Access Your Digital Assets After Your Death

By Paul Haluk

In today's interconnected world, we use various digital services daily – emails, online trading portals, image storage services, and cryptocurrencies. Over time, our digital footprint builds up, creating a complex digital legacy.
However, many of us don't think about our digital assets as something we may want to pass on to our loved ones when we're gone. This is unfortunate because digital assets can have significant economic, legal, and emotional value to those closest to us. And can be lost forever if not planned for.
In this DIY guide, you will learn how to secure your digital assets and ensure only your loved ones have access to them after your death.
The book guides you through creating a comprehensive digital estate plan so your family can access your emails, cryptocurrency, NFTs, online bank accounts, passwords, and social media accounts without any hassle.
It covers everything you need to know about digital estate planning, including what a digital estate plan is, why it's important, and how to create one.
You'll learn how to gather all of your digital assets, organize them in a way that makes sense, and store them securely. You'll also learn how to choose a trusted family member or friend to act as your digital executor and how to share your passwords and other login information with them.
Whether you're a tech-savvy individual or just starting to navigate the digital world, this book provides a step-by-step guide that is easy to understand and implement. With a proper digital estate plan, you'll rest assured knowing that your digital assets are secure and that your family will have access to them when they need it most.
Who should read this?

Anyone who cares about their legacy and wants to ensure their digital assets are properly managed after they pass away.

People who have accumulated a significant amount of digital property and want to ensure that it is protected and passed on to their loved ones.

Entrepreneurs and business owners who have digital assets as part of their business and want to make sure that they are protected and passed on as part of their estate.

Anyone who has valuable digital files, such as photos, videos, music, and documents, that they want to preserve and pass on to future generations.

In an age where our online lives are increasingly intertwined with our real lives, creating a digital estate plan is essential for anyone who wants to protect their legacy. Don't wait until it's too late – order your copy of this book today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Mar 18, 2024

Book preview

Introduction

Digital estate planning simply means the process of planning for what happens to your digital assets after you die or become incapacitated. It is all about planning how chosen heirs or beneficiaries should manage your crucial digital assets.

But what are digital assets? There is a lot of confusion over what digital assets are. Some people think digital assets only mean cryptocurrencies. However, that’s far from the truth.

Your digital assets include files, photos, documents, money, etc., in your social media accounts, emails, websites, cloud storage platforms, crypto wallets, and online bank accounts.

That said, digital estate planning involves making arrangements for what should happen to contents of you digital accounts after you die. This will automatically involve appointing a beneficiary who will manage your passwords, emails, websites, social media accounts, and online bank accounts (PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, CashApp, etc.) when you become incapacitated or dead.

A good digital estate plan ensures that you transfer your digital assets to chosen beneficiaries and determine ownership of your digital accounts.

Story time!

In 2019, the cryptocurrency community in Canada and the world, in general, would be hit by devastating news. It was not the first time that scandals and similar news would emanate from the crypto space.

Sometime in 2014, Mt. Gox, one of the leading crypto exchanges at the time, filed for bankruptcy, citing a security breach. This left many crypto investors with huge losses.

However, what happened in 2019 was something a simple digital estate plan could have prevented. Yet, people lost so much money, and the legal battle is still ongoing. So, what happened in 2019? It is the story of Gerald Cotten, the owner of a Canadian-based cryptocurrency exchange.

Gerald Cotten was the founder and CEO of QuadrigaCX, a crypto exchange based in Canada. In December 2018, Cotten, while on a trip to India, fell ill and passed away. He was reported to have passed away from complications from Crohn’s disease.

His death sent shock waves through the crypto community, not because he was just 30 at the time. But for another reason. He was the only one with access to or knew the password to QuadrigaCX’s cold storage system. And it was in this cold storage that most of the company’s assets were held.

With no access to the cold storage, the company could not retrieve the assets and funds that users had deposited with the company. The company finally filed for bankruptcy on January 14, 2019.

A series of legal battles over the company’s assets followed, with various parties, including Cotten’s widow and the Canadian government, trying to gain access to the missing cryptocurrency.

Interestingly, the amount of cryptocurrency held in the cold storage is unknown, but it is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The fate of the missing cryptocurrency remains a mystery, and the legal battle over QuadrigaCX’s assets continues.

All the users who had their cryptocurrencies on the exchange lost their money and have not retrieved even a cent to this day. One of the notable people who lost their money was Tong Zou, who reportedly lost around $500,000, the life savings his parents had gifted him. A Netflix documentary was even made about him and his QuadrigaCX ordeals.

Many people in the crypto community don’t believe Cotten is truly dead. There are speculations that he faked his own death to avoid accounting for mismanaging the funds deposited with his crypto exchange by users.

These stories are credentialed by the fact that independent audits revealed that the cold storage where Cotten had alleged to have kept his company’s funds had less than the actual $190 million it was supposed to have.

All these point to the fact that Cotten was trading with company funds and funding his luxurious personal lifestyle using company funds.

But whether Gerald Cotten is truly dead or not is not our main topic of discussion here. Our main interest is – how he could have saved his company’s users and wife the pain of losing millions of dollars with a simple dead man’s switch.

In other words, we are going to be talking about how a simple digital estate plan could have prevented the mess created by Cotten’s death. And how anyone in this present age can leverage digital estate planning to organize their digital assets and state what should happen to them in the event of death.

Without further ado, let’s get started. This will be an interesting ride.