THE IMPORTANCE OF ADDING CRYPTOCURRENCY TO YOUR ESTATE PLAN

Cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and others have become popular investments for people around the country. While digital assets like these aren’t new, some don’t realize how important adding these assets to their estate plan is.

After all, even if your family knows you have purchased cryptocurrency and know how to access the keys, it doesn’t mean they can take over ownership. Because of this, you need to account for these in your estate plan. Some of the other reasons to do this can be found here.

HELP AVOID LENGTHY AND EXPENSIVE PROBATE

If you don’t account for cryptocurrency in your estate plan, there’s a good chance it will go through a long and expensive probate process. There’s no regulation on cryptocurrency, and proving ownership is extremely challenging. You can avoid this by adding all related information to these assets in your estate plan, including detailed instructions about where to find the assets, the keys to access them and any other related information.

MAKE SURE YOUR ASSETS ARE FOUND

Along with needing access to your private keys to get the cryptocurrency, if your heirs aren’t familiar with it and you have it stored on a thumb drive, your phone or something similar, they may overlook it completely. This means your assets will never benefit your loved ones simply because they don’t know they exist.

UPDATING YOUR ESTATE PLAN

Once you add your cryptocurrency assets to your estate plan, you may think you are done. However, if you buy, sell or make other changes to this asset in the future, it’s a good idea to update your estate plan accordingly. This can help ensure everything remains up to date and reflects your current situation.