Your digital life deserves the same protection as your physical assets. Cryptocurrency, online accounts, passwords, and digital memories, all planned for seamless transition.
What Is Digital Estate Planning
Most of us have hundreds of online accounts, years of photos stored in the cloud, cryptocurrency wallets, and digital assets that represent real value, monetary and sentimental. Yet traditional estate planning often ignores this digital dimension entirely.
Digital estate planning addresses what happens to your online presence when you can no longer manage it yourself. Who can access your email? What happens to your cryptocurrency? Can your family recover your cloud-stored photos? Should your social media be memorialized or deleted?
Without proper planning, digital assets can be lost forever, online accounts can become inaccessible, and your family may face frustrating, sometimes impossible, challenges trying to manage your digital affairs.
Why It Matters
Without proper planning, digital assets like cryptocurrency can be lost forever. Private keys, passwords, and access credentials don't transfer automatically.
Years of photos, emails, and digital memories could be locked away. Proper planning preserves your digital legacy for your family.
For entrepreneurs, digital assets may be your most valuable property. Succession planning ensures your online business can survive you.
Without clear authorization, your fiduciaries may face significant legal hurdles or outright denial when trying to access digital accounts.
Decide what happens to your online presence, which accounts should be memorialized, which should be deleted, and what content should be preserved.
Proper planning includes securely managing passwords and access credentials, protecting you while you're alive and your heirs when you're not.
Services
From cryptocurrency to social media, from password management to online business succession, every aspect of your digital life is addressed.
The first step in digital estate planning is knowing what you have. Your attorney helps you create a comprehensive inventory of your digital life: online accounts, cloud storage, digital photos and videos, domain names, websites, blogs, and any other digital property. This inventory becomes the roadmap for your fiduciaries.
Cryptocurrency and NFTs present unique estate planning challenges. Private keys can be lost forever, hardware wallets require physical access, and exchange accounts have their own rules. Your attorney helps you create secure plans for transferring digital currencies and tokens to your heirs while maintaining security during your lifetime.
Your digital life is protected by hundreds of passwords, two-factor authentication, and security questions. Your attorney helps you create a system for securely passing these credentials to your trusted representatives, without compromising your security while you're alive or creating confusion when you're not.
What happens to your social media accounts when you pass? Each platform has different policies, some allow memorialization, others permit deletion, and some will simply lock accounts forever. Your attorney helps you understand your options and document your wishes for each platform.
For entrepreneurs and business owners, digital assets may be the most valuable part of your estate. Domain names, SaaS subscriptions, customer databases, digital intellectual property, and online business accounts all require careful succession planning to preserve business value.
From banking and investment accounts to streaming services and subscription boxes, your online accounts need clear instructions. Your attorney helps you document account locations, ensure proper beneficiary designations where applicable, and create processes for account closure or transfer.
Virtual-First Model
It only makes sense that digital estate planning should happen digitally. The virtual-first model means you can complete your entire digital estate plan from anywhere, screen sharing, secure document exchange, and video consultations make the process seamless.
Screen sharing allows walking through your digital inventory together, reviewing account settings, and setting up password management tools in real time.
Secure portal integration means your digital inventory, access credentials, and planning documents are all stored securely in one place, accessible when you need them, protected when you don't.
Tech-savvy counsel who understand the nuances of cryptocurrency, social media platforms, and digital security. Attorneys speak your language.
MyRelevant Client Portal
Securely store and update your inventory of digital accounts and assets in one place.
Sensitive access information protected with bank-level encryption and access controls.
Coordinate with your attorney on digital asset planning through encrypted communication.
Meet with your attorney to review and update your digital estate plan remotely.
Receive periodic prompts to review your digital inventory as your online life evolves.
Secure protocols for designated fiduciaries to access necessary information when needed.
The Process
Digital estate planning requires both legal expertise and technical understanding. The process addresses both dimensions systematically.
The process begins with a comprehensive review of your digital footprint. Using a guided questionnaire, you'll identify all your online accounts, digital assets, cryptocurrencies, and digital property. This creates the foundation for your digital estate plan.
1-2 weeks
Your attorney reviews how your digital assets are currently secured and identifies vulnerabilities in succession planning. This includes evaluating password management, two-factor authentication, and recovery options for critical accounts.
45-60 minutes
Based on your digital audit, a succession strategy is designed that balances security during your lifetime with accessibility for your fiduciaries. Different assets require different approaches, and the plan is customized to your situation.
3-5 business days
The legal documents needed to authorize your fiduciaries to access digital assets are prepared: updated powers of attorney with digital asset provisions, trust amendments, and clear written instructions for your executor or trustee.
1-2 weeks
The team helps you implement the technical infrastructure for digital asset succession, password vault configuration, legacy contact designations, and secure storage of sensitive access information. All integrated with your MyRelevant portal.
30-60 minutes
Digital life changes constantly. Reminders and check-ins are provided to update your digital inventory as you open new accounts, acquire new digital assets, or change security configurations.
Ongoing
Common Questions
Digital assets include anything you own or control in digital form: cryptocurrency and NFTs, online financial accounts, email accounts, social media profiles, cloud-stored photos and documents, domain names, websites, digital music and movie collections, gaming accounts with valuable items, loyalty points and rewards, and digital business assets. Essentially, if it exists online or in digital form and has value (monetary, sentimental, or practical), it's a digital asset.
Generally, no. Even with legal authority, most platforms require proof of death, court orders, and significant bureaucratic hurdles to grant access, if they grant it at all. Some platforms will never provide password access, only limited data downloads. This is why proactive planning is essential: setting up legacy contacts, documenting access credentials securely, and ensuring your fiduciaries know where to find what they need.
Cryptocurrency requires special attention because access depends entirely on private keys, there's no 'password reset' option. Attorneys help clients create multi-layered security plans: secure storage of private keys and seed phrases, instructions for accessing hardware wallets, documentation of exchange accounts, and powers of attorney that specifically authorize cryptocurrency management. The goal is ensuring your heirs can access your crypto without compromising security while you're alive.
Each platform handles death differently. Facebook allows memorialization or deletion through a legacy contact. Instagram can memorialize or remove accounts. Twitter/X requires proof of death from an authorized person. LinkedIn allows family to close accounts. Your attorney helps you understand each platform's policies, designate legacy contacts where available, and document your preferences so your family knows your wishes.
Maybe, but often not adequately. Traditional estate documents may not specifically address digital assets or provide the authority needed to access them. Many states have adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), which creates rules for digital asset access, but platforms' terms of service can override these laws. Your attorney updates your documents with specific digital asset provisions and ensures they work with applicable laws.
A tiered approach is typically recommended: a general digital inventory (account names, types, locations) stored in your estate planning documents or portal, and sensitive access credentials (passwords, keys) stored in an encrypted password manager with clear succession protocols. Your fiduciaries receive instructions on how to access both layers when needed. This balances security with practical accessibility.
Email access after death is complicated. Most providers won't grant full access even to executors. Google's Inactive Account Manager can share data with designated contacts. Apple has a Legacy Contact feature. Microsoft requires a court order plus proof of death. Your attorney helps you understand your options and, if email access matters to you, set up appropriate legacy designations and document your wishes.
Online businesses require comprehensive digital succession planning. This includes domain name transfers (often requiring specific procedures with registrars), hosting account access, CMS and admin credentials, payment processor accounts, email marketing platforms, customer database access, and social media business accounts. Detailed succession guides are created to ensure your business can continue operating or be properly wound down.
Related Services
Digital estate planning works best when integrated with your comprehensive estate plan, wills, trusts, and powers of attorney that address both physical and digital assets.
Learn moreConsider how your digital assets fit into your giving strategy. Cryptocurrency donations offer unique tax advantages for philanthropically-minded individuals.
Learn moreSchedule a consultation to discuss planning for your digital assets, online accounts, and digital life.