Updated August 3, 2026. Quick answer: crypto breaks estate planning in a way nothing else does — a will becomes a public court record when it is admitted to probate, so anything written in it is readable by anyone. Never put a seed phrase, private key or password in a will. And unlike a bank account, there is no institution to petition: if the keys are lost, the asset is simply gone.
The two problems, and they pull in opposite directions
- Access. Your executor cannot recover what they cannot unlock. There is no customer service line for self-custodied assets and no court order that can compel a blockchain.
- Secrecy. Everything you might write down to solve the first problem becomes dangerous the moment it is shared or filed. Solving access naively creates theft risk while you are still alive.
Every workable approach is a compromise between those two, and anyone selling you a clean answer is skipping one of them.
What the probate-record point actually means
A will offered for probate is filed with the court and generally open to inspection. That makes it the worst possible place for anything secret. The same applies to any document you attach to it. What a will can safely do is name who inherits the assets and grant your executor the authority to deal with them — the what and the who, never the how.
Where the how belongs
- A revocable living trust is not filed with a court in the ordinary course, which is why it is the usual home for assets you want handled privately. It also avoids probate entirely for what it holds — but only if it is actually funded.
- A separate access memorandum, kept outside both documents and updated, referenced by them rather than reproduced in them.
- An inventory that proves the assets exist at all. Executors have lost holdings simply by never learning of them. Which exchanges, which wallets — not the credentials, just the existence.
We are deliberately not recommending specific storage products, splitting schemes or services. That is a security decision with your own threat model in it, it changes fast, and a recommendation published today would be stale and possibly harmful later.
The tax side is separate and does not go away
Heirs inherit tax positions along with the asset — see how swaps are treated and where the wash-sale rule stands. Whoever administers the estate will need transaction history, which is another argument for an inventory kept while you are alive.
The private half of the plan
A will is a public record once it is probated; a revocable living trust generally is not, which is why the private handling instructions belong there. LawDepot builds a state-specific revocable living trust — funding it, and keeping the access memorandum outside both documents, is still yours to do.
Build a living trust at LawDepot
LawDepot pays us a commission if you buy through this link — it costs you nothing extra. We are not a law firm and this is not legal advice. Affiliate Disclosure.
Related: the online-tool rule that overrides your will · what a living trust costs.
Federal statutes and regulations read from uscode (Cornell LII) and the official eCFR; state law quoted from the enacting state’s own statute. General information, not legal advice. State law adds requirements this page does not enumerate, and it varies.
The same problem, one layer out. Whoever controls the email account controls password resets for everything attached to it, and neither big platform will hand over credentials — what Google will and will not do.