Do you hold digital assets?  Time to get organized as these can be lost in cyberspace.  A @NYTIMES article here, Cryptocurrencies lost article.  Also, hiding cash under the mattress may also not be the safest way to keep your wealth safe, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/08/business/cash-at-home-retirement.html

The value being accumulated in these cyberassets has been increasing and becoming more complicated. Many in their testamentary wishes do not consider these, both as part of the assets being distributed from your estate and well as how to access these assets.

These cyberassets could include your social media accounts and photo sharing and cloud based storage.  These often have significant emotional and financial value for your family members, emotionally with photos, critical documents and possibly some financial assets such as cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NFT’s).  These are accessed with user names, passwords and some with secondary authentication requirements for signing in (such as a cel phone number).

Some suggested words of advice

  1. Write it down – you should share with a trusted person or write down your user names and passwords to that these can be access if you are not here
  2. Regular access – the access and storage mediums often change, so ensure that you have the correct protocols and that your assets remain intact
  3. Consider taxation – (new) CRA in Canada has a cryptocurrency technical checklist which does a deep dive into the holding and trading of crypto assets.  The transactions in crypto assets must be reported much like any other type of financial asset reporting.

Think about what you are doing to secure, access and maintain these crypto assets within your holdings.  This is a fast moving area of asset accumulation so ensure that you are well apprised of how these can form part of your family enterprise’s assets.

Learn, think, apply!