Most Americans don’t have a will or anything in place to decide how their assets or belongings should be distributed once they leave the Earth. According to a Gallup poll last year, about 46 percent of Americans don’t have a will, a number that has been largely consistent for the last 32 years. Many Americans Don’t Place Crypto in Their Wills In the past, things like airline rewards and credit card points were mostly up for grabs in situations like these. However, now Americans have entered a whole new plain: cryptocurrency. There are several Americans out there that own crypto, and they don’t have wills to decide who will get what assets when they pass on. This is a serious problem, as the digital assets in question can be overlooked. Abby Schneiderman – co-founder
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Most Americans don’t have a will or anything in place to decide how their assets or belongings should be distributed once they leave the Earth. According to a Gallup poll last year, about 46 percent of Americans don’t have a will, a number that has been largely consistent for the last 32 years.
Many Americans Don’t Place Crypto in Their Wills
In the past, things like airline rewards and credit card points were mostly up for grabs in situations like these. However, now Americans have entered a whole new plain: cryptocurrency. There are several Americans out there that own crypto, and they don’t have wills to decide who will get what assets when they pass on. This is a serious problem, as the digital assets in question can be overlooked.
Abby Schneiderman – co-founder and co-CEO of Everplans, which helps people create wills – mentioned in an interview:
It’s a good idea to think about everything that you might, or others you love might, consider valuable. Take an inventory of what those things are and then think about who you might want to get those things in case something happens to you.
To make sure the right assets go to the right people, Schneiderman says it may be important to share the unlock code on your phone with somebody. This covers emergencies, should they ever need access to information on your phone in case you are incapacitated in some way. In addition, she recommends that you keep all your passwords stored somewhere and that someone you trust dearly should have access to the password storage. This is the only way to ensure things remain accessible after you die. She says:
If not, you can get completely locked out of people’s worlds today.
She also recommends adding social media accounts to your will. While your social media may not provide anything valuable or store any specific assets, some social media accounts are deemed necessary to keep up after one is gone. You may want your social media accounts to remain active for one reason or another, and you may want things to keep getting posted on them. For this reason, make plans with your will for how those accounts will be handled when you’re no longer around.
Carolyn McClanahan – director of financial planning at Life Planning Partners in Jacksonville, Florida – explained in a statement:
You really have to do some thoughtful planning. That’s a financial asset, not just a digital asset.
Once It’s Gone, It’s Gone
When it comes to crypto and several other types of assets, McClanahan says if people don’t know how to access these assets, they are lost forever, and there is nothing anyone can do to recover or find them. She says:
If you’re gone and nobody knows how to access it, that is gone forever.