Your Will Cannot Handle Digital Assets
Most high-net-worth individuals have a will. Many have trusts. Almost none have structures that properly address digital assets.
That gap will cost their families millions.
I’ve been examining estate planning documents for wealthy families, and the disconnect is alarming. Wills written in the last decade barely mention cryptocurrency. Trusts established five years ago don’t contemplate tokenised assets. Legal structures designed to protect generational wealth fail the moment digital holdings enter the equation.
The law hasn’t caught up. Most solicitors haven’t either.
The Transfer Crisis Nobody Discusses
The numbers are staggering. The global ultra wealthy population has grown 7x faster than the global adult population over the past two decades, with forecasts showing this population will grow to 676,970 individuals by 2030. Yet most estate planning documents were drafted when these families held a fraction of their current wealth, creating structures that no longer match the complexity of what needs protecting.
Traditional wills assume your wealth exists in forms that executors can locate, value, and transfer. Property deeds. Bank statements. Share certificates. But what happens when substantial wealth sits in digital wallets that require private keys your executor doesn’t have?
What happens when your trust holds tokenised real estate that your trustees don’t understand how to manage?
Beyond Standard Estate Planning
High-net-worth estate planning requires more than updating beneficiary clauses. It demands integrated thinking across traditional and digital domains. Trusts that can hold both property portfolios and cryptocurrency holdings. Wills that address private key management and digital asset succession.
The complexity multiplies when you factor in cross-border considerations. If you hold assets in multiple jurisdictions, your estate planning needs to
work across different legal systems. If your digital assets sit on international exchanges, your executors need authority that transcends borders.
Most estate planning solicitors can draft a will. Fewer understand trust structures for complex wealth. Almost none can properly integrate digital asset governance into estate plans.
The Privacy Paradox
Privacy now tops the list for most millionaires when planning their estates. Yet probate is a public process. Wills become public documents. Trust structures offer privacy, but only if established correctly and only if they actually hold the assets they’re meant to protect.
Digital assets create a unique privacy challenge. Blockchain transactions are permanently recorded, yet the ownership can remain anonymous if structured properly. Your estate planning needs to maintain privacy whilst ensuring your beneficiaries can actually access what you leave them.
The firms that get this right aren’t just drafting documents. They’re designing comprehensive succession systems. Legal structures that protect wealth across asset classes. Documentation that addresses both traditional and digital holdings. Governance frameworks that ensure smooth transfers even when assets exist in forms that didn’t exist when the structures were created.
The question isn’t whether you have a will and trust. It’s whether your estate planning can actually transfer the wealth you’ve built, in all its forms, to the people you choose