Insight
How to leave cryptocurrency in a UK will
Include a specific digital-asset gift and extended executor powers in the will, keep an inventory that lists what exists without listing any credentials, and put the access mechanism somewhere else entirely - never in the will, which becomes a public document after probate. Ownership and access are two separate problems and need two separate documents.
Why the will is the easy half
Since the Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025, a gift of crypto-assets has clear subject-matter, and drafting one is straightforward. What defeats estates is that the ledger does not read wills. Control of a self-custodied token is control of a private key, and nothing else - no grant of probate, no court order and no statute changes that.
Never put a seed phrase in a will. Once a grant of probate issues, the will is a public document that anyone can obtain a copy of. A recovery phrase written into it is published. The same goes for exchange passwords, PINs and the answers to security questions.
The four access architectures
| Approach | How it works | How it fails |
|---|---|---|
| Sealed instruction | The recovery phrase in a sealed envelope or deposit box held by a trusted person or professional, released on production of a death certificate. | Depends entirely on one person's integrity and continued existence. Simple, cheap, and only as strong as that choice. |
| Split secret | The phrase divided into shares, of which a defined number must be combined to reconstruct it. Three shares held by three people, any two required, is the common pattern. | Fails if shares are lost, if holders lose the instructions, or if the family cannot cooperate. Removes the single point of trust; adds coordination risk. |
| Multi-signature wallet | Funds require several keys to move. The owner holds one, a trusted person another, a professional a third. | Technically strong, operationally demanding. Needs the co-signers to still be findable and competent years later. |
| Specialist inheritance service | A platform that releases keys to nominated beneficiaries after a period of verified inactivity or a proof-of-death event. | Provider risk - a company that fails takes the mechanism with it. And a switch that fires on inactivity can release assets while you are alive, or to people your will does not name. |
On the crypto-inheritance platforms
There is now a substantial market of them: dead-man's-switch services, decentralised vaults, time-capsule chains, non-custodial wallets with heir designations. The better ones are cryptographically serious - browser-side AES-256 sealing, elliptic-curve key exchange, staged heartbeat notifications before any release.
The limitation is categorical rather than technical. None of them makes anyone the legal owner. A platform that hands a key to your nominated heir has transferred control, not title. If your will leaves the residue elsewhere, you have just created a dispute; if you have a Shariah estate, you may have created a distribution that is impermissible as well as unlawful. And a timer that fires because you lost your phone for four months is not a hypothetical.
Used as the access layer beneath a properly drafted will, with the release condition aligned to the will's terms, these services are genuinely useful. Used instead of a will, they are a liability dressed as a solution.
The clauses that matter
- A defined digital-asset gift - worded to catch assets acquired after the will is signed, since holdings change constantly.
- Extended executor powers - express authority to deal with digital assets, engage specialist custodians and technical advisers at the estate's expense, and hold or realise volatile assets without personal liability for the timing.
- A trust where the beneficiary is a minor or non-technical - an outright gift of self-custodied crypto to someone who cannot hold it safely is a gift that will be lost.
- A reference to the inventory - incorporated by reference, not attached, so the schedule can be updated without re-executing the will.
- Letter of wishes - the human explanation: what the assets are, why they are held, and what you would want done with them.
Six months before, not six days
Every element above is cheap while the owner is alive and impossible afterwards. Base-cost records for CGT, the exchange's current bereavement requirements, the identity of a co-signer, the location of a hardware wallet - reconstructing any of it from a deceased person's papers is a poor use of an executor's time and often simply fails.
Common questions
Can I put my crypto wallet in my will?
You can and should leave the assets by will. What you must not do is write the recovery phrase or password into it, because a will becomes public once probate is granted. Leave the asset in the will and hold the access mechanism separately.
What happens to crypto if there is no will?
It forms part of the estate and passes under the intestacy rules - assuming anyone finds it. In practice the greater risk is that nobody knows it exists, or that the keys are unrecoverable, in which case the asset is legally distributed and practically gone.
Do exchanges release crypto to executors?
Most will, on production of a death certificate and a grant of representation, though timescales run to months and many liquidate to fiat rather than transferring assets in specie. Requirements differ by venue and by the country the exchange is incorporated in.
Find out where your estate breaks
Twelve questions, two minutes, no account. The cross-border risk check flags the jurisdictions, the forced-heirship traps and the digital assets your current arrangements will not carry across.