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April 19, 2018, 04:01:07 PM |
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I'm a law student.
Here's the thing. You can constructively leave a password, or a key to a safe containing a password, completely legally as a method of constructively giving access to money to someone else. It should be clear what the value of that asset is, though. Currently, legally, bitcoin is classified as mostly a security commodity, and should be treated as such.
By not leaving the wealth in a will, the property that results will likely go into probate, and other relatives could very well start arguing about who it belongs to. That's always bad news. You never know who in the family is greedy, or just thinks they're entitled to some property. Death does weird things to people.
The best option, in my opinion, is to form a trust with the bitcoin. With a trust, you appoint a trustee to manage the trust, and a beneficiary to profit from it. You submit a document detailing how you would like to manage the trust. By law in literally every US jurisdiction, that trustee can change the structure of the trust based on the circumstances surrounding the management of that trust.
As such, in the event that bitcoin is for whatever reason going to shit, or if there's something else less risky and more profitable at some point, the trustee has the ability to change how the trust is structured.
This is, by far, the best option no matter what you're doing.
Edit: I should probably add that this isn't legal advice. I'm a second year law student, not an attorney. I have very little experience in trusts and estates outside of class and doing paralegal-type duties in firm specializing in wills, trusts, and estates.
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