Crypto and inheritance: how to plan your estate

Cryptocurrencies pose a problem that no other asset raises with the same harshness: if no one knows the private keys, at your death that wealth disappears forever. No court, no notary and no bank can recover it. Planning crypto succession is therefore first of all a question of access, and only afterwards of law and taxation.

The technical knot comes before the legal one

A bitcoin is not “owned” in the classic sense: it is controlled through the private key. If this is kept in a self-custody wallet and is lost, the value remains on the blockchain but becomes inaccessible. Estimates speak of millions of coins lost in exactly this way.

The first objective of serious planning is therefore to ensure that the heirs can access the assets without, at the same time, access being too easy for anyone during the holder’s lifetime. It is a delicate balance between security and transmissibility.

Tools to ensure access

Some practical arrangements, to be adapted to the case:

Confidential inventory: an up-to-date list of wallets, exchanges, hardware wallets and asset types, without the keys in the clear. It helps the heirs know what to look for.
Custody of keys/seed: the seed phrase can be deposited in a protected way (safe deposit box, split-custody solutions, multi-signature schemes), kept separate from the inventory.
Multi-signature and social recovery: schemes in which control requires several distributed keys, so that no single point of failure blocks or exposes the wealth.
Custody with regulated operators: entrusting the assets to an authorised custodian simplifies succession, because a formal transfer procedure takes over.

Take care never to put private keys or seeds directly into the will: once the succession is opened, the deed becomes knowable by several parties.

The legal plan: will and devolution

Under Swiss civil law, cryptocurrencies fall within the estate of the deceased and pass to the heirs according to the ordinary rules of succession, respecting the forced shares (the reform of succession law that came into force in 2023 expanded the freely disposable portion).

Some precautions:

With a will or an inheritance agreement you can allocate the digital assets in a targeted way, indicate who is to be entrusted with the technical access and appoint an executor competent on the subject.
The executor familiar with crypto is often decisive: they must know how to secure and transfer the assets without exposing them.
Pending rights must also be considered: staking, locked positions, tokens subject to release periods.

The tax plan

In Switzerland there is no federal inheritance tax; the matter is cantonal. This gives rise to strong variability:

Most cantons exempt the spouse, and many also exempt direct descendants; for more distant relatives and non-relatives the rates rise.
Cryptocurrencies are valued at the end-of-period rate at the relevant time, in CHF. The Federal Tax Administration publishes reference rates for the main currencies; for illiquid tokens a defensible valuation criterion is needed.
As long as they remain in the estate, the assets are subject to the annual wealth tax: succession planning therefore intertwines with the ordinary tax return.

Since the burden depends on the canton of last domicile and on the degree of kinship, it is advisable to simulate the scenarios in good time.

Recurring mistakes

No one knows the assets exist: without an inventory, the wealth is lost.
Access concentrated in a single point: if the only copy of the seed is destroyed, there is no recovery.
Generic will: “I leave everything to my heirs” does not solve the technical problem of access.
No updating: wallets and exchanges change; a plan from three years ago may already be unusable.

How we set up the work

Crypto succession planning combines wealth advice, the design of civil-law instruments and tax coordination between cantons. The custody part and the services subject to authorisation go through authorised partners; structuring and advice we follow directly.

Informative content, not a substitute for advice on the specific case. Succession rules and rates vary between cantons.

Do you want your digital wealth to actually reach those you have chosen? Let’s talk about it.