• More powerful than a power of attorney

    People can designate surrogates or proxies to act or make decisions on their behalf, but that person typically cannot access digital assets.

  • Executive Summary: RUFADAA

    RUFADAA is the uniform statute proposed to US state legislatures governing a fiduciary’s access to digital assets.  Fiduciaries have difficulty managing and settling estates that included digital assets due to restrictions in the Stored Communications Act, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and similar laws that prohibit them from accessing digital assets.

  • How safe are online vaults?

    Regardless of the image evoked, online vaults are just cloud data management systems.  Some offer more security features, but even the best have limitations and should be evaluated against particular use cases before relying on them.

  • Executive Summary: Distributed Keys

    To protect our assets, we design systems to require multiple keys for access.  Having multiple keys eliminates the single point of failure of a single key.  Having the keys distributed eliminates the single point of failure in a single target that holds keys.

  • Executive Summary: Zero Trust Security

    Zero Trust Security is a framework for securing data and networks.  Unlike traditional security frameworks designed to protect an organization’s perimeter from external threats, Zero Trust frameworks assume that network security is continuously under threat from both external and internal attacks.

  • Executive Summary: Verification

    Verification mechanisms, including verification of death, verification of authority, verification of identity, and verification of access.

  • Repost: What Happens to My Crypto When I Die?

    A summary of cryptocurrency, access to cryptocurrency, and special estate planning concerns that are unique for cryptocurrency.

  • Executive Summary: Multi-Sig Wallets

    Multi-signature wallets are software databases that require multiple signatures (keys) to access.  Multi-signature wallets are software databases—functionality, security, and reliability depend on their underlying code.

  • Repost: Privacy as Privilege: The Stored Communications Act and Internet Evidence

    Rebecca Wexler discusses a critical conflict between privacy law and criminal law. This conflict has important parallels to trust and probate law.

  • Repost: Unable to Retrieve Money, Cryptocurrency Investors Want Dead Executive Exhumed

    Liam Stack highlights the importance of making and maintaining a plan for accessing digital assets.