Table of Contents
- Digital Assets – Prologue
- Defining and Categorizing: Assets vs. Accounts
- Currency Accounts
- Virtual Property Accounts
- Social Media Accounts
- The Law in Canada
- Barriers to Access: Terms of Service & User Agreements
- Estate Planning Considerations
Digital Assets – Prologue
Bitcoin Example:
- Of a capped total of 21 m. Bitcoins, 18 m. have been "mined"
- Some sources estimate that as many as 3 m. bitcoins (~$38 billion) are irretrievable
- Due to:
-
- Lost retrieval codes ("private keys")
- Lost USB's where the only records are stored
- Owner death without leaving the private keys accessible to executors or next of kin
Death of a CEO
- In December 2018, Gerald Cotten, CEO of QuadrigaCX, Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange died suddenly at age 30
- Mr. Cotten was the only person who had passwords to ~115,000 customers' digital wallets
- Approximately C$140m in digital currency held in safe keeping was deemed inaccessible
- Auditors found irregularities and managed to retrieve C$33 m. in missing funds
- RCMP asked to exhume the body (Dec. 2019)
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