Delaware has become the first US state to officially and fully recognize the inheritance of digital assets.
The state’s House Bill 345, “Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets and Digital Accounts Act”, gives legal heirs the same right to the deceased’s digital accounts and devices as they do their physical assets.
This includes their digital assets, which the bill identifies as
data, text, emails, documents, audio, video, images, sounds, social media content, social networking content, codes, health care records, health insurance records, computer source codes, computer programs, software, software licenses, databases, or the like, including the usernames and passwords, created, generated, sent, communicated, shared, received, or stored by electronic means on a digital device.
Going Too Far?
When a family member passes, should their personal communications then belong to their heirs?
Under Delaware’s law, they would. After all, the “digital assets” above includes email accounts, social media accounts, and other places where private messages were sent.
Regardless of whether a person is deceased, having this information fall into the heir’s hands could conceivably put living parties at risk and cause other issues.
How Could It Apply To Bitcoin?
While the bill itself makes no specific mention of Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, or digital currency, the law likely applies to it as well.
The issue arises, though, of how exactly one could inherit Bitcoin from a secured wallet.
After all, if a wallet is sealed with a password, there’s no way to access the coins without knowing said password. And if the only person who knows the password is deceased, well, the coins are simply lost forever.
Regardless of issues involved with inheritance, though, Bitcoin enthusiasts should see Delaware’s new bill as a victory in the struggle to recognize cryptocurrency as a legitimate asset.
Delaware Officially Recognizes The Inheritance Of Digital Assets
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