How are crypto assets in an estate mapped out?

By S.E. (Simcha) Schrijver, blockchain investigator at Paucitas

What Paucitas does

We start with whatever has been found: a hardware wallet, a note with addresses, an old phone or a message from an exchange. From a single address the history can usually be read back, which is what turns a box of papers into a list of holdings.

In Dutch estates the valuation date is the date of death, and the inheritance tax return is built on that date. We therefore fix the balance and the value on that day first, and only then look at what happened afterwards.

We start with whatever has been found: a hardware wallet, a note with addresses, an old phone or a message from an exchange. From a single address the history can usually be read back, which is what turns a box of papers into a list of holdings.

What you supply

You supply everything that has been found: addresses, screenshots, papers with key words, letters or messages from platforms, and the bank statements showing deposits. Do not discard anything that looks technical, however trivial it seems.

Where an heir or an executor is acting, add the documents that establish that authority. We need them before we can look at holdings that were not your own, and providing them at the start saves a round of correspondence.

Do not discard anything that looks technical, however trivial it seems. Bank statements showing deposits to an exchange are often the only surviving trace of a platform account, and they are enough to start from.

What you receive

You receive an overview that a civil-law notary or a tax adviser can use directly, with a reference per item to the underlying data. Where keys are missing, the overview records the holding and its value and states plainly that access could not be established.

That distinction matters for an estate. A holding that exists but cannot be accessed is a different item in the division from one that can, and the overview keeps the two apart.

For an international reader the Dutch frame is the point. In Dutch estates the valuation date is the date of death, and the inheritance tax return is built on that date, so crypto assets in an estate are fixed on that day first and anything that happened afterwards is recorded separately.

Where keys are missing, the overview records the holding and its value and states plainly that access could not be established. That distinction matters in an estate: a holding that exists but cannot be reached is a different item in the division from one that can.

How to get started

You contact us with a short description of what has been found and who is handling the estate. We will tell you what an inventory can establish with the material available. The contact page is the place to begin.

Tell us what has been found and who is handling the estate. Where an heir or an executor is acting we also need the documents that establish that authority, and providing them at the start saves a round of correspondence.

A civil-law notary or a tax adviser can use the overview directly, with a reference per item to the underlying data, so no one has to take a figure on trust.

What the civil-law notary or the Dutch tax authority does with the overview, they decide themselves.