Study: 89% Worry What Happens to Their Crypto After They Die

Most younger crypto holders don't have any kind of plan to pass down their digital assets when they die.

According to a survey conducted among 1,150 participants between October 2019 and June 2020 by the Cremation Institute, the majority of crypto holders are concerned about passing on their assets after they die, but a large proportion fail to use wills, trusts, or proper instructions for beneficiaries.

This lack of preparation, according to the institute, is due to a lack of estate services focusing on crypto assets and a lack of government regulation.

The study recorded 89% of investors saying they worried on some level about whether their crypto assets would be transferred to their family or friends following their death, with no respondents saying they were "Not at all" concerned.

Younger generations - those between 18-40 years old - are more than likely to have no kind of plan at all for their digital assets when they pass on.

Only 65% of Millennials and 41% of Zoomers said they had left some kind of instructions for their digital assets.

The study found that crypto holders were four times less likely to use wills for inheritances - 7%, compared to 32% of non-crypto investors - a result the institute called "Quite alarming."

According to the Cremation Institute's Adam Binstock, the study was conducted after "Hearing about the horror stories of people dying with their assets."

One of the most famous incidents of a large number of digital assets lost supposedly after death is from Gerry Cotten, the founder of QuadrigaCX. When he died in India in 2018, without ever passing on the keys to $145 million in tokens, many suspected that he had faked his own death.

Inheriti, a digital asset inheritance service from platform Safe Haven is now in beta and will launch soon.