Estate planning.
For the people left behind.
Estate planning is two things at once: making sure your wealth passes to the people you choose, and making sure those people don't get crushed by chaos doing it. This hub covers the non-Bitcoin pieces - wills, trusts, beneficiarybeneficiaryThe person or entity you name to receive an account or insurance policy when you die. designations, power of attorney, and the stepped-up basisstepped-up basisA tax break for heirs. When you inherit a stock, house, or Bitcoin, the IRS pretends you bought it at its market value on the date the previous owner died. All the growth that happened during their lifetime escapes tax forever.Full definition loophole. For Bitcoin-specific inheritance, see the dedicated guide.
Four documents do almost all the work: a will, a revocable trust if your situation needs one, beneficiary designations on every account that has one, and durable powers of attorney. Stepped-up basis is the loophole that makes holding appreciated assets until death wildly tax-efficient. If you own Bitcoin, none of the standard tools reach your coins without a separate access plan. That is what the inheritance guide is for.
Not an attorney. This is education, not legal advice. Estate law varies by state and every family situation has its own wrinkles. Specific figures should be confirmed against current state and federal law. For anything material, hire an estate attorney.
The four pieces
Each card is its own deep-dive. Read them in order if you are starting from nothing. Jump to whichever you need if you are plugging a specific hole.
Where to start if you have nothing
You do not need an attorney-drafted estate plan to avoid the worst outcomes. You need these five things in order.
Name an executor, name guardians for minor children, say who gets what. DIY tools (Nolo, LegalZoom, Trust & Will) cost $100-500. An attorney-drafted will runs $500-1,500. Either beats dying intestate, where state law decides.
401k, IRA, Roth, HSAHealth Savings Account (HSA)A tax-advantaged account for healthcare costs, available with a high-deductible plan; contributions, growth, and qualified withdrawals are all tax-free.Full definition, life insurance, pension. Add TODTransfer on Death (TOD)A name you write on a brokerage account that says: when I die, this person gets these investments directly. The account skips the slow court process for sorting out assets after death.Full definition or PODPayable on Death (POD)A name you write on a bank account that says: when I die, this person gets the money directly. The account skips the slow court process for sorting out a dead person's assets.Full definition designations to checking, savings, and brokerage. Primary beneficiary and contingent beneficiary on every one. Thirty minutes of work.
Financial POA and healthcare POA. State-specific forms. Notarize. Give copies to the named agents. Without these, a simple hospital stay can turn into a court-supervised conservatorship.
A list of every account, every service, every password manager location. For Bitcoin, a letter of instructions pointing to your seed recovery setup. Do not put seed phrases in the inventory itself. See Inheritance.
Marriages, divorces, deaths, moves, new kids, new accounts. Every three years, sit down and re-verify every beneficiary, every executor, every POA agent. Ten minutes per document. This is the step that catches ex-spouses still listed on 401ks.
The Bitcoin angle
None of the standard estate-planning tools reach self-custodied Bitcoin on their own. A will can say "my BTCBitcoin (BTC)The ticker symbol for Bitcoin, used on exchanges and in price quotes.Full definition goes to my daughter" all day. If nobody has the seed phraseseed phraseThink of it as the combination to a bank vault that exists only in your head: 12 or 24 specific words in a specific order. Anyone who copies the combination opens the vault. The bank has no copy. There is no locksmith, no reset, no customer service. Lose the words, lose the Bitcoin.Full definition, the BTC is lost. A trust can legally own Bitcoin. If the trustee cannot sign a transaction, the trust owns nothing usable.
Estate planning for Bitcoin is a two-layer problem. Layer one is legal: who inherits. Layer two is technical: who can access. The legal layer lives in the documents on this hub. The technical layer lives in the inheritance guide.
If you self-custody any meaningful amount of Bitcoin, you need both layers. Write a will that points to a letter of instructions. The letter points to your access setup (multisig service, Shamir shares, hardware wallet location). The access setup is what actually moves the coins. Three layers of separation, any one compromised leaks nothing useful.
Start with the Inheritance guide before you draft the documents. The documents should reflect the access plan, not the other way around.
A word on "not advice"
Everything here is general education. Estate law is state-specific. Two households with identical assets can have completely different optimal plans based on state residency, marriage status, business ownership, minor children, special-needs dependents, blended family structure, and creditor exposure.
For anything material, hire an estate attorney. Expect $500 to $3,000 for a full plan depending on complexity. It is cheaper than probate and infinitely cheaper than family litigation.
- American Bar Association - Estate Planning FAQs - americanbar.org
- AARP - State intestacy rules and probate overview - aarp.org
- IRS Publication 559 - Survivors, Executors, and Administrators - irs.gov
- Uniform Probate Code overview (state-by-state variation) - uniformlaws.org
- Nolo Press - plain-language estate planning reference - nolo.com
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Last updated 2026-04-14. Not legal advice. For anything material, consult an estate attorney.