What Happens to Your Online Life When You’re Gone?

We live in an increasingly digital world. From cryptocurrency to monetized social media accounts, more of our valuable assets exist purely online. Yet most Canadians haven’t considered what happens to these digital assets when they pass away.

The reality is sobering: without proper planning, your digital assets could be lost forever.

Your Digital Life Has Real Value

Consider what you might own digitally:

• Cryptocurrency and digital investments (Bitcoin, NFTs, online trading accounts)
• Intellectual property (copyrights, trademarks, domain names)
• Revenue-generating assets (monetized websites, YouTube channels, social media accounts)
• Digital business assets (customer databases, online storefronts, proprietary software)

Many of these have real financial value – and all require specific access credentials that could disappear without proper planning.

The Access Problem

Unlike traditional assets, digital assets are protected by passwords and complex security measures. When you pass away, your loved ones face a frustrating reality: they know the assets exist, but they can’t access them.

Consider Sarah, a photographer with a monetized Instagram account generating monthly income. When she passed away unexpectedly, her family couldn’t access the account without her passwords. The earning potential was essentially lost.

Or Mike, who invested $75,000 in cryptocurrency. His family knew about the investment, but without his digital wallet keys, those assets became permanently inaccessible.

Protecting Your Digital Legacy

With proper planning, you can ensure your digital assets reach your beneficiaries. Here’s what to consider when creating or updating your will and Power of Attorney:

Create a Digital Asset Inventory: Document all digital assets, including account information and approximate values.

Secure Password Management: Use a reputable password manager and ensure your executor can access it, or maintain a secure record of critical information.

Update Your Will: Specifically address digital assets, naming beneficiaries and providing access guidance.

Consider Your POA: Ensure it includes authority to manage digital assets if you become incapacitated.

Plan for Business Continuity: If you have revenue-generating digital assets, plan how they’ll be managed to maintain value.

Don’t Let Your Digital Legacy Disappear

As our lives become increasingly digital, estate planning must evolve too. Digital assets won’t transfer automatically – without proper planning, they could vanish forever.

Haven’t updated your will or POA recently? Never considered your digital assets? Now’s the time to act.

Ready to protect your complete legacy? Contact TLR Law at (204) 925-1900 to discuss how we can help secure all your assets – digital and traditional – for your loved ones.