The Digital Financial Assets Module
The family's cryptocurrency, NFTs, revenue-generating digital properties, domain names, and income-producing intellectual property — what exists, where access lives, and how heirs avoid permanent loss.
Where this Module fits
F-02 Module 2 of 6 in the Financial area — step 3 of 4 on the dependency ladder (System → At-Home → Financial → Estate).
Second — the wealth with no physical form, placed early because delay here is uniquely irreversible.
Adds to The Secure Guide: Per-category holdings — platforms, wallets, seed-phrase locations by reference.
Adds to The Family Guide: Which categories exist, who to contact before acting, heirs' caution.
Every Module adds one section to each guide — that is how the two guides assemble as you work. See what you're building.
Text file — the flexible one. Use it as-is, paste it into a spreadsheet, open it in any editor, or paste it into an AI tool to reshape the blank form to fit your family: rename a field, add a row, drop one you don't need.
Print / PDF — the ready-to-use one. Print it and fill it in by hand, or choose Save as PDF and complete it in your own offline PDF app. Either way it stays with you — the finished Secure Guide template goes inside your Vault.
One rule: only ever give an AI tool the blank template. Never paste your real information — passwords, account numbers, anything you'd keep secret — into an AI tool, an online service, or anywhere outside your own Vault. Customizing an empty form is fine; filling it in happens privately, offline. That's the same rule this site follows: nothing sensitive ever leaves your hands.
Secure Guide Starter Template — Digital Financial Assets
This template belongs in The Secure Guide, stored within The Vault. One entry for each digital asset or account. Access details, seed phrases, and wallet information must be protected with the same rigor as financial account credentials.
The decision rule for this Module: if a digital asset could be appraised, sold, or generate income for your heirs, it belongs here; if its value is personal, memorial, or identity-based, see the Digital Legacy Module. The stakes are unique — these assets can vanish completely and permanently. There is no customer-service line behind a hardware wallet, and no estate process unlocks one without the phrase; your heirs can rely only on what you leave them. So the first task is also the most urgent one in the book: confirm the recovery phrase is written, accurate, and stored — this is the only place where waiting can make an asset permanently unrecoverable. And if your family holds none of this, record that too: “none” is an answer that ends a search.
One rule, in its strongest form, because its absoluteness is its strength: no exchange, wallet maker, attorney, executor, tax preparer, or “support agent” — however knowledgeable, however urgent, however much they already correctly know — ever legitimately needs a recovery phrase spoken, typed into a site, photographed, or messaged. The request is the attack, every time; the answer is always no, and it needs no judgment under pressure. Two companions ride with it: the email that resets the exchange account is the second door — give it the strongest authentication the family uses anywhere; and estate administration is the hunting season — after a death, every “exchange notice,” “tax obligation,” and “recovery deadline” routes through the documented plan and verified contacts, never the message itself.
Cryptocurrency Holdings
e.g., coins on an exchange, a software wallet on a phone, a hardware wallet in a drawer. The holdings and their custody belong here; what happens to the accounts at death is the Digital Legacy Module's decision.
Repeat for each cryptocurrency or wallet.
NFTs and Digital Collectibles
e.g., a collectible with real resale value on a marketplace. If the value is sentimental rather than market — digital art you made, family media — it belongs in the Digital Legacy Module instead.
Revenue-Generating Digital Properties
e.g., a monetized video channel, a newsletter with paying subscribers, an online storefront, an affiliate site. A website that only advertises your services is not one — that is your business, and it lives in the Work History and Entities Modules.
Repeat for each property.
Domain Names
e.g., the family website's domain, one bought years ago that quietly accumulated value, the domain a revenue property runs on. Even a domain that just points at a hobby page belongs here — it is property with an expiration date.
Intellectual Property with Active Income
e.g., book royalties arriving now, licensed photography, a stock-music catalog paying quarterly. Latent value — the unpublished manuscript, unreleased recordings — belongs in the Entities Module; personal creative work with no market belongs in Digital Legacy.
For IP with significant latent value but no active income stream — unpublished works, unreleased recordings, proprietary software — see the Entities Module.
Family Guide Starter Template — Digital Financial Assets
This template belongs in The Family Guide. It confirms what exists and where to look — without exposing wallet addresses, seed phrases, or credentials.
In the matching Secure Guide section: per-category holdings — platforms, wallets, seed-phrase locations by reference.
That detail is what makes recovery possible — and it is protected in the Vault, which opens with The Vault Key. The key is never written here, by design. The people listed on this page know how it is kept, and the steward's job is to keep that path current, so this page never leads to a locked door.
This section confirms that our family holds digital financial assets. Details, credentials, and access instructions are documented in The Secure Guide, stored in The Vault.
| Asset Category | Exists? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Name | Role | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
Important notes for heirs: Cryptocurrency and digital wallet assets cannot be recovered without the correct access credentials and seed phrase. Do not attempt to transfer, sell, or convert these assets without first locating the full access instructions in The Secure Guide. Treat any “exchange notice,” “tax obligation,” or “recovery deadline” that arrives after a death as suspect — verify through the contacts above, never through the message. And no one legitimate will EVER need the recovery phrase spoken, typed, or photographed. For the formal role and legal authority of the digital executor, see the Estate Plan Module.
Anything this page's reader should know that the sections above didn't ask for — the exceptions, the house quirks, the thing you would say out loud while handing this page over.
For more information on how to use these templates, see The Recoverable Family book.
Worked example — Frank's family
Three years ago, in an evening, Frank bought a modest amount of Bitcoin through an exchange app — and wrote the seed phrase on a sticky note that has since disappeared. Sarah didn't know the account existed. Working this module, he fixed all of it: credentials into the password manager, the coins onto a hardware wallet, the phrase written properly on two copies. A year later he decided he wasn't a crypto investor after all and closed the position entirely. The record below is what a clean exit looks like — kept on purpose.
All details are fictional and illustrative. The assembled example guides live at the example Secure Guide and the example Family Guide.
Secure Guide — Frank's entry
The Digital Financial Assets section of the Mercers' Secure Guide — one active asset, one closed one, and three honest “nones”:
Cryptocurrency Holdings — CLOSED 2026
Domain Names
Everything else — recorded as “none”
The one rule survives the closed position: no one — exchange, attorney, executor, “support” — ever legitimately needs a recovery phrase spoken, typed, photographed, or messaged. The request is the attack, every time.
Family Guide — Frank's entry
This entry sits in the household reference binder. It confirms what exists — no addresses, no phrases, no credentials.
| Asset Category | Exists? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Cryptocurrency | No — since 2026 | We used to; the closed record is in The Secure Guide. Nothing to find |
| NFTs / digital collectibles | No | — |
| Revenue-generating properties | No | Mom's business site sells her services — it isn't one of these |
| Domain names | Yes — one | The family website's address; renewal is automatic |
| IP with active income | No | — |
| Name | Role | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elena Vargas, CFP® | Financial advisor — first call | 555-0146 | evargas@alderwealth.example |
| Marcus Lee, CPA | Tax consequences | 555-0153 | mlee@leetran.example |
| Sarah Mercer | Digital executor (see Digital Legacy) | — | — |
For heirs: a wrong move can destroy a digital asset permanently. Locate the full instructions in The Secure Guide before touching anything, and treat any “exchange notice” or “recovery deadline” arriving after a death as suspect — verify through the people above, never the message. No one legitimate will ever need a recovery phrase from you.