Where Bitcoin Custody Intersects Legal and Fiduciary Authority
Cross-domain intersection index.
This page maps where Bitcoin custody meets legal and fiduciary systems. It documents these conditions. It does not provide advice or set standards.
Analytical Categories
This index maps intersection surfaces across five conditions:
- Failures mapped — where legal or professional systems do not work as expected with self-custody Bitcoin.
- Assumptions exposed — where estate, fiduciary, and advisory systems assume conditions that self-custody does not meet.
- Omissions documented — where professional scope ends and nothing else covers the gap.
- Tradeoffs defined — where resolving one domain creates dependencies or conflicts in another.
- Governance intersections translated — where language, timelines, or standards do not match how custody works.
Professionals, products, and institutions document their own scope. This index documents the gaps between scopes.
Bitcoin Custody and Estate Documents
Intersection condition: Estate documents assign legal authority over assets. Bitcoin requires cryptographic access. Legal documents cannot create that access.
Will names Bitcoin but does not address access
An estate plan identifies Bitcoin as an asset and assigns it to a beneficiary. The will does not contain or reference the seed phrase, passphrase, device location, or access procedure. Legal authority transfers at death. Technical access does not.
Trust holds Bitcoin without custody instructions
A trust instrument names Bitcoin among trust assets. The successor trustee receives legal authority to manage trust property. The trust document does not address how to locate, access, or transfer the Bitcoin. The trustee has legal authority but may not be able to access the Bitcoin.
Estate plan updated without verifying custody alignment
An attorney revises estate documents to reflect a new beneficiary structure. The custody arrangement — device locations, backup materials, access procedures — remains unchanged. The legal structure and the custody structure diverge.
Self-Custody and Probate Authority
Intersection condition: Probate grants legal authority to administer a decedent's estate. The Bitcoin network does not recognize probate authority. Letters testamentary do not produce cryptographic signatures.
Executor appointed without custody access
A probate court appoints an executor with full authority over the estate. The executor presents documentation to financial institutions and receives access to bank accounts, brokerage accounts, and insurance proceeds. The executor presents the same documentation to the Bitcoin network. Nothing happens. The network responds only to valid cryptographic signatures.
See Custody Summary for Executor, Executor Authority vs Signer
Probate delays compounding custody risk
The probate process takes months or years. During this period, hardware devices age, firmware becomes obsolete, backup materials degrade, and the holder's custody documentation may become less retrievable. The gap between legal authority and technical access can grow over time.
Custody Requirements and Professional Competence
Intersection condition: Professionals advise within their domain of competence. Bitcoin custody requires technical knowledge that most estate attorneys, advisors, and accountants do not have.
Attorney drafts estate plan without custody comprehension
An estate attorney prepares documents that reference Bitcoin without understanding seed phrases, derivation paths, multisig coordination, or the irreversibility of transactions. The legal documents are professionally drafted. The legal documents may assume custody works in ways that it does not.
Financial advisor assesses suitability without custody visibility
A financial advisor evaluates a client's Bitcoin position within a standard asset allocation framework. The advisor has no visibility into the custody arrangement — whether the keys are secure, whether backups exist, whether the client's heirs can access the position. The advisor reviews the asset but not the custody setup.
See Advisor Custody Risk Assessment, Advisor Suitability Gaps
Accountant reports Bitcoin value without verifying custody integrity
An accountant records the fair market value of Bitcoin on financial statements or tax returns. The valuation assumes the asset is accessible and transferable. Whether the holder can actually access, transfer, or liquidate the position depends on custody conditions the accounting process does not examine.
Bitcoin Custody and Fiduciary Standards
Intersection condition: Fiduciaries owe duties of care, loyalty, and prudence. Bitcoin custody introduces conditions where standard fiduciary practices — institutional safekeeping, account verification, asset transfer — do not apply.
Trustee holds fiduciary duty over an asset they cannot verify
A trustee is responsible for safeguarding trust assets. For traditional assets, the trustee verifies holdings through institutional statements. For self-custody Bitcoin, no institution provides statements. The trustee may be unable to independently verify that the Bitcoin exists, is accessible, or has not been compromised.
Duty of care without custody competence
A fiduciary is expected to exercise reasonable care in managing assets. For self-custody Bitcoin, managing self-custody Bitcoin may require understanding how keys and backups work. Most fiduciaries are not trained in these areas.
Custody Verification and Audit Procedures
Intersection condition: Institutional verification relies on third-party confirmations, account statements, and audit procedures. Self-custody Bitcoin has no third party to confirm balances or access.
Audit procedures designed for custodial assets
Standard audit procedures confirm asset existence through third-party verification — bank confirmations, brokerage statements, custodian reports. Self-custody Bitcoin has no third party to confirm. The audit procedure encounters a verification gap where existing methodology does not produce the confirmation it is designed to obtain.
Backup verification without technical capability
An executor, trustee, or advisor attempts to verify that custody backups are intact and functional. Verifying backups requires technical knowledge. This may include checking seed phrases, testing recovery on devices, and confirming setup paths. The person responsible may lack the ability to do it.
Custody Products and Service Boundaries
Intersection condition: Custody products and services define their own scope. Issues like inheritance, incapacity, or legal disputes often fall outside the product's scope. No adjacent service may cover them.
Hardware wallet provides security without inheritance path
A hardware wallet secures the holder's Bitcoin against unauthorized access. It does not address what happens when the holder dies, becomes incapacitated, or is otherwise unable to operate the device. The product secures access. It does not solve inheritance.
Multisig coordination assumptions untested under stress
A multisig arrangement distributes signing authority across multiple parties. The arrangement assumes all parties are available, willing, technically capable, and reachable when a signing event is needed. In real-world stress events Under stress conditions — death, dispute, incapacity, geographic separation — one or more of these assumptions may not holdmdash; death, dispute, or incapacity Under stress conditions — death, dispute, incapacity, geographic separation — one or more of these assumptions may not holdmdash; these assumptions may fail.
Exchange custody without inheritance procedure
An exchange holds Bitcoin on behalf of the user. The exchange provides account security, trading capability, and regulatory compliance. The exchange's inheritance procedure — if one exists — may involve documentation requirements, identity verification processes, and timelines that differ from the estate's legal expectations.
This index documents observed conditions. It does not set standards or provide advice.
For anyone who holds Bitcoin — on an exchange, in a wallet, through a service, or in self-custody — and wants to know what happens to it if something happens to them.
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