How to access crypto accounts after someone dies

When my neighbor Tom died at 58 from a heart attack, his wife Karen knew he'd been buying Bitcoin since 2017. He talked about it at dinner parties. He'd mentioned "a Coinbase account" and "a Ledger thing" in a drawer somewhere. What Karen didn't have was any password, any PIN, or any idea how much was actually there.

It took her eight months, a probate attorney, and $4,000 in legal fees to recover about $140,000 from Coinbase. The Ledger device in the drawer? Still locked. Tom never wrote down the seed phrase, or if he did, nobody has found it. Whatever was on that device is gone.

Tom's situation is increasingly common. According to a 2023 Pew Research survey, about 17% of U.S. adults have owned or used cryptocurrency. Many of them have told no one how to access it. The privacy and self-sovereignty that make crypto appealing in life become a trap in death.

If you're trying to recover a deceased person's crypto holdings, or if you want to make sure yours are accessible when you die, here's what you need to know.

Exchange accounts vs. self-custody wallets

The first thing to understand is where the crypto lives, because that determines whether recovery is possible at all.

Exchange accounts (Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, Crypto.com, Binance.US) are custodial. The exchange holds the private keys. The deceased person had a username and password, but the exchange controls the underlying funds. This is good news for heirs, because the exchange can grant access through a legal process. Think of it like a bank account, more or less.

Self-custody wallets are different. These include hardware wallets (Ledger, Trezor, Coldcard) and software wallets (MetaMask, Exodus, Trust Wallet, Electrum). The person held their own private keys. No company can recover access. If the seed phrase (a 12- or 24-word backup phrase generated when the wallet was created) is lost, the crypto is permanently gone. No amount of legal paperwork changes this. The blockchain doesn't care who died.

When you're dealing with a deceased person's crypto, your first job is figuring out which category you're in. Check email for exchange confirmations. Look for apps on their phone. Search for hardware devices in drawers, safes, or safe deposit boxes. Check their password manager if they had one.

Recovering crypto from Coinbase

Coinbase is the largest U.S. exchange and has a documented estate process. Here's what they require:

1. A death certificate (certified copy)
2. A document proving legal authority: Letters Testamentary, Letters of Administration, or a Small Estate Affidavit depending on your state
3. A government-issued ID for the person filing the claim
4. A signed letter of instruction specifying what you want done with the assets

Send everything to Coinbase's support team through their estate request form. They will verify the documents, confirm the identity of the deceased person against their records, and then either liquidate the holdings and send a USD check to the estate, or transfer the crypto to an account you designate.

Timeline: four to six weeks in straightforward cases. If the account had advanced security features (like a vault with a 48-hour time lock), expect longer.

One complication: Coinbase may ask for additional documentation if the name on the account doesn't exactly match the death certificate, if the estate is being handled in a different state from where the account holder lived, or if multiple parties are claiming authority. A probate attorney can usually sort this out with a letter.

Recovering crypto from Kraken, Gemini, and other exchanges

Most major exchanges have similar estate processes, though the details vary.

Kraken requires a death certificate, proof of legal authority, and a written request sent to their support team. Kraken tends to process estate claims faster than Coinbase in my experience (two to four weeks), and their support staff communicates more frequently during the process. Their help page on deceased account holders outlines the steps.

Gemini requires the same core documents but routes everything through their compliance team. They also ask for a completed W-9 form for the estate before releasing funds. The Gemini process is slower on average but generally straightforward.

Crypto.com and Binance.US have less clearly documented estate processes. You'll likely need to open a support ticket and explain the situation. Both will eventually ask for the same documents (death certificate, letters testamentary, ID), but getting to that point may require several rounds of back-and-forth with support agents who aren't sure what to do.

For smaller or international exchanges, the process becomes less predictable. Some have no estate policy at all. If you're dealing with an exchange based outside the U.S., you may need legal counsel familiar with that jurisdiction.

Self-custody wallets: seed phrase or nothing

If the deceased person held crypto in a self-custody wallet, the only path to recovery is finding the seed phrase (also called a recovery phrase or mnemonic). This is a sequence of 12 or 24 English words, generated when the wallet was first set up, that can recreate the wallet on any compatible device.

Places to look:

• Written on paper or a metal plate, stored in a safe, a lockbox, a drawer, or with important documents
• In a password manager (some people store seed phrases there despite security advice against it)
• In a sealed envelope left with an attorney or trusted person
• On a piece of paper tucked inside a book or hidden in an unusual location
• In a bank safe deposit box

If you find a hardware wallet (Ledger or Trezor, usually a small USB-like device), you still need the PIN to use it directly. After three incorrect PIN attempts on a Ledger, the device resets. On a Trezor, the delay between attempts increases exponentially after multiple failures. Without the PIN, the device itself is useless. You need the seed phrase.

If you find the seed phrase but not the device, you can restore the wallet. Download the official software for the wallet type (Ledger Live for Ledger, Trezor Suite for Trezor, or a compatible wallet like Electrum for Bitcoin-only wallets). Enter the recovery phrase, and you'll see all the accounts and balances.

If you cannot find the seed phrase and cannot unlock the hardware wallet, the crypto is gone. This is not a matter of insufficient effort or bureaucratic gatekeeping. It's math. The private keys are cryptographically derived from the seed phrase, and there is no backdoor. Ledger, Trezor, and MetaMask cannot help you, because they never had access to the keys either.

How to figure out what someone owned

Before you can recover anything, you need to know what exists. Crypto doesn't send account statements in the mail.

Start with email. Search the deceased person's inbox for messages from Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, Binance, Crypto.com, and any other exchange name you recognize. Look for transaction confirmations, verification emails, or deposit notifications. Check spam folders too, as crypto exchanges send frequent emails that often get filtered.

Check their phone for apps: Coinbase, MetaMask, Trust Wallet, Exodus, Crypto.com, or any wallet application. If the phone is locked, you may need to go through Apple's Legacy Contact program or Google's Inactive Account Manager to gain access.

Look at bank and credit card statements for purchases from exchanges. Coinbase transactions appear as "COINBASE" on bank statements. Kraken may appear as "PAYWARD" (their parent company name).

Check tax returns. The IRS requires disclosure of cryptocurrency transactions. If the deceased person filed a Schedule D (Capital Gains) or reported crypto income, there should be records of which platforms they used. A CPA or tax attorney can help you trace holdings back from tax documents.

Tax obligations and the estate

The IRS classifies cryptocurrency as property, not currency. This means crypto holdings are part of the estate and subject to normal estate tax rules. As executor, you're legally required to account for all known crypto assets, report their value at the date of death, and include them in the estate inventory for probate.

The good news: crypto receives a stepped-up cost basis at death, just like stocks or real estate. If Tom bought Bitcoin at $4,000 and it was worth $65,000 when he died, Karen's estate reports the $65,000 value. If she sells at $67,000, the taxable gain is only $2,000. The IRS guidance on virtual currency confirms this treatment.

Work with a CPA who understands crypto taxation. Not all do. The cost basis records may be on the exchange (Coinbase generates Form 1099-MISC and cost basis reports), but if assets were moved between wallets, tracking becomes complicated.

DeFi, NFTs, and staking

If the deceased person was active in decentralized finance (DeFi), the recovery process gets harder. DeFi positions (liquidity pools, staked tokens, yield farming) live entirely on-chain and are controlled by the wallet's private keys. There is no customer service to call. If you have the seed phrase, you can access everything. If you don't, same story as before.

NFTs stored in a self-custody wallet follow the same rules. If you have access to the wallet, you can transfer or sell them. Popular NFT marketplaces like OpenSea simply read what's in a connected wallet.

For staked crypto (tokens locked in exchange staking or on-chain staking), the exchange staking is recoverable through the normal estate process. On-chain staking requires wallet access and may have unlock periods (Ethereum staking exits can take days to weeks depending on the queue).

Planning ahead: what to do now

If you own crypto and want your family to actually receive it, you need to do one specific thing: make sure someone can access your seed phrases and exchange passwords after you die.

Options that work:

• Write your seed phrases on paper or stamp them on metal plates. Store them in a fireproof safe or safe deposit box. Tell your executor where to find them and what they are.
• Use a password manager and make sure your executor has the master password or emergency access.
• Include exchange account details (which platforms, approximate holdings) in your digital estate plan.
• Designate a legacy contact or beneficiary on exchanges that offer the feature. Coinbase has a "vault" feature with designated signers. Crypto.com allows beneficiary designations in some jurisdictions.
• Write a letter explaining what you own, where it's stored, and how to access it. Leave it with your estate documents.

Options that don't work:

• Assuming your spouse will "figure it out"
• Hiding seed phrases so cleverly that no one can find them
• Relying on memory alone

The whole point of self-custody crypto is that no one can take it from you. That protection doesn't switch off because you died. You have to build the access path yourself, while you're alive.

When I Die Files gives you a place to store those instructions securely and make sure they reach the right person at the right time, without exposing your crypto to anyone before it's needed.