**Digital Assets** (noun) — Electronic records, accounts, or property that exist in digital form and have monetary or sentimental value, including but not limited to email accounts, social media profiles, cryptocurrency, digital photographs, online business accounts, and stored files.
Digital assets are everything you own online or in electronic form. This includes your email, social media accounts, photos stored in the cloud, cryptocurrency, online banking, subscriptions like Netflix or Spotify, and any files on your computer or phone.
Most people accumulate dozens or hundreds of digital assets over their lifetime. Some have obvious financial value, like cryptocurrency or PayPal accounts. Others have sentimental value, like family photos stored in Google Photos or years of email correspondence.
The challenge is that when you die, these assets don't automatically pass to your loved ones. In fact, many companies have policies that make it very difficult for anyone else to access your accounts, even with a death certificate.
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Digital assets are increasingly important in estate planning because they represent real value—both financial and emotional. If you don't plan for them, your family may lose access forever.
For example, if you have cryptocurrency worth thousands of dollars but no one knows your password or recovery phrase, that money is gone. If you've stored a lifetime of family photos in iCloud and haven't shared your login details, your children may never see those memories.
Different countries and platforms have different rules about digital asset access after death. Some allow executors to access accounts with proper documentation. Others permanently lock accounts when they detect that the owner has died. You can help your executor by keeping a list of your important digital accounts and passwords in a secure location, or by using a password manager that can be accessed after your death.
**Related terms:** [Executor](/dictionary/executor), [Estate](/dictionary/estate), [Personal Property](/dictionary/personal-property), [Will](/dictionary/will)
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