Over the last few years, cryptocurrencies have become an increasingly popular medium of investment and exchange. As individuals have grown more comfortable with cryptocurrencies, financial institutions have been forced to invest in, manage, and take custody of various forms of digital assets. They have therefore begun to create policies and procedures for holding clients' cryptocurrencies. Regardless of whether a financial institution has developed cryptocurrency policies and procedures, every corporate fiduciary that serves as an executor of an estate or a trustee of a trust will, at some point in the not-too-distant future, need to take custody of a decedent's cryptocurrency. Some of the issues faced by corporate fiduciaries when holding digital assets as executors of estates or trustees of trusts are outlined below.

Before diving into the specific issues faced by corporate fiduciaries, a brief explanation of cryptocurrencies is necessary. Cryptocurrencies operate on a decentralized block chain. They use "public" and "private" keys to safeguard transactions. These keys play an essential role in the verification process of cryptocurrency transactions. Keys are a string of alphanumeric characters that can be written on a piece of paper or stored on a hard drive (cold storage), or stored in an internet-based wallet or cloud-based program (hot storage). Regardless of the form of storage, safeguarding private keys is crucial to maintaining the integrity of cryptocurrency transactions. If an owner loses a private key, and no intermediary or separate individual has a backup copy, the cryptocurrency is effectively worthless until the private key is found. Similarly, if a private key is stolen, the thief could potentially transfer the cryptocurrency with little ability for the original owner to recover the stolen cryptocurrency.