Nils Silinevics
Partner · AML & Crypto Compliance · Former FIU Investigator
Accessing a deceased person's crypto exchange account is one of the most emotionally difficult and legally complex challenges in digital asset law. Exchanges are not designed for inheritance. Death certificates do not fit into KYC forms. We help families navigate this — with compassion and legal precision.
Crypto exchanges are built on the assumption that the account holder is alive and can verify their identity in real time. When the account holder passes away, the entire identity verification system breaks down. The exchange cannot verify a dead person, and the heirs do not have the account holder's credentials (password, 2FA device, email access).
The result: families are locked out of significant assets at the worst possible time. Exchanges may not even acknowledge that the account holder has died — they simply see an inactive account and may eventually initiate AML procedures for inactivity.
We help you identify which exchange(s) the deceased used — through email records, bank statements (look for exchange deposits), browser history, or blockchain analysis if you know a wallet address. We then inventory what documentation you have: death certificate, will, grant of probate, and your own identity documents.
We prepare the legal package required by the exchange: an apostilled and translated death certificate, a certified copy of the grant of probate or equivalent inheritance document, a legal letter from Swiss counsel formally notifying the exchange of the account holder's death and requesting account access for the heirs, and KYC documentation for the heirs.
We submit the legal package to the exchange's compliance team through formal legal channels — not through the standard support ticket system. We follow up persistently and escalate to the exchange's legal department if the compliance team is unresponsive.
Once the exchange agrees to release the funds, we coordinate the transfer — either to the heirs' own exchange accounts or to fiat via a bank transfer. We ensure that the transfer does not trigger new AML flags by preparing source-of-funds documentation for the inherited assets.
Crypto inheritance often involves three or more jurisdictions: where the deceased lived, where the exchange is licensed, and where the heirs live. Each country has different requirements for death certificates, inheritance documentation, and apostille procedures.
Typical cross-border scenario: The deceased was a German resident. The exchange is Swiss (or Cayman, or BVI). The heirs are in the UK. The death certificate is in German. The exchange needs it in English, apostilled. The UK requires a grant of probate, but German inheritance law does not use probate — it uses an Erbschein. We coordinate the translation, apostille, and legal equivalence documentation across all three jurisdictions.
Swiss legal counsel is particularly effective here because Switzerland is not bound by EU regulations but is party to international apostille conventions. We can coordinate with notaries in multiple countries simultaneously.
Crypto inheritance cases typically take 3-6 months. The timeline breaks down as follows:
Cross-border cases with multiple heirs and complex inheritance documentation can take up to 8 months. We provide a realistic timeline after reviewing your specific situation.
At minimum: a death certificate (apostilled if the exchange is in a different country), a grant of probate or equivalent inheritance document, and your own KYC documentation (ID, proof of address). If there is no will, you need a court-issued inheritance certificate. We help you obtain and prepare all of these.
Yes — you do not need the deceased's credentials. The legal route bypasses the login entirely. We notify the exchange of the death, provide the legal inheritance documentation, and the exchange transfers the assets to the heirs' accounts. The deceased's password and 2FA are irrelevant once the legal process is initiated.
Yes. We can search for clues: bank statements for exchange deposits, email accounts for exchange correspondence, browser history, and app installations on the deceased's devices. If you have any wallet address associated with the deceased, we can trace it on the blockchain to identify which exchange holds the funds.
Hardware wallet recovery is a different process from exchange inheritance. If the seed phrase is available, we can restore the wallet on a new device. If the seed phrase is lost, the funds on the hardware wallet are likely unrecoverable — this is a fundamental limitation of self-custody. However, if the deceased also had exchange accounts, we can help with those. We also work with digital forensics specialists who may be able to recover seed phrases from the deceased's devices in some cases.
Yes — cross-border inheritance is our specialty. We coordinate with notaries and authorities in the deceased's country of residence to obtain apostilled death certificates and inheritance documents, then submit them to the exchange wherever it is licensed. We have handled cases involving 3-4 different jurisdictions simultaneously.
Crypto not mentioned in a will is still part of the estate and passes to heirs under the applicable intestacy laws. You do not need the crypto to be specifically mentioned in the will. We help establish your inheritance rights through the standard legal process, even for undocumented digital assets.
Related resources: For how inheritance interacts with AML laws by country, including estate disclosure requirements across jurisdictions. Our compliance glossary explains key terms for navigating inherited crypto. See all complex cases we handle.
All unusual situations we handle beyond standard compliance.
How inheritance interacts with AML rules in different jurisdictions.
Key terms for navigating inherited crypto and estate planning.
Tell us what happened. A senior crypto compliance lawyer — not a chatbot, not a junior — will read your case and respond within 6 hours. Swiss professional secrecy applies from your first message.