What happens to your digital assets, legal assets, crypto, photos, emails, laptops, servers, and bereaved when you suffer from a fatal accident and exit non-zero?

If you’re the one left behind, what will make the process less layers of trauma?

(Based on a recent tragedy I’m close to… RIP mah friend </3)

First off, keep your passwords in a password manager and preserve the emergency recovery kit with one or more parties. If paranoid, split the content among N parties where it requires N-2 in order to recreate the full unlock info. If you have an attorney or a safety deposit box, consider keeping a copy there. Like physical security and trusting your local hardware, if you can’t trust your lawyer or deposit box you have bigger problems that need solving.

Keep a running list of your accounts, stocks, investments, company equity, stock options, RSUs, beneficiaries, etc. Either share the link to this spreadsheet ahead of time with loved ones or keep record of it in your password manager. Perhaps use a subtle tag like exit-127 in your password manager on all logins that should be investigated in the case of your death.

Use OTP instead of SMS and store it somewhere that could be recovered if you’re hit by a bus.

Store your laptop login in your password manager, with clear naming, so your bereaved can get in to figure out your accounts.

Make sure you and sig-other are both listed on accounts and cross referenced as beneficiaries, esp if unmarried.

Setup a Medical Power of Attorney and a Will or Trust… talk to an estate lawyer.

Share instructions about your hardware wallet. Make sure the ones you’ll leave behind know how to unlock it and have a trusted friend that can assist for redundancy.

Expect beneficiaries to need to engage with your most recent place of employment to wrap up loose ends, like returning company property (laptop, notebooks).

As the bereaved, pace yourself. Tackle the immediate needs and deal with grief, you can cancel Netflix and Spotify later. Speaking of which, grab credit card statements, bank statements, Mint login or YNAB and figure out weeks later what needs to be canceled. Get help from others for all the things you can outsource…. it’s going to be additional hardship working through the paperwork and logistics while thinking about your beloved.

So long for now.

G’luck and don’t exit non-zero.