Most people will pass away, and for those who will it is important to have a solid succession plan, ensuring that their beloved ones get proper legal ownership — not only control — over their digital assets, without the classical risks associated with the succession of digital assets. You may also become incapacitated (for example, be in a coma in hospital after an accident) and therefore want a person of confidence, such as your spouse, to have access to your digital assets in order to pay for your hospital and other medical costs.

In most jurisdictions the authorities will nominate somebody who holds parental authority — usually the surviving parent, who will represent your children. It is worth considering what happens to your children's assets if the surviving parent re-marries and has more children, or comes under the undue influence of a new partner. If there is no surviving parent, or that parent is not considered fit to represent your children, the authorities may appoint a state guardian to represent your children's interests, which comes with a different set of risks. With Digital Succession Plan, the assets held for your children are instead distributed directly to them when they reach the age you have pre-defined in the documentation (but at minimum their age of majority in their home jurisdiction).

Normally a judge will decide how your assets are distributed based on your will/testament, or — if you have none — according to the applicable family law. In either case the judge can only distribute assets he knows of. Assets not distributed by this process will not be transferred with proper legal ownership, and it may be difficult or impossible to off-ramp them into the financial sector when due diligence is made. It may even result in banks reporting family members who try to off-ramp them to local money-laundering authorities, because no proper documentation of legal ownership can be provided. And if your digital assets held on exchanges are listed in your testament/will together with the respective passwords, this may constitute a risk of total loss, given that the judge and his team have access to the whereabouts and passwords of your digital assets. Depending on the applicable process, the notary public and their staff may also gain access to the content of your will, including the parts covering digital assets.

Sharing your passwords carries substantial risks. Persons with access to your passwords have unlimited access to your funds already during your lifetime. Sharing passwords or using multisig wallets grants only control over your assets, not legal ownership upon your death — which can create considerable problems when those persons try to off-ramp the assets (banks may refuse them or report those persons to local money-laundering authorities). Most terms and conditions of wallets and exchanges also do not permit sharing passwords. To transfer legal ownership upon death you need to comply with specific formalities, such as a valid — sometimes notarised or hand-written — will, and a court will have to validate the post-mortem distribution to create proper legal ownership. Other methods only transfer control, so the transfer of those assets can be legally challenged later on.

Because your will is handled by the court: several court staff, the judge, a potential executor and others will all have access to its content. So if you leave your passwords in your will together with the exchange where the digital assets are held, those assets may have disappeared by the time your loved ones obtain legal access. Also, in successions with assets or heirs abroad, the process can take several years, during which the assets are normally blocked.

Other methods carry considerable operational and legal risks, because they were either not designed for succession planning (transferring control but not legal ownership) or designed for succession but not for digital assets (creating substantial risk of assets being stolen or embezzled in the process). (a) Testaments/Wills: if you leave the passwords and/or keys of your crypto exchanges in your will, the court staff, judge and executor(s) involved can access your digital assets. (b) Leaving a password during your lifetime, or multisig solutions: the persons getting access to your keys can withdraw your assets at any time, and if you have no will, legal ownership is not transferred to them upon your death — creating major problems when they try to off-ramp to a bank (refusal, or reporting to money-laundering authorities). (c) Classical foundations or trusts normally do not let you withdraw, trade, invest or oversee funds 24/7, or even check on them in real time; handling involves wet-ink signatures and slow, complicated processes, resulting in high operational risks and handling costs.

All day-to-day decisions and tasks are done electronically, so the risk of human failure is considerably reduced or eliminated.

A private foundation holds assets and makes distributions to beneficiaries (individuals) predefined by you. Normally you would choose to be the only beneficiary during your lifetime — enabling you alone to partially or totally withdraw the foundation's assets at any time — and define your family members and/or charities as further beneficiaries for when you pass away. You may also opt for an incapacity clause, enabling a person you trust to withdraw certain assets if you become incapacitated (for example, to pay your hospital and other medical costs).

For legal reasons the amount of assets in the foundation should always at least cover the registered capital of USD 10,000. However, for cost reasons we do not consider it reasonable to set up a foundation for assets under USD 100,000. For more detailed considerations on this topic, please visit our risk radar.

There is a one-time fixed set-up fee of USD 3,500 covering all external fees in Panama (law firm, registry, government fees, and fees for opening wallets). There is also a fixed yearly fee of USD 2,000 (covering the law firm's service as well as government fees, taxes and accounting), plus a variable yearly fee on a sliding scale between 0.1% (or lower) and 0.3% p.a. A yearly fee of USD 30 is charged per wallet.

Digital Succession Plan provides the option to swap and stake assets through external providers against a fee. If, however, you want to swap your assets with a provider of your own choice, you can withdraw the assets at no fee, swap them outside the foundation, and return them to the foundation at no fee.

While the legal framework of Digital Succession Plan does not oblige you to adhere to any forced-heirship rules (Art. 14 of the 1995 Panamanian foundation law explicitly holds that the foundation is not obliged to adhere to forced-heirship laws applicable to beneficiaries), it is advisable to adhere to them, because heirs whose rights have been violated may seek compensation in jurisdictions where forced-heirship rules apply. Voluntarily adhering to them within the foundation may avoid long and expensive litigation between family members.

You can oversee and manage (withdraw, stake, swap) the assets of the foundation 24/7 and at any time.

A member of a renowned law firm in Panama will go and register the foundation at the public registry and subsequently upload the foundation charter to your documents on the foundation platform.

You may do partial and total distributions to your private wallets at any time. You may terminate/liquidate the foundation anytime. You can change the name of the foundation. You can change the regulations (change your beneficiaries) at any time. You can stake and swap digital assets anytime, and you can open new additional wallets or close wallets at any time.

You will instruct the board to open one or several digital wallet(s) in which the foundation holds its digital assets. The wallets are MPC (multi-party computation) wallets, which correspond to the highest technical security standard currently available in the market and are often used by institutional clients.

The wallet provider uses multi-party computation (MPC) technology for its wallets. MPC wallets are currently considered to comply with the highest available security standards.

Foundation wallets support all primary and additional blockchains enabled by our infrastructure provider, Portal HQ. This encompasses all major EVM networks, Bitcoin and Solana, and standard token formats such as ERC-20, SPL and others. For the full, up-to-date list of supported chains and digital assets, please refer to the Portal HQ developer documentation.

The set-up and yearly fees already contain large parts of the fees for wallet usage. An extra handling fee of USD 30 per wallet per year is applied.

It is a legal requirement that the foundation has the keys to its wallets. Operationally, the Foundation Council (Digital Succession Board Ltd.) manages this access and holds the keys on behalf of the foundation.

MPC (multi-party computation) wallet technology ensures leading-edge security by splitting private keys cryptographically across multiple parties. In the foundation's setup, these pieces are split between the wallet provider (Portal LLC) and the Foundation Council (Digital Succession Board Ltd.).

You will be provided with a scanned copy of the foundation charter (acta fundacional) from the public registry in Panama as proof of the foundation's existence, and the regulations signed by the foundation council, in addition to the documents you have signed. You will also receive ongoing information on the transactions within the wallets, documentation of your instructions to the foundation council and evidence of their execution, as well as the yearly consolidated accounting of the foundation.

(a) A valid passport copy, not older than 3 months. (b) A utility bill, not older than 3 months. (c) A banking reference, not older than 3 months.

This is a legal requirement in Panama. The Digital Succession Plan product blends the more-than-2,000-year-old idea of the Roman-law fideicommissum with top-notch blockchain-based and AI-supported technologies. Because the successor model of the fideicommissum — the Private Foundation — is part of the 'old economy', it is highly regulated and therefore provides legal certainty to consumers. In Panama, a utility bill and a banking reference are standard requirements for setting up a foundation.

Yes, you will get a copy of the consolidated accounting at year end, which the foundation is required to establish in line with Panamanian law.

Given the level of control a first beneficiary maintains over the assets of the foundation, most jurisdictions will consider that a first beneficiary continues to have a reporting and tax obligation over those assets in their domicile country. You should therefore check the tax and reporting requirements for yourself and the other beneficiaries in the applicable jurisdictions.

Currently, as this site goes live, there is no reporting requirement to local tax authorities in Panama. However, a reporting requirement may at some point become applicable for foundations whose first beneficiaries reside in certain countries that have the respective agreements with Panama.

The Digital Succession Plan structure is exempt from income, wealth, gift and inheritance taxes in Panama. However, a government fee is due both for the set-up and on a yearly basis — both are covered by the one-time set-up fee and the yearly fee charged to you by Digital Succession Plan.

The one-time set-up fee and the first year's fee are paid in crypto during the application process using any of our accepted assets: USDT, USDC, BTC (Mainnet), or ETH (Mainnet). Subsequent annual fees and any additional services you request will be charged directly from your foundation's digital wallets in one of these four primary assets. If your foundation does not hold balances in USDT, USDC, BTC, or ETH at the time of billing, the foundation council will apply a 2% handling fee which will apply to perform the necessary token swap.

The foundation board will at all times comply with all applicable laws, including data-protection laws. On a need-only basis it shares information with external parties providing services to Digital Succession Plan and its foundations and clients — for example, a professional entity performing the due-diligence and KYC services required of Digital Succession Plan under Panamanian law.

Any individual who is not a US taxable person, is not resident in the European Union, is not a politically exposed person (PEP), is not related to a sanctioned country, passes the due-diligence/KYC filter of our specialised external provider, and pays the set-up and first-year fee.

Our platform uses a passwordless login model designed for high-security environments. (1) One-time passcode (OTP): instead of passwords, you receive a single-use code by email every time you log in, valid for 10 minutes. (2) Device-based two-factor authentication: you register your trusted device(s); if a login attempt is made from an unrecognised device, access is immediately blocked. (3) Automatic timeout: sessions disconnect after 1 hour of inactivity to keep your digital assets protected.

Any individual who is not a politically exposed person (PEP) and who is not related to a sanctioned country.

You can join directly from the referral section of the platform (digitalsuccessionplan.com/#referral).

No.

Every beneficiary of a private foundation is entitled to ask for an independent, external audit confirming that they have (or have not) received the share corresponding to them.

You enter your information and an external expert provider performs a due-diligence/KYC check on it. You then fill out the application information for the person you intend to refer. Once you finish, that person receives a link asking them to confirm and/or complete the application. After the person you referred passes the due-diligence/KYC filters, pays the set-up and first-year fees and funds the foundation wallets, you become entitled — from the variable yearly fees (the percentage part, excluding wallet fees) — to 20% of the first variable yearly fee, 15% of the second, and 10% of the third.

The foundation council is a legal entity. Because a corporate council cannot pass away or become incapacitated, it remains capable of acting at all times.

It is a legal requirement that the registered agent of a Panama foundation resides in Panama. In our case, the role of registered agent is performed by a longstanding, reputable law firm in Panama.

In that case the registered agent (a reputable law firm in Panama) has the legal obligation to replace the foundation council.

You will sign a mandate agreement with the foundation council, obliging the council to follow your future instructions.

It is a legal requirement that the foundation council has control over the digital assets. It will, however, act based on the mandate agreement signed with you, which obliges the council to follow your instructions.

A quick and easy succession process that ensures your assets pass to the beneficiaries of your choosing, with a considerable reduction of estate disputes and conflicts among your beneficiaries — thereby providing you with peace of mind.

You may partially or totally withdraw the assets of the foundation at any time. You may also swap and stake the assets at any time.

If you opt for an incapacity clause, once the trusted person you have appointed informs the foundation council and provides the supporting legal documentation, the council will distribute assets as pre-defined by you.

Only assets held by the foundation can be distributed by it. If you do not transfer your digital assets to the foundation, they remain subject to the succession rules of your domicile country, so it is important to transfer them to the foundation's wallets. Also, if the foundation does not hold assets covering the registered capital of USD 10,000, the foundation council may proceed to liquidate the foundation, as there would not be enough assets for it to comply with its main purpose of distributing digital assets upon death.

The foundation council will not distribute assets to beneficiaries who are minors, because nobody knows who the legal guardian will be. It may be the surviving parent (but what if that parent re-marries, has more children, or comes under the undue influence of a new partner?), and if both parents have passed away — or the surviving parent is considered inadequate by a court — a government official may be nominated as legal guardian. For this reason, the foundation council holds the assets of a minor beneficiary until they reach the age of majority, or a higher age of your choosing. Once the council is informed of your demise and has the pertaining legal documentation, it will hold the assets of minor beneficiaries, or of beneficiaries who have not yet reached the minimum age you fixed. A trusted person you appoint can request the council to make maintenance payments in favour of those beneficiaries. Once they reach the age of majority or the higher age you fixed, their share is distributed to them according to your pre-defined instructions.

You should tell your second beneficiaries, or other people you trust, to inform the foundation council if something happens to you (you pass away, or — if you opt for an incapacity clause — become incapacitated). Additionally, if you do not log into the platform for 18 months, we will ask you to log in; if you fail to do so, the foundation council may contact your second beneficiaries to ask whether you are alive and well.

Legal representatives are normally nominated by courts or government institutions, and government-appointed representatives may not always act in the beneficiary's best interest, as there is often little control over them. In the case of minor beneficiaries, the surviving parent may re-marry, have new children, and wish to share the overall assets equally among all of them. This clause helps protect the interests of incapacitated and minor beneficiaries: you can nominate persons of trust who give the foundation council local guidance on those beneficiaries' needs, so the council can decide on distributions accordingly.