Top 9 Digital Estate Tools to use for Securing Your Crypto and Social Media Legacy in 2025
Ever paused your endless scrolling to wonder what happens to your digital life after you're gone? It’s a slightly morbid thought, but an increasingly important one. We're not just talking about your carefully curated Instagram feed or your hilarious Twitter drafts. We're talking about everything: your crypto wallet holding a small fortune, the family photos stored in the cloud, your domain names, and even the master password to your family's streaming services. This collection of online accounts, files, and assets is your "digital estate," and just like your physical home or savings account, it needs a plan.
In the past, estate planning was about wills, trusts, and physical possessions. But today, a significant portion of our assets and our identity exists purely in digital form. Without a plan, your cryptocurrency could be lost forever, your social media accounts could become a painful digital graveyard for loved ones, and valuable personal data could be left inaccessible or vulnerable. The digital world moves fast, and the tools to manage our eventual departure from it are evolving even faster.
That's why we're looking ahead to 2025. The landscape of digital estate planning is shifting from a niche concern to a mainstream necessity. Here on the Goh Ling Yong blog, we believe in being proactive about the future of technology and our place in it. We've sifted through the noise to bring you the top 9 digital estate tools that will be essential for securing your crypto and social media legacy in the coming year.
1. GoodTrust (The All-in-One Digital Executor)
GoodTrust has quickly emerged as a leader in the digital estate space by offering a comprehensive, all-in-one platform. Think of it as a digital safety deposit box combined with an automated executor for your online life. It's designed for everyone, from the tech-savvy crypto investor to the person who just wants to make sure their Facebook profile is handled respectfully.
The platform allows you to securely document and store login credentials, important documents (like wills and birth certificates), and specific instructions for all your digital accounts. Its real power lies in its automated tools that can help your designated "Trusted Contacts" manage or close accounts after you pass. This includes everything from memorializing a social media profile to shutting down subscriptions, saving your family from a logistical and emotional nightmare. For crypto holders, GoodTrust also provides a secure vault to store wallet information and instructions, bridging the gap between traditional estate planning and decentralized assets.
- Pro Tip: Use GoodTrust's "Digital Executor" feature to write specific, step-by-step instructions for your most complex assets. For your crypto, don't just list the wallet name; explain how to access it (e.g., "The hardware wallet is in the safe, the PIN is with my lawyer, and the 24-word seed phrase is split between two locations I've shared with you"). The more detail, the better.
2. Cake (The Empathetic End-of-Life Planner)
While many tools focus on the cold, hard logistics of assets, Cake (joincake.com) takes a more holistic and human-centered approach. It's an end-of-life planning tool that seamlessly integrates digital estate management into a broader conversation about your legacy, healthcare preferences, and final arrangements. Its user-friendly interface and gentle guidance make a difficult topic feel manageable and even empowering.
Within Cake, you can create a profile that stores your wishes and vital information. The platform prompts you to consider aspects you might overlook, such as what you want to happen to your personal blog, your email accounts, or even your gaming profiles. You can share your completed profile with trusted individuals, giving them a clear and comprehensive roadmap to honor your wishes. While it's less focused on the technical nitty-gritty of crypto recovery than some specialized tools, its strength is in providing a single, clear source of truth for your loved ones during a stressful time.
- Real-World Example: Imagine you have a passion project, like a popular recipe blog. With Cake, you can leave instructions for your designated heir to either take over the blog, archive its content onto a new domain as a memorial, or download all the recipes into a family cookbook. This ensures your creative legacy isn't simply lost when the domain hosting expires.
3. 1Password (The Fort Knox for Your Passwords)
A robust password manager is the absolute foundation of any digital estate plan. 1Password is a top-tier choice, not just for its exceptional security but also for its built-in features that facilitate legacy planning. While it doesn't have a direct "legacy contact" feature like some competitors, its system is arguably more secure and flexible through its "Emergency Kit" and family sharing plans.
When you sign up for 1Password, you get an Emergency Kit—a PDF containing your account details and the all-important Secret Key. The idea is simple: you print this kit, write your master password on it, and store it in a secure physical location, like a safe deposit box or a home safe. You then include instructions in your traditional will on how to access that safe. For a more direct approach, you can use a 1Password Families account. This allows you to share specific vaults with family members. You could create a "Legacy Vault" containing essential logins and documents and share it with your spouse or executor.
- Actionable Tip: Create a dedicated "In Case of Emergency" vault in your 1Password account. Populate it with more than just passwords—include scans of your passport, driver's license, birth certificate, and a document with key contacts (lawyer, accountant). Share access to this specific vault with your chosen executor or spouse through the family plan.
4. Casa (The Gold Standard for Bitcoin Inheritance)
If you hold a significant amount of Bitcoin, you need a specialized solution, and Casa is the undisputed industry leader. Standard crypto wallets create a single point of failure; if your seed phrase is lost, the funds are gone forever. Casa solves this with a multi-signature (multisig) security model, which is a game-changer for both personal security and inheritance.
A standard Casa setup is a 3-of-5 multisig wallet. This means there are five keys, and any three are required to move funds. You hold some, Casa holds one, and you might have another stored securely elsewhere. For inheritance, this is revolutionary. You can designate your heir as a key holder. Upon your passing, they don't need to find your "one secret key." Instead, they can use their own key, work with Casa, and use a third key recovered from your lawyer or safe deposit box to access the assets. This eliminates the risk of a single lost key destroying your crypto legacy.
- Expert Insight: While Casa is a premium service with a subscription fee, the cost is negligible compared to the potential loss of six or seven figures in Bitcoin. As I, Goh Ling Yong, often advise clients, investing in institutional-grade security for substantial digital assets isn't an expense—it's essential insurance for your crypto legacy.
5. Safe (The DeFi-Native Inheritance Tool)
For those deeply embedded in the world of Ethereum, NFTs, and DeFi, Safe (formerly Gnosis Safe) is an indispensable tool. It's a smart contract wallet that operates on the Ethereum blockchain and many other compatible chains. At its core, Safe is a powerful multisig wallet, allowing you to require multiple private keys to approve a transaction, but its programmability makes it incredibly flexible for estate planning.
You can configure a Safe wallet so that you are the primary owner, but you can also add your chosen heir and a trusted third party (like a family lawyer) as other signers. You could set it up so that you can move funds with just your signature, but in your absence, a transaction requires the signatures of both your heir and the lawyer. This creates a secure, on-chain mechanism for transferring assets that is trustless and doesn't rely on a centralized company. It's a more hands-on, technical solution, but for crypto-native individuals, it's the ultimate in self-sovereign inheritance.
- Example Setup: A 2-of-3 Safe wallet. Signer 1 is your primary hardware wallet. Signer 2 is your heir's hardware wallet. Signer 3 is a hardware wallet stored with your lawyer. While you're alive, you can transact freely with Signer 1. Your will specifies that Signer 2 and Signer 3 must coordinate to transfer the assets after you pass.
6. Google's Inactive Account Manager (The Essential Freebie)
One of the most powerful and overlooked digital estate tools is completely free and likely already available to you: Google's Inactive Account Manager. Considering how much of our lives runs through Google—Gmail, Drive, Photos, Calendar, and more—this tool is a non-negotiable part of any plan.
It allows you to decide what happens to your data if you stop using your account for a specified period (from 3 to 18 months). You can choose to have your data shared with up to 10 trusted contacts and/or have your account automatically deleted. You can get very granular, choosing to only share your Google Photos archive with your children or your Google Drive documents with your business partner. The system will notify your contacts (via text and email) before it takes any action, giving them time to download the data you've authorized them to receive.
- Must-Do Action: Set this up today. It takes less than 10 minutes. Go to
myaccount.google.com/inactive. Choose a timeout period (6 months is a good starting point), add a trusted contact (like your spouse or a sibling), and select exactly which data you want them to be able to access. This simple step can preserve decades of memories.
7. Facebook's Legacy Contact (The Social Media Guardian)
For billions of people, Facebook is a living chronicle of their lives. Deciding what happens to that profile is a key part of managing your social media legacy. Facebook provides a simple but effective tool to do this: the Legacy Contact feature.
By designating a Legacy Contact, you're giving someone permission to manage your account after it has been memorialized. A memorialized account is a place for friends and family to gather and share memories. Your Legacy Contact can't log in as you or read your messages, but they can perform important functions like pinning a tribute post to your profile, changing your profile picture, and responding to new friend requests. Crucially, they can also request the removal of the account if that is your wish. Without a Legacy Contact, a profile can be left in limbo, causing ongoing pain for loved ones.
- Tip: When choosing a Legacy Contact, pick someone you trust to be level-headed and respect your wishes. Have a conversation with them about what you'd like to happen to your profile. Do you want a specific final post? Do you want your photos to remain available? Clarity now prevents confusion and conflict later.
8. Sarcophagus (The Decentralized Dead Man's Switch)
Stepping into the more cutting-edge, crypto-native side of things, we have Sarcophagus. This is a decentralized "dead man's switch" built on blockchain technology. The concept is brilliant: you can encrypt a file (like a document containing all your private keys and wallet information), upload it to a decentralized storage network (Arweave), and set conditions for its release.
Here’s how it works: You, the "Embalmer," create a digital sarcophagus containing the sensitive data. You designate a "Recipient" (your heir) and select a network of "Archaeologists" (anonymous node operators). You have to regularly "rewrap" the sarcophagus by signing a transaction, proving you're still around. If you fail to rewrap it by a certain date (i.e., you've passed away), the Archaeologists will work together to reassemble the encrypted file and deliver it to your Recipient. It's a trustless, automated system for passing on critical information.
- Best Use Case: Sarcophagus is ideal for the ultimate secret: the master key to everything else. You could place a text file in the sarcophagus containing the master password to your 1Password account and the location of your hardware wallets. This way, you only need one decentralized dead man's switch to unlock your entire digital estate for your heir.
9. LastPass Emergency Access (The Simple & Direct Approach)
For those who want a simple, set-it-and-forget-it solution within their password manager, LastPass's Emergency Access feature is a fantastic choice. It's a more direct and less complex approach than 1Password's method, making it very approachable for less technical users.
The feature allows you to grant a trusted contact one-time access to your password vault in an emergency. You invite a contact, and they must accept. Then, you set a "waiting period"—for example, 48 hours or 7 days. If that person ever needs access, they can request it. This triggers the waiting period timer. If you don't deny the request within that time, LastPass grants them full access to your vault. This is a perfect safety net. If you're alive and well, you can simply deny any accidental requests. If you're incapacitated or have passed away, access is granted automatically after your chosen waiting period.
- Smart Strategy: Set different waiting periods for different people. You might give your spouse a short 24-hour waiting period for immediate access, but give your lawyer or a more distant relative a longer 7-day waiting period as a secondary backup.
Your Digital Legacy Starts Now
Thinking about the end of life is never easy, but organizing your digital estate is one of the greatest gifts you can give your loved ones. It replaces chaos with clarity, anxiety with access, and questions with answers. It ensures your valuable assets are protected, your memories are preserved, and your final wishes are respected in the digital realm.
The tools we've explored offer a range of solutions, from simple, free options like Google's Inactive Account Manager to highly secure, specialized services like Casa. The perfect plan is not about using all of them; it's about choosing the right combination that fits your unique digital life. Don't wait for a "someday" that might not come. The time to secure your legacy is now.
Your action item for this week: Pick just one tool from this list and spend 15 minutes setting it up. You'll be taking a monumental step towards peace of mind for both yourself and your family.
Which tool are you most interested in trying first? Do you use a digital estate tool that we missed? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments below
About the Author
Goh Ling Yong is a content creator and digital strategist sharing insights across various topics. Connect and follow for more content:
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