Preparing Records for an Estate Summary

Estate planning for cold storage is not only about where the seed phrase lives. It is about whether anyone can reconstruct what happened across years of accumulation.

Start With a Cover Sheet

The first page of your record set should state:

• Your name and the date the set was last updated
• A plain sentence: “These pages document Bitcoin held in cold storage. Private keys are stored separately.”
• Contact information for whoever helped prepare the records (accountant, attorney, or our office)
• A list of address prefixes used (e.g., “bc1q addresses from 2019–2022 Ledger; bc1p addresses from 2023 hardware upgrade”)

Avoid Jargon in the Summary Section

Your detailed UTXO tables can use txid and vout notation. But the summary page at the front should answer three questions in plain language:

1. How many separate storage locations exist (e.g., two hardware wallets, one paper backup)?
2. What is the approximate total as of the summary date?
3. Where are the access instructions (not the keys themselves)?

Date Your Pages

Undated entries become useless when an executor tries to determine whether a transaction occurred before or after a tax year boundary. Write the date on every page header.

Consider a Professional Summary

If your records span more than five years or more than ten addresses, a Cold Wallet History Review produces a bound document designed for handoff. We write the summary section specifically for non-technical readers.

This article is educational. For legal estate structuring, consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction.