A person dies leaving behind an apartment, a bank account and 20 Bitcoin.

The apartment can be identified through the land registry. The bank account can normally be located and transferred to the heirs after the relevant inheritance procedures are completed.

But what happens to the Bitcoin?

If the cryptocurrency is held on a regulated exchange, the heirs may eventually be able to identify and recover it through official records. If, however, the Bitcoin is stored in a self-custody wallet and nobody knows the private key or seed phrase, a completely different problem arises.

The heirs may legally own an asset worth millions of dollars while being technically incapable of accessing it.

This is what makes cryptocurrency inheritance fundamentally different from traditional inheritance disputes:

Legal ownership can pass to the heirs automatically, while practical control over the asset may be lost permanently.

For lawyers, heirs and crypto investors in Türkiye, understanding this distinction has become increasingly important.

1. Are Crypto Assets Inheritable Under Turkish Law?

Yes.

The Turkish Capital Markets Law now expressly defines crypto assets as intangible assets that can be electronically created and stored using distributed ledger technology or similar technologies, distributed over digital networks, and represent value or rights.

The legislation also separately defines a “wallet” as software, hardware, systems or applications enabling crypto transfers or the storage of crypto assets and their public or private keys.

This statutory classification significantly strengthens the conclusion that cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and stablecoins can form part of a deceased person’s estate.

The starting point under Turkish inheritance law is Article 599 of the Turkish Civil Code.

Under this provision:

the heirs acquire the inheritance as a whole by operation of law at the moment of the deceased’s death.

They acquire the deceased’s property rights, receivables and other patrimonial rights directly, subject to statutory exceptions.

Accordingly, if the deceased owned 10 Bitcoin at the moment of death, those Bitcoin do not become ownerless merely because they exist on a blockchain.

They form part of the estate.

The same principle can apply to:

• Bitcoin;
• Ethereum;
• USDT and USDC;
• other cryptocurrencies;
• tokenised assets;
• crypto assets held on exchanges;
• crypto held by regulated custodians;
• assets held in self-custody wallets;
• staking positions;
• certain DeFi positions;
• NFTs with economic value; and
• other transferable digital assets having patrimonial value.

The difficult issue is normally not whether the asset passes to the heirs.

The difficult issue is:

How can the heirs find and control it?

2. Ownership and Access Are Two Different Questions

This distinction is essential in cryptocurrency inheritance cases.

Imagine that a deceased person owned a hardware wallet containing 15 Bitcoin.

The heirs obtain a certificate of inheritance establishing their legal status.

Legally, the Bitcoin may belong to the estate.

Technically, however, the blockchain does not recognise inheritance certificates.

A blockchain transaction generally requires control of the relevant private key.

If nobody possesses that key, a Turkish court judgment stating that the heirs are entitled to the cryptocurrency does not itself generate a replacement key.

This creates one of the most significant practical problems in digital inheritance:

Traditional asset

Owner dies → heirs establish inheritance rights → institution transfers asset.

Self-custodied cryptocurrency

Owner dies → heirs acquire legal rights → heirs must still obtain the cryptographic credentials necessary to control the wallet.

Where those credentials have been permanently lost, there may be no central institution capable of resetting the password.

That is the fundamental difference between a bank account and a self-custody wallet.

3. The First Question: Where Was the Cryptocurrency Held?

Every crypto inheritance investigation should begin by determining the custody model.

There are generally three important possibilities.

A. Cryptocurrency held on a Turkish crypto platform

This is usually the most manageable scenario.

The deceased may have had an account with a crypto-asset service provider where:

• identity information was registered;
• deposits and withdrawals were recorded;
• crypto balances were recorded;
• bank transfers could be traced;
• wallet transfers were recorded; and
• customer identification procedures were completed.

Following the 2024 amendments to the Capital Markets Law, crypto-asset service providers became subject to the regulatory and supervisory framework of the Capital Markets Board of Türkiye.

They are required to identify customers, and records concerning customer wallet transfers and fund transfers must be kept securely, accessibly and traceably.

For inheritance purposes, this creates an important evidentiary infrastructure.

B. Cryptocurrency held on a foreign exchange

Recovery is possible but may become considerably more complicated.

The heirs may need to deal with:

• the exchange’s country of establishment;
• foreign inheritance documentation;
• apostille requirements;
• translations;
• the platform’s internal deceased-customer procedure;
• foreign law;
• international judicial assistance; and
• KYC and AML requirements.

C. Cryptocurrency held in a self-custody wallet

This is potentially the most difficult scenario.

Examples include:

• Ledger;
• Trezor;
• software wallets;
• mobile wallets;
• browser wallets;
• paper wallets;
• multisignature wallets; and
• other non-custodial wallet structures.

In these cases there may be no company that can simply “transfer the account” to the heirs.

The technical ability to control the cryptocurrency depends primarily on possession of the relevant private keys or recovery information.

4. What Should Heirs Do If the Deceased Used a Turkish Crypto Exchange?

The heirs should first obtain proof of their inheritance status.

Under Article 598 of the Turkish Civil Code, a certificate of inheritance can be issued to statutory heirs by the competent authority.

In practice, an application to a crypto platform may require documents such as:

• death certificate;
• certificate of inheritance;
• identification documents of the heirs;
• tax-related documents where required;
• notarised documents;
• powers of attorney where lawyers act for the heirs; and
• additional documentation required by the platform’s compliance department.

The precise requirements may vary between platforms.

The heirs or their lawyer should not merely ask:

“Did the deceased have an account?”

The request should ideally address the full financial history relevant to the estate.

It may be necessary to determine:

• whether an account existed;
• account-opening information;
• crypto balances on the date of death;
• Turkish lira and foreign currency balances;
• the cryptocurrency types held;
• transaction history;
• deposits;
• withdrawals;
• external wallet addresses;
• transaction hashes;
• staking or yield positions; and
• transfers shortly before death.

This becomes particularly important where another person may have accessed the deceased’s account after death.

5. Türkiye’s KVMKS System May Become Crucial in Crypto Inheritance Investigations

Türkiye’s regulatory framework now provides another potentially important source of information.

The Merkezi Kayıt Kuruluşu has developed the Kripto Varlık Merkezi Kayıt Sistemi — KVMKS, or Crypto Asset Central Registry System.

The system is designed to receive information from participating crypto-asset service providers regarding investor transactions and balances and to perform reconciliation between platforms and custody providers. MKK’s framework also contemplates displaying crypto balances to investors through its e-YATIRIMCI infrastructure.

KVMKS transaction reporting includes, among other things:

• crypto purchases and sales;
• deposits and withdrawals;
• certain platform transfers;
• investor MKK registration numbers;
• crypto asset codes;
• amounts; and
• transaction references.

From an inheritance-law perspective, this development is extremely significant.

Historically, an heir who did not know which exchange the deceased used could face a practical problem:

Which exchange should we contact?

The increasing centralisation of regulated-platform reporting may make the investigation of domestic crypto holdings considerably easier.

However, KVMKS should not be misunderstood.

It is not a global blockchain registry recording every cryptocurrency belonging to every Turkish citizen.

Assets held exclusively:

• on foreign platforms;
• in private wallets;
• through certain decentralised protocols; or
• outside participating regulated infrastructure

may not necessarily be identifiable merely through domestic registry records.

6. What If the Heirs Do Not Know Whether the Deceased Owned Cryptocurrency?

This situation is common.

The deceased may have never discussed investments with family members.

Lawyers should therefore conduct a digital asset investigation rather than waiting for the cryptocurrency to reveal itself.

A practical investigation may start with conventional financial evidence.

Bank accounts

Bank statements can reveal transfers to or from crypto platforms.

Look for:

• repeated transfers to exchanges;
• payments to crypto companies;
• incoming transfers from exchanges;
• unusually large withdrawals;
• foreign transfers connected with exchanges; and
• transfers occurring shortly before death.

If a bank statement shows repeated payments to a crypto exchange, there is an obvious basis for further investigation.

Email accounts

Subject to lawful access, emails may reveal:

• exchange registrations;
• transaction confirmations;
• withdrawal confirmations;
• security warnings;
• wallet notifications;
• KYC communications; and
• account statements.

Mobile phones and computers

Devices may contain:

• exchange applications;
• wallet applications;
• browser extensions;
• portfolio trackers;
• authentication applications;
• hardware wallet software; and
• transaction records.

Care must be taken not to alter, delete or compromise relevant evidence.

Where substantial assets are suspected, forensic imaging and specialist digital examination may be preferable to casual experimentation with the deceased’s devices.

7. The Most Dangerous Mistake: Experimenting With the Seed Phrase

A seed phrase commonly consists of a series of words capable of restoring control over a crypto wallet.

Anyone who obtains that phrase may potentially obtain control over the assets.

For this reason, heirs should treat seed phrases with extreme care.

They should generally avoid:

• photographing the phrase and sending it through messaging applications;
• uploading it to cloud storage;
• entering it into unknown websites;
• giving it to alleged “crypto recovery experts”;
• typing it into online wallet-recovery tools;
• sharing it among numerous relatives; or
• storing it in ordinary email.

A person claiming to help recover crypto does not ordinarily need the heirs to send the seed phrase through WhatsApp, Telegram or email.

Fraudsters specifically target people attempting to recover inherited cryptocurrency.

8. What If the Heirs Know the Wallet Address but Not the Private Key?

This is a crucial distinction.

Suppose the heirs discover that the deceased owned Bitcoin in wallet address X.

Using public blockchain data, they may be able to prove that the wallet contains 12 BTC.

They may even establish that the deceased controlled the wallet through exchange withdrawal records.

But a wallet address is generally not enough to spend the cryptocurrency.

The public address can show where the assets are.

The private key allows someone to control them.

Accordingly:

Knowing where the Bitcoin is located does not necessarily mean that the heirs can access it.

This creates a situation unusual in traditional inheritance law:

The estate may contain an asset that can be identified, quantified and valued with considerable precision but cannot practically be transferred.

9. Can a Court Order the Blockchain to Transfer the Cryptocurrency?

Generally, no central blockchain administrator exists to receive such an order.

For decentralised cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, there is no bank, land registry or central clearing institution capable of overriding the private-key mechanism simply because a court has issued a succession judgment.

This does not mean that courts are powerless.

If the assets are held by:

• a centralised exchange;
• a regulated custodian;
• another identifiable intermediary; or
• a person controlling the relevant private keys,

a court order may be highly effective against that person or institution.

The problem is different where nobody possesses the private key.

A judgment can establish legal rights.

It cannot ordinarily reconstruct cryptographic information that no longer exists.

10. What Happens If One Heir Secretly Finds the Seed Phrase?

This can create serious inheritance litigation.

Assume a father dies leaving three children.

One child finds the hardware wallet and recovery phrase, transfers the cryptocurrency to their own wallet and tells the other heirs that no crypto assets existed.

The fact that the blockchain permits the transaction does not necessarily mean that the transfer is legally valid as against the other heirs.

Technical control must not be confused with legal ownership.

Under Article 599 of the Turkish Civil Code, the estate passes to the heirs upon death.

Consequently, depending on the facts, the other heirs may be able to pursue claims for:

• determination of estate assets;
• recovery of property or value;
• claims arising from inheritance community rules;
• accounting;
• compensation; and
• appropriate interim relief.

The blockchain transaction history may become highly important evidence.

For example:

Death: 10 March

Wallet untouched for three years before death

Entire balance transferred: 12 March

Such chronology may become extremely relevant in establishing post-death interference with estate property.

11. Blockchain Records Can Be Extremely Valuable Evidence

One advantage of cryptocurrency inheritance disputes is that blockchain transactions may leave a permanent evidentiary trail.

Once a relevant wallet address is identified, it may be possible to establish:

• historical balances;
• transaction dates;
• transferred amounts;
• destination addresses;
• token movements; and
• subsequent transfers.

The difficult step is usually linking a blockchain address to a real person.

That link may be established through evidence such as:

• exchange withdrawal records;
• bank records;
• transaction hashes;
• correspondence;
• device data;
• wallet records; and
• admissions.

For example:

A regulated exchange shows that the deceased withdrew 5 BTC to wallet A.

Blockchain records then show:

Wallet A → Wallet B → Exchange C

Even if the heirs cannot initially identify Wallet B, the transaction chain may provide an investigative route.

12. Foreign Exchanges Can Make Inheritance Significantly More Complicated

Many Turkish investors use platforms incorporated outside Türkiye.

In such cases, a Turkish certificate of inheritance may not automatically be sufficient for the platform.

The foreign exchange may request:

• an apostilled inheritance certificate;
• certified translation;
• death certificate;
• probate or equivalent foreign succession documents;
• identification of all beneficiaries;
• tax documentation;
• indemnity documents; or
• a court order from a particular jurisdiction.

The position becomes even more complicated where the deceased:

• was a citizen of one state;
• lived in another state;
• used an exchange incorporated in a third state; and
• stored digital assets through infrastructure situated elsewhere.

Conflict-of-laws analysis may therefore be necessary in substantial international crypto estates.

13. What About a Self-Custody Wallet Stored on a Hardware Device?

A hardware wallet itself should not be confused with the cryptocurrency.

The coins are not literally “inside” the USB-like device.

The cryptocurrency remains recorded on the blockchain.

The hardware wallet generally protects the private keys used to control it.

Therefore, destroying the physical hardware wallet does not necessarily destroy the cryptocurrency if the recovery seed remains available.

Conversely, possession of the hardware wallet alone may not be sufficient where the PIN and recovery information are unavailable.

For estate-planning purposes, the relevant question is therefore not merely:

“Where is my Ledger?”

It is:

“Can my heirs obtain lawful and technically sufficient access to the keys necessary to recover the wallet?”

14. Password Recovery Is Not the Same as Seed Recovery

This point frequently causes confusion.

A password may merely protect:

• a wallet application;
• a device;
• a cloud account; or
• exchange login credentials.

A seed phrase or private key may represent the ultimate cryptographic authority over the assets.

Resetting an email password may therefore not restore a self-custody wallet.

Similarly, gaining access to the deceased’s telephone may reveal a wallet application but still not enable transfer of the cryptocurrency.

Every wallet architecture must be examined separately.

15. Multisignature Wallets Require Special Estate Planning

More sophisticated investors may use multisignature wallets.

A “2-of-3” arrangement might require any two of three separate keys before a transaction can be authorised.

This can improve security but complicate inheritance.

Suppose:

• Key 1 is held by the deceased;
• Key 2 is stored in a bank safe;
• Key 3 is held by a business partner.

After death, heirs need to understand:

• who legally owns the assets;
• who controls the surviving keys;
• what agreement governed the wallet;
• whether the third-party keyholder has obligations toward the estate; and
• whether the required signing threshold can still be satisfied.

Crypto estate planning must therefore address the technical architecture of ownership, not simply the monetary value of the portfolio.

16. Can Cryptocurrency Be Left to a Specific Person by Will?

As a general inheritance-law principle, crypto assets can be incorporated into estate planning like other assets having patrimonial value.

A person may therefore make testamentary arrangements concerning digital assets, subject of course to Turkish inheritance rules including mandatory-heirship considerations where applicable.

However, one potentially dangerous method is to write the entire seed phrase directly into an ordinary will.

The purpose of a will is to record legal wishes.

It is not necessarily an appropriate cryptographic-security tool.

Anyone obtaining the seed phrase before death could potentially transfer the assets without waiting for inheritance proceedings.

A better estate plan generally separates:

Legal instructions

Who should receive the cryptocurrency?

from

Technical recovery information

How can authorised persons obtain access after death?

The two systems should be designed together without unnecessarily exposing private keys.

17. Crypto Investors Should Prepare a Digital Asset Inventory

A person holding substantial digital assets should maintain a secure inventory enabling heirs to determine that the assets exist.

The inventory does not necessarily need to contain private keys.

It may identify:

• exchanges used;
• custody providers;
• wallet types;
• hardware wallet locations;
• relevant blockchain networks;
• approximate holdings;
• multisig arrangements;
• trusted professional contacts;
• recovery methodology; and
• where secure access instructions can be located.

The difference between:

“My father told us he once bought Bitcoin”

and

“The estate file identifies three exchanges, two hardware wallets and the recovery protocol”

can represent millions of dollars.

18. Inheritance Tax Should Not Be Ignored

Crypto assets may also have Turkish inheritance-tax implications.

The Turkish Revenue Administration explains that property, rights and receivables transferred by inheritance fall within the scope of inheritance and gift tax under the statutory conditions.

The legislation broadly defines property to include movable and immovable property as well as other rights and receivables capable of entering a person’s patrimony.

Accordingly, valuable crypto holdings should not simply be omitted from the inheritance tax analysis because they are digital.

For 2026, the Revenue Administration publishes the applicable inheritance-tax exemptions and progressive rates, and inheritance transfers remain subject to declaration rules even in circumstances where statutory exemptions may reduce the taxable amount.

For large crypto estates, valuation methodology and the date used for valuation should therefore be examined carefully with tax advisers as well as inheritance counsel.

19. A Practical Investigation Strategy for Heirs

Where heirs suspect that the deceased owned substantial cryptocurrency, a structured investigation is preferable to random searches.

Stage 1 — Establish inheritance status

Obtain the death certificate and certificate of inheritance.

Stage 2 — Preserve digital evidence

Secure relevant computers, mobile phones, hardware wallets, notebooks and storage devices without altering them unnecessarily.

Stage 3 — Investigate banking relationships

Identify transfers to and from crypto platforms.

Stage 4 — Identify domestic crypto platforms

Seek information from known service providers and assess the potential relevance of MKK/KVMKS records.

Stage 5 — Investigate email and device evidence

Identify exchange accounts, wallet applications and transaction notifications through lawful access.

Stage 6 — Obtain exchange records

Request historical balances, deposits, withdrawals and external wallet information.

Stage 7 — Trace blockchain transactions

Map known addresses and transaction hashes.

Stage 8 — Identify post-death movements

Determine whether any assets were transferred after the owner’s death.

Stage 9 — Preserve the assets

Where assets remain on a regulated platform or are under another person’s control, consider appropriate interim judicial measures.

Stage 10 — Address tax and distribution

Determine estate valuation, inheritance-tax consequences and ultimate distribution among the heirs.

20. Red Flags That Crypto Assets May Be Missing From an Estate

Certain facts should justify further investigation.

These include situations where the deceased:

• frequently discussed cryptocurrency;
• operated crypto applications;
• used hardware wallets;
• transferred large amounts to crypto platforms;
• received money from exchanges;
• worked professionally in blockchain or crypto;
• operated mining equipment;
• held stablecoins;
• participated in DeFi;
• owned NFTs;
• kept seed-word lists;
• possessed hardware wallet devices; or
• declared substantial wealth inconsistent with the conventional assets found after death.

A cryptocurrency investigation should also be considered where there is a substantial unexplained gap between the deceased’s known income and the estate ultimately identified.

21. What Should a Lawyer Request From a Crypto Platform?

A carefully drafted request can make an enormous difference.

Rather than merely requesting the current account balance, counsel should consider requesting, where legally justified:

• confirmation of account ownership;
• account-opening date;
• identity and KYC records;
• crypto holdings as of the date of death;
• current balances;
• historical transaction statements;
• fiat deposits;
• fiat withdrawals;
• crypto deposits;
• crypto withdrawals;
• withdrawal wallet addresses;
• transaction hashes;
• internal platform transfers;
• staking positions;
• outstanding orders;
• frozen balances; and
• transactions performed after the date of death.

This is particularly important because an account may show:

Current balance: 0 BTC

while historical records show:

Balance on date of death: 25 BTC.

The second figure may be the legally decisive one.

22. Cryptocurrency Can Disappear Economically Without Disappearing Legally

Consider the following scenario.

A businessman dies owning:

• TRY 5 million in a bank;
• one apartment;
• and 40 Bitcoin.

His children find only the bank account and apartment.

Three days after his death, all 40 Bitcoin are transferred from his wallet to another address.

From the blockchain’s perspective, the transaction may be valid because whoever initiated it possessed the required key.

From the perspective of inheritance law, however, a completely different question arises:

Who was legally entitled to dispose of estate property after death?

That distinction lies at the heart of many future crypto inheritance disputes.

Blockchain validity and civil-law validity are not necessarily the same concept.

23. Why Crypto Inheritance Litigation Will Become More Common

Türkiye’s crypto infrastructure has changed dramatically since the adoption of Law No. 7518 in 2024.

Crypto-asset service providers now operate within a considerably more developed regulatory structure; customer identification and transaction-record obligations have become more formalised; and MKK’s KVMKS infrastructure provides centralised reporting for regulated domestic activity.

This will likely make cryptocurrency easier to identify in many estates.

At the same time, self-custody will continue to create a major problem.

No regulation can recover a private key that nobody possesses.

The legal system may determine who owns the asset.

Technology determines whether anyone can move it.

Conclusion: Crypto Can Be Inherited — Access Cannot Be Inherited Automatically

Under Turkish law, crypto assets having patrimonial value can form part of a deceased person’s estate, and the general rule of universal succession under Article 599 of the Turkish Civil Code means that inheritance rights arise at death.

But cryptocurrency introduces an unprecedented separation between entitlement and control.

Where assets are held on a regulated exchange or by a custody provider, heirs generally have a legal and institutional route through which they can attempt to establish their status and recover the assets.

Where assets are held through self-custody, the problem can be radically different.

If the heirs do not possess the private key, recovery phrase or other required authentication mechanism, they may legally inherit cryptocurrency that they cannot technically spend.

For this reason, anyone with a significant crypto portfolio should treat digital inheritance planning as seriously as a will, company succession plan or conventional estate plan.

And where a person has already died, the heirs should act quickly.

The correct approach is not merely to search for a wallet.

It is to reconstruct the deceased’s entire digital asset infrastructure:

Which exchanges were used? Which wallets existed? Where did the money enter the crypto ecosystem? Which addresses received withdrawals? Who controlled the keys? Were any transfers made after death?

In cryptocurrency inheritance cases, those questions can determine whether a valuable digital estate is successfully transferred to the next generation—or remains permanently visible on the blockchain but inaccessible forever.