What Records Can an Executor Request From a Deceased Person's Crypto Exchange?
Settling an estate usually means gathering bank statements and brokerage records, but a crypto account adds a wrinkle: there’s no local branch to call, and the exchange has never met the person asking for access.
The short answer
An executor who can show legal authority — typically letters testamentary or letters of administration from a probate court, along with a death certificate — can generally request an account statement, transaction history, and current balance from a deceased person’s crypto exchange. Exchanges vary widely in their process, and some are far slower or more document-heavy than a traditional bank. What an exchange cannot do is recover funds held in a self-custody wallet outside its platform, since it never held the private keys to begin with.
What exchanges typically ask for
Because exchanges operate under anti-fraud and compliance obligations, they tend to require more than a simple request letter. Common documentation includes:
- A certified death certificate. Most platforms want an original or certified copy, not a photocopy.
- Court-issued authority. Letters testamentary, letters of administration, or an equivalent document naming the executor or administrator.
- Identity verification. The executor typically has to complete the exchange’s own identity checks, similar to opening a new account.
- An estate tax ID or the estate’s name. Some platforms require this before releasing funds or transferring the account.
The exact list differs by exchange, and processing times can range from a couple of weeks to several months depending on how the platform’s internal review works.
What an executor can actually obtain
Assuming the documentation clears review, an executor can typically request:
- Transaction history. A record of trades, deposits, and withdrawals tied to the account, useful for tracking cost basis and reporting to the estate’s accountant.
- Current account balance. A snapshot of holdings as of a given date, often needed for the estate’s inventory and appraisal.
- Assistance with account closure or transfer. Many exchanges will move the balance to a new account under the estate’s name or liquidate it and send proceeds, once authority is confirmed.
- Login or access support in limited cases. Some platforms will reset access under an executor’s authority rather than hand over the deceased person’s original credentials.
Where this process breaks down
The records an exchange can produce only cover what happened on that platform. If the deceased person also held crypto in a hardware wallet or software wallet, the exchange has no visibility into that balance at all, and no amount of court paperwork changes that. Recovering those funds depends entirely on whether the seed phrase or private keys were left somewhere findable. This is one of the starkest differences between crypto and a traditional bank account: when access isn’t shared before death, there’s no institution to appeal to, and the funds can become permanently unreachable.
It’s also worth noting that some exchanges are based outside the United States or operate under different legal frameworks, which can add delay or additional requirements for a domestic executor. And because regulatory obligations differ from one platform to another, the estate’s attorney is usually the right person to confirm exactly what a given exchange will require before the executor starts submitting documents.
Why volatility complicates the inventory
Even once records are obtained, valuing a crypto holding for estate purposes isn’t as simple as reading a bank balance. Prices move throughout the day, so the estate’s advisors typically need to pick a specific valuation date and time, consistent with how other estate assets are appraised. This matters for both the estate’s inventory and for calculating any cost-basis step-up the beneficiaries may be entitled to.
The takeaway
An executor with proper court authority can generally get transaction records, balances, and closure assistance from an exchange, but that access is limited strictly to what the platform itself custodied. Crypto held outside an exchange depends on advance planning — sharing wallet locations and recovery information with someone trusted — since no executor letter can substitute for a lost private key.