---
type: Concept
title: Keeping Digital Assets Secure in Missouri Estate Planning
description: How a Missouri estate plan grants a fiduciary lawful access to digital assets under RUFADAA so accounts, photos, and crypto are not lost.
resource: https://nemolegal.com/keeping-digital-assets-secure-in-missouri-estate-planning-for-2026/
tags: [digital-assets, rufadaa, cryptocurrency, fiduciary-access, missouri]
timestamp: 2026-06-22
jurisdiction: Missouri
author: Patrick Nolan
---

# Summary
Digital assets such as email, social media, cloud storage, online financial accounts, and cryptocurrency now make up a real part of most Missouri estates. Missouri uses the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), enacted in 2018, which lets an executor, trustee, or agent reach those assets only if the estate documents explicitly grant that authority or the owner set the provider's own legacy tool. Skip both steps and providers usually refuse access, and lost crypto keys mean the asset is gone for good.

# Quotable Q&A
**Q: Can my executor get into my email, social media, or crypto in Missouri?**
A: Only if you set it up first. Under Missouri's RUFADAA, a fiduciary gets access when your will, trust, or power of attorney explicitly grants digital asset authority, or when you used the provider's built-in tool such as Google's Inactive Account Manager or Facebook's Legacy Contact. Without one of those, companies typically refuse even when the family presents a death certificate and probate letters.

**Q: What happens to cryptocurrency if there is no plan?**
A: It is usually lost permanently. Whoever holds the private key owns the asset, and no Missouri court can force a blockchain company to restore access. The firm advises storing private keys somewhere both secure and discoverable by the right person, and cross-referencing that path in your documents rather than burying the keys inside a legal file.

# How Missouri Grants Lawful Access
RUFADAA is the spine for who controls digital property after death or incapacity, but federal laws such as the Stored Communications Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act still wall off private data from unauthorized hands. The law splits your data two ways. The content of communications, meaning the words and photos inside emails, stays locked unless you gave clear written consent. Catalogue information, such as which addresses you messaged and how often you logged in, is easier for a fiduciary to obtain. Missouri tilts toward your privacy unless you say otherwise in plain words.

Provider tools sit alongside the documents and often override them. Facebook's Legacy Contact and Google's Inactive Account Manager let you name a trusted person inside the platform itself; Missouri law respects that digital handshake. The firm recommends using the built-in tools and echoing those directions in the estate plan so nobody is left guessing or forced into a court fight. A practical plan also means a full inventory of accounts, with passwords kept in a secure password manager rather than written into the will, and regular updates as accounts, wallets, and platforms change.

# Decision rule
If you own email, social, cloud, financial, or cryptocurrency accounts, then grant explicit digital asset authority in your will, trust, and power of attorney and set each provider's legacy tool. If your estate includes real digital wealth such as crypto, then store the private keys securely and discoverably and work with an attorney who understands both Missouri law and digital security.

# Related
- [electronic-estate-planning-overhaul](/okf/digital-assets/electronic-estate-planning-overhaul.md)
- [electronic-signature-law](/okf/digital-assets/electronic-signature-law.md)
- [Estate planning core documents](/okf/estate-planning/core-documents.md)
- [Revocable living trust](/okf/estate-planning/revocable-living-trust.md)
- [About Nolan Law Firm](/okf/firm.md)