All About Estates
By Dave Madan, ScotiaTrust
October 30th, 2025
Recent events in the gaming world, while seemingly remote from the traditional wealth landscape, underscore a familiar truth. Markets change, assumptions fail, and good planning remains the best defence.
Digital assets have become an increasingly common topic in estate planning. What once seemed like a niche hobby has turned into a meaningful part of some clients’ financial picture. From cryptocurrency to NFTs and even online gaming inventories, these assets can hold real world value, sometimes in the millions. Yet recent events in the gaming world have shown just how fragile that value can be.
Earlier this month, the digital economy surrounding Counter Strike 2 (CS2), one of the most popular online games in the world, suffered a sharp collapse.
For many, this may sound like little more than a story about video games. But for estate professionals, it is a vivid illustration of the risks that accompany digital asset ownership. It shows how asset value can depend on the rules of a private company, how liquidity can vanish instantly, and how documentation around these holdings is often incomplete or misunderstood. Unlike traditional property, most digital assets, whether gaming skins, social media accounts, or crypto tokens, exist only under licence. The user typically does not own the asset outright. Instead, they have access rights governed by the platform’s terms of service.
Lack of legal clarity complicates valuation and transfer at death. Executors may be faced with trying to determine what a digital item is worth, how it can be accessed, or even whether it can be inherited.
When digital assets form part of an estate, it may be appropriate to apply steep discounts for liquidity and governance risk. Documentation should clearly describe how any value was determined, whether by recent comparable sales, platform exchange rates, or third party appraisal. Advisors should also ensure that executors and trustees have the necessary credentials and authority to access digital accounts after death or incapacity.
For professionals working with estates, the practical steps are clear. Ask clients about their online holdings. Record login information and instructions securely. Confirm what legal rights attach to each digital asset. Use conservative valuations and note assumptions in file records. And perhaps most importantly, educate clients that digital value is not guaranteed.
