.webp)
A generation ago, succession planning was a folder of wills, deeds, and life policies sitting in a notary’s cabinet. In the crypto era, that folder must also contain wallet maps, key-escrow protocols, and transaction evidence that banks and notaries will accept without friction. If one side is missing—paper without private keys, or keys without paper—the legacy fractures.
The good news? The institutional world has finally caught up. Europe’s MiCA regime brings crypto under a clear licensing and disclosure umbrella. The Travel Rule now follows crypto transfers the way SWIFT details follow fiat wires. And the OECD’s CARF/DAC8 frameworks are standardizing how crypto will be reported and exchanged across borders, with first automatic exchanges expected by 30 September 2027 (for the 2026 reporting year in the EU). In short: transparency and traceability are no longer edge cases—they are the operating system of modern capital. statesassembly.je+5AMF+5EUR-Lex+5
Within that operating system, Saint-Barthélemy offers something rare: French legal certainty, notarial rigor, and a fiscally autonomous local architecture that rewards real substance and long-term planning. For families with digital wealth, it’s the ideal place to align life, law, and ledgers—and to build a legacy that reads as legitimate at first glance. Chez SBH Capital Partners, nous aidons nos clients à transformer leurs actifs numériques en patrimoine tangible. The result is a seamless file: the villa deed and the key custody record live in the same coherent dossier.
Think of Heritage 3.0 as a bridge with three spans: (1) classic estate planning that still matters (civil law, notaries, title), (2) crypto-native governance (wallets, custodians, provenance), and (3) cross-border compliance (reporting, AML, travel rule). When all three spans meet cleanly in the middle, heirs inherit clarity rather than conflict.
Heritage 3.0 is the structured transmission of both digital assets (BTC, ETH, stablecoins, tokenized securities, NFTs) and real assets (villas, land, equity in closely held companies), within a single legal narrative that banks, notaries, and tax authorities recognize.
Four pillars make it work:
If Heritage 2.0 was “put it in a trust,” Heritage 3.0 is “make every ledger tell the same story”—from the notarial registry to the blockchain explorer.
Invisible value.
Crypto can be lost without an on-ramp to visibility. If no one knows an address exists—or if the seed phrase dies with the founder—value evaporates silently. You need discovery protocols (inventories, tagged addresses, custodian letters) and access protocols (escrow, multi-sig rules, emergency signers).
Incompatible timelines.
A probate court may take months; a volatile market may move in hours. Without explicit mandates authorizing interim asset management (rebalancing, hedging, stablecoin conversion), executors become spectators. Your governance should empower action within the legal guardrails.
Forced-heirship friction.
In French law, reserved heirs (typically children, and failing descendants, the surviving spouse) hold a protected share; over-favoring one heir or a foundation can trigger reduction claims. While EU rules allow some choice of law planning, the interface with local public-policy rules requires finesse. Drafting must reconcile digital-asset flexibility with forced-share constraints to avoid litigation. LBCL Avocats+1
Compliance bottlenecks.
Heirs inheriting crypto face the Travel Rule and MiCA-era onboarding. If the decedent’s provenance records are patchy, exchanges and banks may refuse conversion, or escrow agents may pause closings pending enhanced due diligence. The cure is simple but non-negotiable: a documented chain of ownership—TXIDs, exchange statements, on-chain analytics where appropriate—packaged the way institutions like to read it. Autorité bancaire européenne
Reporting asymmetry.
Starting with the 2026 reporting year in the EU, DAC8 requires CASPs to report crypto data for automatic exchange; globally, CARF drives the same logic. If your private records and third-party reports don’t match, heirs inherit a correspondence file instead of an estate. Align your internal reports with what external parties will send on your behalf. Carey Olsen+1
In short, traditional plans often fail because they ignore the physics of crypto—instantaneous transferability, key dependence, and a regulatory environment that now expects bank-grade documentation.
1) Map the wallet universe (and keep it current).
Create a Cryptographic Asset Inventory:
2) Engineer access that survives you.
Adopt multi-signature or threshold schemes with cold-storage controls and time-lock or break-glass mechanisms overseen by a neutral professional (e.g., notary or fiduciary). Couple this with a Key-Escrow Memorandum: who holds which shard, under what conditions, and how heirs trigger reconstruction.
3) Put crypto inside a governance wrapper.
Hold digital assets through a Saint-Barth company (or a holding stack) with gérance locale and documented board procedures. For heirs, it’s easier to transfer shares of a company with banked, provenance-clean assets than to inherit scattered wallets. Corporate wrappers also facilitate notarial control, escrowed sales, and audit trails banks understand. (MiCA/TFR era counterparties respond faster to corporate, rule-based flows.) AMF+1
4) Align with EU succession mechanics.
If you or your heirs have EU links, consider Regulation 650/2012 strategies: (a) choose the law of your nationality for overall succession to avoid unintended forced-share effects, or (b) plan within the local forced-heirship matrix but shift value using lifetime gifts, usufruct/nue-propriété splits, and insurance. Record choices clearly in your testamentary instruments. EUR-Lex
5) Make the paper as strong as the blockchain.
Use notarial instruments (or their electronic QES equivalents) for wills, shareholder agreements, and key-escrow mandates. The authentic act gives your instructions high evidentiary value and avoids ambiguity at precisely the worst time. Légifrance+2Légifrance+2
6) Pre-clear the compliance corridor.
Before a future sale or conversion, build the Funds-Mapping Dossier:
7) Synchronize with CARF/DAC8.
Design reporting calendars so that what custodians and CASPs report under DAC8/CARF mirrors your private books. If you tokenize assets or use complex DeFi positions, agree ex-ante on valuation and cost-basis methods to avoid inconsistencies when data flows automatically to authorities. Carey Olsen+1
Metaphorically, this is like sailing between islands: plot the route, check the weather (regulations), file a sail plan (governance), and keep the logbook (documentation). Do that, and landfall—transfer to heirs—is smooth.
Le modèle fiscal de Saint-Barthélemy permet une neutralité légale unique au monde. Our mission is to make that neutrality work for families who live and invest on the island—without ever compromising French legality or global transparency.
What we build for you
Discretion, compliance, and excellence in Saint-Barthélemy.
Fill out the form below to access a private consultation with our expert team.
.jpeg)
