For most of my career, I have worked as a financial professional helping individuals and families make sense of complex financial lives. Many of the people I work with are high-net-worth individuals. Many have international backgrounds. Many built wealth across borders, across asset classes, and across different legal and tax systems.
In recent years, an increasing number of those clients began asking about crypto and digital assets.
At first, the questions sounded familiar:
“Is this a good investment?”
“What should I buy?”
“Is now a good time?”
But very quickly, the real questions emerged—and they were very different.
They were questions about tax exposure, estate planning, family coordination, access, risk, and long-term responsibility. Questions like:
What happens to my crypto if something happens to me?
How do I report this properly across jurisdictions?
How does this fit with my existing trusts, insurance, and estate plan?
How do I treat digital assets as part of my real financial life—not as a side experiment?
Those questions are the reason this publication exists.
The Problem With How Crypto Is Usually Discussed
Most crypto content today focuses on investments.
Prices. Trades. Deals. Timing. New tokens. New platforms.
That kind of discussion has its place—but it leaves out something essential.
For people who already hold meaningful assets, especially those with families, businesses, and cross-border lives, crypto is not just an investment. It is a real asset that interacts with:
Tax systems
Estate plans
Family governance
Risk management
Long-term lifestyle decisions
Yet very few people in the financial industry talk about crypto this way.
In my experience, most conversations either come from:
Market commentators who focus on price and speculation, or
Technologists who understand the tools but not the planning implications
What’s missing are voices from professional financial planning, people trained to look at the entire picture—tax, estate, protection, and life planning together.
My Perspective: Planning First, Not Products First
My approach to digital assets comes from the same place as my approach to any other part of someone’s financial life.
I don’t start with “What should you buy?”
I start with “What does your life look like?”
That means asking questions about:
Family structure
Jurisdiction and residency
Existing estate plans and trusts
Tax exposure today and in the future
Risk tolerance—not just financially, but operationally
How assets are accessed, documented, and transferred
From that perspective, crypto stops being a speculative side topic and becomes part of a holistic planning conversation.
The goal is not to optimize returns at all costs.
The goal is to integrate digital assets responsibly into a real financial life.
Why High-Net-Worth and International Families Face Unique Challenges
Many of the people I work with have international backgrounds. Some live in one country and hold assets in another. Some plan to move. Some have family members spread across jurisdictions.
Digital assets are global by nature—but tax and estate laws are not.
This creates unique challenges:
Different reporting regimes
Different inheritance rules
Different definitions of ownership and access
Different risks when something goes wrong
Ignoring these issues doesn’t make them go away. It just pushes the risk forward—to the next tax filing, the next audit, or the next generation.
This publication is written with those realities in mind.
Why I Started Digital Asset Planning
I started Digital Asset Planning because I could not find enough serious, professional guidance in this space—guidance that treats digital assets with the same discipline we apply to other forms of wealth.
Not hype.
Not fear.
Not shortcuts.
Just thoughtful, structured planning.
This publication is meant to:
Frame digital assets as part of a broader financial system
Explore tax, estate, and planning considerations in plain language
Help people think about digital assets responsibly and long-term
Encourage a more professional standard of discussion in this field
This is not investment advice.
This is not a trading newsletter.
It is a place to think clearly about how digital assets fit into real lives, real families, and real planning decisions.
What You Can Expect Here
Going forward, I’ll write about:
Tax considerations around digital assets
Estate and legacy planning issues
Common mistakes I see in practice
How digital assets interact with trusts, insurance, and family planning
Cross-border and international considerations
Practical frameworks for treating digital assets seriously
If you already own crypto—or plan to—it deserves the same level of care as the rest of your financial life.
That is the purpose of this publication.
Ran Chen, EA, CFP®
