Complete Digital Will Guide: Leave Your Digital Assets to the Right People

Plenty of people write a traditional will. But when it comes to a 'digital will' — the money in WeChat, the balance in Alipay, the coins on an exchange, the photos in cloud storage, the social media accounts — most people draw a blank. Can your family actually get hold of these digital assets after you're gone? In most cases, no. Not because the law forbids it, but because your family simply doesn't have the passwords. Further reading: How to Pass Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets to Your Family.

What a Digital Will Actually Does

A paper will covers physical property — your house, savings, car. But your WeChat balance, Alipay funds, Bitcoin private key, Steam account, iCloud photos — writing these on paper does nothing. A digital will encrypts and stores the account credentials for all your digital assets, sets a trigger condition, and hands them over automatically to the people you choose if something happens to you.

• Payment accounts — WeChat Pay, Alipay, banking apps — without the passwords, your family is stuck.
• Cryptocurrency — Lose a private key or seed phrase and the funds are gone for good. Encrypt them and release them via heartbeat trigger.
• Social accounts — WeChat, QQ, Weibo, Xiaohongshu — each platform has its own policy, but they all share one thing: your family needs the password.
• Cloud storage — iCloud, Baidu Netdisk, Google Drive — your photos, files, and notes live here.
• Subscriptions — Streaming memberships, cloud services, software licenses — at least help your family cancel the renewals.

How the Law Treats Digital Assets

Article 127 of China's Civil Code explicitly protects data and network virtual property. In practice, though, enforcement is hard — every platform has its own policy: some require notarization, some require a court order, some simply reclaim the account. Giving your family the passwords directly skips a lot of this friction. But for large sums, real estate, or situations where an inheritance dispute is possible, you should still arrange notarization or consult a lawyer, pairing the digital handover with a formal legal arrangement.

Why You Shouldn't Just Tell Your Family the Passwords

Handing over passwords directly has several problems. First, you tell them now — but what if the relationship changes? Second, passwords change often, and you'd have to re-share them every time. Third, you don't want your family seeing the contents right now — you only want them to have it if something happens. TimeWill's logic: the passwords are encrypted and stored, invisible to everyone (including us) in normal times. Only after the heartbeat check-in triggers do they release to the people you've designated.

Four Steps to Create Your Digital Will

• Step 1: Take inventory — List every digital asset — accounts, passwords, private keys, seed phrases. Don't miss any; what's left out is as good as lost.
• Step 2: Name your recipients — Who gets what? The WeChat password to your spouse, the Bitcoin private key to your child, a letter to a friend — assign each one separately.
• Step 3: Set the heartbeat — Pick a check-in frequency (daily, weekly, monthly). Miss a check-in and the system releases automatically. This is the key — not a fixed timer, but a heartbeat trigger.
• Step 4: Keep it updated — Changed a password, opened a new exchange account, added tens of thousands in USDT — update promptly. A digital will isn't something you write once and forget.

Does a Digital Will Have Legal Force?

Chinese law does not currently recognize a purely digital will. The correct use of a digital will is: a paper will for physical property, a digital will for digital assets. The two complement each other without conflict. TimeWill addresses the practical problem of 'your family doesn't know the passwords' — it does not replace a legal document.

What If I Change Phones or a Password Changes?

Your encrypted data lives in the cloud, so changing phones doesn't affect it. But when a password changes, update it promptly — we recommend reviewing once a quarter and syncing new passwords into the password vault. The heartbeat check-in itself doesn't depend on passwords — you just need to check in on schedule.

Could the Platform Shut Down? How Long Will You Last?

Fair question. TimeWill currently offers its service for free. If we ever can't keep going, we'll notify every user in advance to download their data, with a generous transition period. Technically, your content is stored on the server as encrypted ciphertext — even during a data migration, we never see the plaintext.