In just a few short years, cryptocurrency has moved from the fringes of the technology and finance worlds into the mainstream. According to a Pew Research Poll conducted in November 2021:
- 86% of Americans had heard “at least a little” about cryptocurrencies,
- 24% claimed to know “a lot” about them, and
- 16% had personally invested or traded in them
Among those who had invested or traded cryptocurrencies, the largest cohort was men between the ages of 18 and 29, of whom 31% had personal experience. All of those statistics were significantly larger than what Pew found in its study that was done back in 2015.
If you or your spouse own crypto assets (or if you suspect your spouse does, but you aren’t sure), what should you do in the event of a divorce? How do you go about finding the assets, valuing them, and dividing them?
The first thing you should do is hire an attorney who has personal, first-hand experience investing or trading in cryptocurrency. As the Pew Research Poll cited above shows, while a large majority of people have heard a little about Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, NFT’s (non-fungible tokens) and others, only a small minority of those people have actually dealt with them. The concepts, terminology, and mechanisms for buying, selling, and trading are completely foreign to most Americans, and that includes most divorce lawyers. At Kollias, P.C., we have not only handled numerous cases involving crypto assets, but our firm has also accepted payment in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies since 2019.