This article was originally published in HNW Divorce Magazine and is published with the kind permission.

Every divorce brings discussion about the division of assets; what makes High Net Worth divorce complex is the different types of assets involved. Such assets can traditionally be property, cars, artwork, unique jewellery, or collector’s items. However, more recently, there is also a digitalisation of assets; these can be NFT’s (Non-Fungible Tokens) or digital currency such as Bitcoin, for example. 

Traditional assets, which are unique, are often difficult to value but the legal sector has become accustomed to using insurance policies, storage costs, expert reports or auction valuations to produce an estimate of value. 

The difficulty with the digitisation of assets is that values can vary greatly over relatively short periods of time. You may be familiar with reports of Justin Bieber’s Bored Ape NFT, plunging from $1.3 MILLION in value in January 2022 to around just $70K in November 2022.

The legal sector has quickly had to adapt not just to the digitisation of assets, but also the digitisation of evidence regarding values. This article takes a look at two key digitisation challenges, crypto-assets and digital evidence and what both lawyers and clients need to be conscious of moving forward. 

You can read the rest of this article in HNW Divorce Magazine or you can download the article here.