In The Case of Divorce, How Do I Get A Share In My Spouse's Crypto Investment?

“Cryptocurrencies have been with us since 2009 when Bitcoin was launched but have only recently become an issue for separating couples as awareness, values and media interest have soared."
(Mark Phillips)

As the crypto industry continues to grow, many questions bother the crypto enthusiasts and cryptoprenuers. One of such questions that clouds their mind is: In case of divorce, how do I get a share in my spouse's crypto investment? The good news is that since cryptocurrency is now seen as an asset, having a share of it during divorce is a reality.This is because in as much as every transaction is linked with a public and private key, it’s possible to be traced back to an individual. However:
Cryptocurrency provides an additional tool for spouses to hide large amounts of money from the court with minimal reliance on any identifiable third parties.
Although, the unregulated state of cryptocurrency means that dealing with it as an asset could make for a thorny and cumbersome divorce process. But it is a possibility. You can actually get a share of your spouse's crypto investment in the event of divorce. However, unless a spouse discloses an investment in cryptocurrencies, it is entirely impossible for them to be known or shared. And it will be screamingly difficult for a party to receive their fair share of the matrimonial assets. In this case, Mark Phillips advised that parties have a duty to provide full information about their assets during a divorce. Or you can obtain this information from the spouse before hand.

The issue of cryptocurrencies has filtered into the divorce proceedings and this has raised the interest of some lawyers like Jacqueline Newman, Mark DiMichael, Edward Davis and even the law firm Royds Withy King with Mark Phillips taking a lead. It can be said now that lawyers all over the world are beginning to face divorce cases with high-value disputes over cryptocurrency assets.

In 2018, Mark DiMichael, CPA, Certified Financial Forensics accountant and fraud examiner reported a case where a husband didn’t report $100,000-plus in cryptocurrency assets on his statement of net worth. This made Edward Davis, a Miami-based asset-recovery attorney and founding shareholder of Sequor Law, to assert that situation of financial unfaithfulness involving cryptocurrency will become more frequent in the future. Now it got to the point where Jacqueline Newman, a New York-based matrimonial law attorney, started asking her clients to include cryptocurrency in their statement of net worth. Newman stressed that though courts have not generally starting including cryptocurrency in their asset columns, hers has started to ask their clients to list it under their general assets.

How can I actually get a share in my spouse's crypto investment? A simple Trick.
Now let's get down to the centre of our discussion. Sharing of matrimonial assets has always been a problem to spouse who wish to quit their marriage. And now, cryptocurrency investment has made it even more difficult. This is because spouse can easily hide their value in cryptocurrency investments and claim they have nothing just to make sure their spouse doesn't lay hand on their assets.
Let's not forget that tracing crypto transactions could be time-consuming and expensive too.This is because cryptocurrency is a virtual money which is executed on a distributed ledger called "blockchain" coupled with its claim of decentralisation. And the more knowledgeable someone is in crypto, the bigger the threat they pose to successfully hiding the assets.
If you actually want to get a share in your spouse's crypto investment, you need to the following important points.
You need to know whether or not the spouse have a knowledge about cryptocurrency
If yes, does the spouse ever owned cryptocurrency
If so, does the spouse invest in cryptocurrency or buy and sell on an exchange?
Which investment platform or exchange is it?
What electronic devices does the spouse own or use for the business?
How does the spouse store and transact in cryptocurrency?
Where does the spouse store their cryptocurrency (a wallet or an exchange) ?
Where does the spouse keep their important records (private key, etc)?

If you are aware of the above important key points, the next move is to take legal action. Just in the event of divorce, voice it out to the lawyer who will then verify the spouse to find out about their cryptocurrency worth. It may be difficult for the lawyer to ascertain the truth from the spouse but it is not possible.
The below are the actions the contracted lawyer can look out for:
1 Bank/Credit Card Statements - Bank statements might show payments to or receipts from cryptocurrency exchange or investment companies. These statements will provide enough proof that the spouse has been dealing in cryptocurrency. And thus, will make it easier for the asset to be fairly partitioned.
2 The Public Blockchain - If you are able to obtain any of the spouse’s public addresses, the historical transactions related to those public addresses are publicly viewable on the blockchain. The blockchain can be searched online via many different free websites.
3 Inspection of Residence - If it is possible that the spouse keeps important documents in the house, you can track such important information like private key, public address, seed phrase, password and username to exchanges or wallets.
4 Inspection of Electronic Devices - In a situation where the spouse does not leave any paper trail, the only option is to obtain and search the spouse’s electronic devices with the help of a computer forensic expert. The computer forensic experts will search for evidence of cryptocurrency use such as public addresses, private keys, software wallets, internet history, and emails that might include cryptocurrency trade confirmations or other relevant information.

When you have followed the above procedure, you are sure to get a share of your spouse's crypto investment. But before you can do that you have a role to play and those roles are what will grant your success. Just like knowing the entire physical assets or monetary value of your spouse is important, knowing also their cryptocurrency involvement is relevant. You will definitely not get hold of your spouse's cryptocurrency investments if you don't know about such development. Thus, you need to gather the necessary information and make good use of them for your own benefits.

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