Crypto Date of Death Valuation Tools for Estates

This guide is for estate attorneys, fiduciary accountants, executors and appraisers who have a decedent with bitcoin and a deadline. Maybe it is a Form 706 because the estate is over the filing threshold or the spouse wants portability. Maybe it is just the stepped-up basis the heirs will need when they sell. Either way someone has to put a defensible number next to the coins, and on a public ledger that number is easier to get right than most people expect, if you pin it to the right block.

We sell Bitcoin on-chain data and hourly price candles, so weigh that. We do not sell appraisals or legal advice, and where another tool or a professional is the better buy, we say so.

What do you need to value crypto at date of death?

You need the quantity and the price, and they come from different places. The quantity is on the blockchain: the sum of unspent outputs belonging to the decedent's addresses as of a specific block. For coins held on an exchange, it is the exchange's own account statement instead, because those coins sit in the exchange's wallets, not the decedent's. The price is market data: what one bitcoin traded for on the valuation date on the market the estate would realistically have sold into.

Most valuation disputes come from the first number, not the second. Missed change addresses, a wallet that kept receiving after death, or a cutoff that silently included the next block all move the quantity. Bitcoin prices are public and easy to cite. A complete, reproducible balance takes more care.

Crypto date of death valuation tools compared

A single estate with one known address can often be done with a free explorer and a screenshot. The paid options earn their cost when the wallet has dozens of addresses, when the numbers will be checked by the IRS or another party, or when a firm does this every month.

How is cryptocurrency valued for estate tax purposes?

At fair market value on the date of death. The IRS treats virtual currency as property under Notice 2014-21, so it is included in the gross estate like any other property under section 2031, and the heirs receive a basis equal to that value under section 1014. There is no regulation written specifically for crypto. Many practitioners borrow the rule for listed securities in Treasury Regulation 20.2031-2, the mean between the highest and lowest selling prices on the valuation date, because bitcoin trades continuously on public markets. Others use the price at the time of death. Pick one method, state it, and apply it consistently.

Two dates can apply. The executor may elect the alternate valuation date under section 2032, six months after death, but only if it lowers both the gross estate and the tax. For decedents dying in 2026, the basic exclusion amount is $15,000,000 under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, so many estates will not owe estate tax at all. They still need the date-of-death value, because it sets the heirs' basis and because a portability election requires a timely Form 706 whatever the estate's size.

Does the time of death matter for crypto valuation?

Yes, more than it does for stocks, because bitcoin trades 24 hours a day and a single day can have a wide range. We measured one. Take a decedent who died at 3:00 pm Eastern on 1 September 2026, holding 10 BTC. Using Coinbase BTC-USD hourly market data for that Eastern calendar day:

The high and the low were $2,829.20 apart, which is $28,292 on 10 BTC. The two defensible methods, mean of high and low versus price at the time of death, differ by $6,538.50 on the same holding. Neither is wrong. What is wrong is mixing them across assets or leaving the method unstated, because that is the first thing a reviewer asks.

Which block is the date of death?

The last block confirmed before the moment of death, identified by its height. In our example, 3:00 pm Eastern is 19:00:00 UTC. Block 965,071 carries a timestamp of 18:55:18 UTC and 2,762 transactions. Block 965,072 carries 19:00:52 UTC, just 52 seconds after death, and 2,686 transactions. A transfer in block 965,072 was almost certainly broadcast while the decedent was alive, but it confirmed afterward. Whichever way the estate treats it, the valuation should name the height it used.

Do not rely on timestamps alone. Bitcoin block timestamps are set by miners, are allowed to run up to two hours ahead, and are not strictly increasing. When we measured the 2025 year-end cutoff, the last block before midnight Eastern was ambiguous by two blocks and 8,821 transactions, because blocks 930,372 and 930,373 carry timestamps before midnight after a block stamped later. A query that says "balance as of this time" inherits that ambiguity. A query that says "balance at block 965,071" does not.

How do executors find all of a decedent's bitcoin addresses?

Start from what the decedent left: a hardware wallet, a written recovery phrase, wallet software on a computer, or exchange emails. If the device or software can export an extended public key (an xpub, ypub or zpub), that single string lets you derive every receiving and change address the wallet used without touching the private keys. Wallets stop scanning after about 20 unused addresses in a row, the gap limit, so a tool that walks the derivation the same way will find what the wallet itself would show.

Change addresses are the usual miss. Every time a wallet spends, the leftover returns to a new address the owner never saw. An inventory built from the addresses on old receipts will undercount. Our xpub balance API derives the wallet and returns the combined balance in one call. If there is no xpub and no device, a forensic firm is the better buy, and our guide to crypto tracing software for forensic accountants covers that work.

Can the balance change after death?

Yes, and that is why a current balance is the wrong number. Anyone can send coins to an address. Pending withdrawals the decedent signed can confirm afterward. And dust sprays arrive unannounced: we have watched the same funder send 546-satoshi outputs to cold addresses in consecutive blocks. A balance read today includes all of it. A balance at the date-of-death height includes none of it, and the later receipts belong in the estate's income accounting, not the date-of-death inventory. Our page on Bitcoin dust attack detection shows how to spot and exclude those outputs.

How to produce a date-of-death balance with an API

1. Build the address list. Call GET /v1/xpub/{xpub} for each wallet key, which derives the addresses and returns the combined balance, and add any standalone addresses you found.
2. Pick the height. Find the last block before the time of death and write down its height and hash. That is your cutoff.
3. Sum at the height. From the Growth plan, one SQL query over the outputs and inputs tables returns the balance of every address at that height, so coins received later drop out automatically.
4. Export the detail. Pull the transactions behind each balance into CSV so the file shows its work, then apply the price method you chose. Hourly candles from the Bitcoin price API give the high, low and the price at the hour of death from one order book, and the market the estate would have sold into remains the reference.

The Bitcoin address balance history API page shows the query, and the Bitcoin audit trail API page shows how to tie a balance to a named block so a reviewer can re-perform it. The Developer plan at $49 a month keeps one year of history and covers address lookups; balance at an arbitrary height through SQL starts on Growth at $199. While the data side runs, the attorney's own filings, deadlines and client letters for the probate can move faster with an AI assistant for legal practitioners.

How much does a crypto date of death valuation cost?

The data itself is cheap. A free explorer costs nothing for one address, and our Developer plan is $49 a month for a firm handling several estates. The expensive part, when it is needed, is the professional: a qualified appraiser's signed report or a forensic firm's search for unknown wallets, both priced per engagement. The cleaner the balance you hand them, pinned to a height with a transaction list behind it, the less of their time you pay for.

Do heirs get a step-up in basis on inherited bitcoin?

Yes, under section 1014 the heir's basis is generally the fair market value at the date of death, or at the alternate valuation date if the executor elects it. If the decedent paid $5,000 for coins worth $777,807 on the valuation date, the heir's basis is $777,807. That makes the date-of-death number the one the heir's future gain is measured from, which is a good reason to document it well even when no estate tax is due.

Our guide to Bitcoin wallet statement tools covers turning the balance into a statement the family's accountant can file. BitcoinDatabase provides informational on-chain data only. It is not tax, legal or appraisal advice, and the estate's advisers decide which valuation method applies.