China Recognizes Digital Assets and Crypto as Inheritance: What Courts Ruled

A series of rulings by Chinese courts over recent years has cemented a simple but significant principle: digital assets — from cryptocurrency to gaming accounts and social media pages — can form part of an estate just like ordinary property. Here's exactly what's already been recognized as inheritable, on what grounds, and what courts explicitly ruled out.

What's already been recognized as inheritable

Across separate cases, courts have recognized as inheritable: gaming accounts and in-game items, microtransactions and digital purchases, cryptocurrency (one case involved five bitcoin holdings as part of the estate), social media accounts — including one with roughly 100,000 followers — and domain names.

One notable case involved a dispute over a rare item called the Golden Blade from the MMORPG Zhengtu, valued at around 50,000 yuan. The player's widow received only half the item's value: another player, who had been in an in-game "relationship" with the deceased, contested the claim, arguing the item had been earned through collaborative gameplay.

The test courts used

Courts based their reasoning on whether an asset is "transferable, limited in supply, and holds clear economic value" — meaning the deciding factor isn't the digital nature of the asset itself, but whether it behaves like ordinary property.

What doesn't get inherited

Purely personal content — private chat histories, for instance — is treated differently and doesn't pass directly to heirs the way assets with clear economic value do.

What about platform rules banning account transfers

A separate, arguably more important finding: clauses in platform terms of service that ban transferring an account to a third party can't override inheritance rights protected by law. Courts explicitly stated that platforms are required to help transfer ownership once an heir provides the necessary supporting documents.

What this means in practice

For crypto holders and owners of valuable digital assets in China, this means such assets can now formally be willed or inherited by law, and a platform's standard "this account cannot be transferred" clause isn't, by itself, a barrier. For the rest of the world, it's another data point suggesting the law is gradually catching up to a reality where a meaningful share of personal property exists only in digital form.

This material is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice.