What are digital assets?

“Digital assets are possessions that are purchased, stored or available on digital devices or online services. These might include digital photos, videos, music, websites, blogs, Cryptocurrencies, and eBooks.

Digital Assets are assets that reside within digital formats. They can be of monetary value and/or of a sentimental value. They can also be of intellectual property (IP) value. Photos uploaded to a social network may have no monetary value but contain a high sentimental value.

Cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum etc) may be of no sentimental value but instead be of monitory value. A music library purchased digitally (as MP3s, WAVs etc) may be both of sentimental value and of monitory value. This might be the case for the owner of the music library and the person or persons who inherits the library”.

– Digital Legacy Association (Definition) 2026.

Do you understand the term ‘Digital Assets’?

The Digital Legacy Association’s digital death survey and subsequent reports explores society’s attitudes towards death, bereavement, technology and the internet. Our research indicates that the awareness around the term ‘assets’ has increased significantly over the last few years.  

How to make plans for your digital assets

Your digital assets might be stored on a number of devices (computer, mobile phone etc) and across a number of platforms (Amazon, Facebook, iTunes etc).

It is important that you make plans for your digital assets and the devices and accounts they are held in. You may want to do this by documenting your wishes within a Social Media Will. Before you do so, it is important that you understand the what you can and cannot do when making plans for each platform and device. We have developed a learning section to help support you with your learning.

To learn more about this area view our free resources and tutorials visit our ‘For the Public‘ section.