Who Gets the Guns, Gold, and Crypto?

Short answer: Your firearms, gold, and cryptocurrency go to whoever you name in your estate plan, the same as any other property, but only if you actually plan for them. None of these assets pass automatically to the right person. A gun sits in a safe with no beneficiary form attached to it. Gold coins and jewelry have no title document at all. A cryptocurrency wallet has no institution to call and no “forgot password” option. If you never account for these assets in a funded trust or a clear, current inventory, your executor or trustee may not even know they exist, and whatever does turn up ends up in probate along with everything else.

Do firearms, gold, and crypto avoid probate on their own?

No. Value or rarity does not exempt an asset from probate. Probate is a public, court-supervised process, and anything titled in your name alone at death, without a beneficiary designation or a funded trust behind it, goes through that process regardless of what the asset is. A will does not change this. A will, by itself, does not avoid probate; it only takes effect once a court validates it, so writing instructions for the gun safe, the gold coins, or the crypto wallet into a will still means a court process before your executor can hand anything to the people you named.

What if there is no will or trust at all?

Then California’s intestate succession statutes decide who inherits, not your wishes. That matters a great deal for these particular assets, because guns, coin collections, and crypto wallets are exactly the kind of property people want to leave to a specific person: a hunting partner, an adult child who shares the hobby, an unmarried partner. Under intestate succession, the estate passes down a fixed order, starting with a spouse and children and moving outward to parents, siblings, and more distant relatives. Unmarried partners and stepchildren who were never legally adopted generally inherit nothing under that scheme, no matter how close the relationship was in life. If you want a particular firearm, collection, or wallet to go to a particular person, that has to be written into a will or trust. Leaving it to chance means leaving it to the statute.

What happens to firearms when the owner dies?

Firearms are regulated property in California, and transferring one to an heir is not the same as handing over a piece of furniture. Whoever ends up responsible for the estate, an executor in probate or a successor trustee under a trust, has to handle that transfer in a way that complies with state firearm law, on top of the paperwork that governs everything else in the estate. That is one more reason to keep a specific, current inventory of any firearms you own, including where each one is stored, and to pick an executor or trustee who is willing and able to deal with that process rather than discovering it as a surprise after your death.

How do you handle gold, jewelry, and other hard to trace assets?

Gold, jewelry, art, and collectibles share the same problem: there is usually no company, bank, or government agency that has any record of who owns them. If your executor or trustee does not know an asset exists, it can sit in a safe deposit box or a closet indefinitely, or get sold or discarded by someone who has no idea what they are looking at. The fix is not complicated. Get appraisals, keep purchase records and photographs, and put a current, specific list of these items with your other estate planning documents so whoever administers your estate or trust knows what to look for and roughly what it is worth.

Why is cryptocurrency different from a bank account?

A bank or brokerage account is discoverable. A statement arrives in the mail, a name is on file, and the institution can be contacted after death. A cryptocurrency wallet has none of that. The private keys or seed phrase are the only way in, and if no one else knows the wallet exists or has access to those keys, the asset is gone permanently. There is no customer service line to call and no way for a court to compel access to funds nobody can prove exist. Mentioning crypto in general terms in a will or trust is not enough. The person who administers your estate needs to actually know a specific wallet exists and how to get into it when the time comes.

Where should you keep the access information?

Not inside the will or trust itself. A will becomes part of the public probate court file once it is filed, so writing a seed phrase or wallet password directly into that document exposes it to anyone who looks up the case. The better approach is a separate, private inventory of digital assets and access instructions, kept somewhere secure, with instructions to your successor trustee or executor on where to find it when the time comes. The same logic applies to firearms and hard to trace valuables generally: your estate planning documents should establish who is in charge and who inherits what, while a separate, updated inventory tells them what actually exists, where it is, and how to get to it.

Figures verified July 2026.

What to do next

If you own firearms, precious metals, or cryptocurrency, do not assume your will or trust already accounts for them. Build a specific, current inventory, keep access information for digital assets separate from anything that becomes part of the public record, and talk with an estate planning attorney about properly funding your living trust so these assets transfer the way you intend instead of defaulting into probate.