By Natalie S. Kay, Esq. | Florida Family Law Attorney 

For decades, finding money in a divorce followed a familiar playbook: request the bank statements, subpoena the financial institutions, depose the account holder, and follow the paper trail. That playbook assumed one thing we could generally count on: that somewhere, a bank was holding the money. Cryptocurrency broke that assumption. 

Why Crypto Is Different 

When a spouse holds Bitcoin or other digital assets on a U.S. based exchange, discovery still works reasonably well. Although often challenging to decipher, exchanges maintain account records, and respond to properly issued subpoenas, much like banks and brokerages. 

The problem is the cold wallet, a hardware device, often smaller than a car key, that lets someone hold cryptocurrency entirely outside any financial institution. There is no monthly statement. There is no customer service department. There is no registered agent to direct subpoena requests because there is no third party at all. The asset exists on the blockchain, controlled by whoever holds the private keys, and a device holding a seven-figure balance can sit in a desk drawer, a safe deposit box, or a pocket. Hidden away from spouses and lawyers alike.  

Traditional discovery tools were built to compel institutions to produce records. A physical cold wallet housing crypto has no institution. That is precisely why it has become an attractive vehicle for brazen spouses hoping to keep assets off the equitable distribution schedule. 

What Florida Law Requires and Where the Gap Opens 

Florida law is clear that both spouses must fully and frankly lay their finances on the table. The mandatory disclosure rules require each party to produce financial records and a sworn financial affidavit. Florida Statutes direct courts to identify and distribute all marital assets, digital or otherwise. Cryptocurrency acquired during the marriage is marital property just like a brokerage account or a business interest. 

The gap is not in the law. It is in detection. A financial affidavit is only as honest as the person signing it, and a cold wallet generates none of the routine records that would expose the omission on their own. 

The Good News: The Blockchain Never Forgets 

Here is what many people misunderstand: cryptocurrency is not invisible. Most major blockchains are public ledgers. Every transaction is permanently recorded and viewable by anyone. What is hidden is not the money’s movement; it is the owner’s identity. Experienced and skilled tracing connects the two. 

In practice, the trail usually starts where crypto touches the traditional financial system: 

• Bank and credit card records showing transfers to exchanges or the purchase of a hardware wallet itself, which is often the single most revealing line item in a statement. 

• Exchange subpoenas producing account histories, identity verification records, and the wallet addresses to which funds were withdrawn. 

• Blockchain forensics following those withdrawal transactions across the public ledger, even through multiple wallets, to establish where the assets sit today and what they are worth. 

• Targeted discovery and deposition questions crafted for digital assets: wallet addresses, seed phrases, exchange accounts, mining activity, and crypto-related tax reporting. 

A spouse who moved funds to a cold wallet has not erased the evidence; they have simply moved it to a ledger that never gets shredded.  

If Assets Were Hidden? 

When effectively presented by skilled lawyering, Florida courts do not take concealment lightly. Depending on the circumstances, a court may consider a spouse’s intentional dissipation or concealment of assets in fashioning the equitable distribution. The short version: hiding crypto is not a strategy; it is a liability, and the detection methods practitioners understand and utilize, will only get better. q 

If you are contemplating or navigating a divorce and you suspect your spouse holds digital assets, or you hold them yourself, raise it with your counsel early. Even if it’s just a suspicion. The tools to find, value, and divide cryptocurrency exist, but they are not the tools of a generation ago, and they work best when deployed from the outset of the case. 

The playbook has changed. Make sure your lawyer’s has too. 

Natalie Kay
Partner, Family Law
Kelley Kronenberg-Fort Lauderdale, FL.
(954) 370-9970
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