In 2023, a New York housewife enlisted the help of a forensic accountant to track down half a million dollars her husband hid in Bitcoin prior to their divorce. A few months into the divorce, the wife became suspicious when it appeared her husband – who earned as much as $3 million per year – had very few assets. The woman, who had been married for over a decade, rightfully felt blindsided when she found out the truth.
Since the couple had never really discussed cryptocurrency or making investments, the wife had no idea her husband was stashing money to keep her from getting her half of the marital assets during the divorce. A 2022 NBC news poll discovered that about 21 percent of American adults have invested in, used, or traded cryptocurrency. Men between the ages of 18 and 49 took the top spot for cryptocurrency investors.
Many divorce attorneys would agree that the law is simply not keeping up with digital assets when it comes to dividing marital assets during divorce. In fact, some attorneys are just beginning to add cryptocurrency to requests for the production of documents during divorce discovery. If there is any silver lining to spouses hiding assets in cryptocurrency, it would be the increase in forensic investigator jobs created to track down these assets during a divorce.