Glenn Devitt, founder of Digital Legacy AI and decorated Army veteran, isn’t just building technology—he’s rewriting the rules of inheritance for the digital era. The largest generational wealth transfer in history accelerates, with an estimated $19 trillion in assets changing hands over the next decade, yet a critical problem has emerged: digital assets vanish into digital purgatory, locked behind passwords and security measures that die with their owners.
Consider the Chen family’s experience when David passed away suddenly, leaving behind cryptocurrency wallet addresses worth over $340,000 but no access keys. Despite hiring forensic specialists, the Bitcoin and Ethereum holdings he’d accumulated over five years were gone forever—joining approximately 4 million Bitcoin worth $68 billion that remains permanently inaccessible due to inheritance failures.
Devitt’s patented digital inheritance technology addresses this crisis across all digital asset categories: cryptocurrency wallets, cloud storage accounts, social media profiles, business systems, and family photos stored on personal devices. His systematic approach, honed through 11 years of Army Special Operations Intelligence experience, treats digital inheritance like an intelligence operation requiring precision, security, and reliable execution.
The $19 trillion digital asset challenge
The inheritance crisis extends far beyond cryptocurrency to encompass the full spectrum of digital wealth accumulation. Cloud storage accounts containing decades of family photos become inaccessible when password managers lock out. Social media profiles with valuable intellectual property and business relationships disappear. Online business accounts controlling revenue streams shut down permanently. Even simple email accounts can contain years of communication that families want to preserve.
Over the next 20 years, an estimated $6 trillion in cryptocurrency alone will be inherited globally according to industry projections. Digital asset markets now approaching $2.5 trillion encompass not just cryptocurrencies but NFTs, cloud-stored intellectual property, and decentralized finance positions that require specialized inheritance protocols.
Current solutions create dangerous trade-offs between security and accessibility. Sharing passwords with family members eliminates the security that makes digital assets valuable. Storing access credentials in safety deposit boxes creates single points of failure. Hardware wallets with social recovery features require technical expertise that many beneficiaries lack, creating ongoing maintenance burdens that families cannot sustain.
Estate planning attorneys report mounting professional liability concerns when digital assets become permanently inaccessible due to authentication failures. Traditional financial accounts allow banks to provide established protocols for estate access, but digital platforms often lack standardized procedures for posthumous account management.
How Glenn Devitt’s military intelligence background drives innovation
This challenge is exactly what Devitt’s military experience prepared him to solve. His specialization in counterintelligence and digital forensics during 11 years of Army Special Operations Intelligence service, including deployments where he earned two Bronze Star Medals, provided the foundation for understanding how security systems can maintain absolute protection while enabling verified access under specific conditions.
“I was really good at working open source intelligence back then or creative ways of getting data,” Devitt noted, describing capabilities that now inform his approach to digital inheritance challenges. Military operations require protocols that function reliably across decades and under extreme circumstances—exactly what inheritance systems need.
Following military service, Devitt joined the Department of Homeland Security’s H.E.R.O. program, developing computer forensics expertise that revealed how digital security systems could prevent unauthorized access while enabling legitimate recovery. His subsequent work creating the Black Box Project at Stop Soldier Suicide demonstrated his ability to build secure systems that activate automatically when specific conditions are met.
“You can’t rescue your way out of this… It takes time to do an intelligence operation… to really make the impact where you take down the whole operation,” Devitt explained, describing the systematic thinking that now drives his digital inheritance breakthrough—treating each family’s digital legacy like a mission-critical operation requiring comprehensive planning and flawless execution.
Patent technology breakthrough for digital inheritance
Devitt’s patented system resolves the fundamental contradiction that complicates digital inheritance: maintaining absolute security during an owner’s lifetime while enabling verified access for legitimate heirs after death. The breakthrough creates automated inheritance processes that can verify death certificates, validate legal authority, and execute predetermined access instructions across multiple digital asset categories.
The unified framework combines secure offline storage—keeping critical data isolated from internet access until verification occurs—with automated contracts that trigger inheritance procedures upon death verification. The system uses multiple verification methods including death certificates, secure digital validation, and identity confirmation. Real-time integration with Social Security Administration systems provides verified death confirmation, while comprehensive coverage extends across cryptocurrencies, cloud accounts, social media profiles, and business systems with tax-compliant asset tracking for legal audit purposes.
The system addresses what makes digital assets fundamentally different from traditional inheritance. While banks can transfer funds to estate executors upon receiving death certificates, digital platforms offer no equivalent mechanism. Devitt’s digital contract functionality fills this gap by creating missing infrastructure through secure verification that maintains the protected access digital asset holders require.
Competing solutions that require special hardware, third-party custodians, or cumbersome paperwork create ongoing maintenance burdens; however, Devitt’s system provides security through automated verification, eliminating these requirements for families.
Regulatory compliance and market evolution
Digital inheritance faces increasing regulatory complexity that traditional estate planning cannot address effectively. New IRS regulations for 2025 mandate individual wallet reporting for inherited cryptocurrency, making digital legacy planning both a legal and financial necessity. Inheritance tax on digital assets can reach up to 40% in many jurisdictions if not properly disclosed, with additional penalties for late reporting.
The regulatory framework creates urgent compliance requirements, including Form 1099-DA reporting for digital asset transactions starting January 2025, detailed tracking of acquisition dates and costs for each digital asset, individual wallet reporting rather than universal tracking methods, and cross-border inheritance complications requiring specialized documentation.
Devitt’s automated documentation and real-time asset tracking eliminate compliance risks while providing the precision that courts and tax authorities require for digital inheritance disputes. The system’s detailed asset specification and secure documentation address regulatory gaps that have left families vulnerable to unexpected tax liabilities.
Silver tsunami impact and industry transformation
The timing of Devitt’s digital inheritance breakthrough coincides with unprecedented generational wealth transfer needs. Baby boomers, who will transfer the majority of the $19 trillion over the coming decade, increasingly hold digital assets but often lack technical knowledge to manage complex inheritance protocols.
Research indicates 59% of institutional investors now allocate over 5% to digital assets, driving urgent demand for robust inheritance solutions. Industry experts project digital inheritance infrastructure will become essential market infrastructure by 2045 due to digital asset adoption expanding across demographics that traditionally engage in estate planning.
Current fragmented approaches—cryptocurrency services that cannot handle cloud accounts, social media platforms with no inheritance protocols, business systems requiring specialized recovery procedures—create gaps that Glenn Devitt’s unified platform addresses. The technology transforms digital inheritance from multiple technical challenges into automated processes that maintain security while ensuring family access.
Professional estate planners gain standardized procedures that eliminate traditional trade-offs between asset protection and inheritance accessibility. The system provides legally compliant protocols that address professional liability concerns while ensuring clients’ digital wealth transfers successfully across generations.
For the millions of families preparing to navigate digital inheritance over the coming decade, Devitt’s innovation offers essential infrastructure that bridges traditional estate planning with the digital-first world that increasingly defines modern wealth. Rather than accepting that digital legacies will disappear behind locked screens, beneficiaries can now access inherited assets through systems designed by a veteran who understood that protecting what matters most requires both uncompromising security and reliable access when authorization is legitimate.
