We’re extremely excited to announce that Entrustet is joining SecureSafe, the market leader in Digital Estate Planning and online data safes, to bring you more features, better service and a continued commitment to our vision: allowing you to create a plan for your digital assets that you can be assured will be carried out when you pass away.

Since our launch, we’ve done everything in our power to make our vision reality.  We’ve created a product that works and helped people in over 20 countries protect their digital assets.

During our time in the market, we’ve gotten to know the SecureSafe team very well.  They are based in Switzerland and their service is used and recommended by various Swiss Banks.  We’ve gotten to know a great team with massive experience, and a very similar vision.

As we worked together, we realized that SecureSafe had everything that we wanted in a partner.  Their service is top notch, has more features, all backed by Swiss banking privacy and security they are known for.  They share our vision of helping you securely store your online accounts and computer files, making them securely accessible anywhere in the world and enabling you to transfer or delete them when you pass away.

Entrustet is joining the SecureSafe family and we couldn’t be more excited.

The Future

We’re so excited because SecureSafe shares our vision, but has a product that does so much more.  SecureSafe has amazing features and a very intuitive user interface that we are sure you will love.  We are confident you will love SecureSafe as much if not more than Entrustet and believe that this is the best possible company to trust with protecting your digital legacy.

After working in the market for three years, we’ve become convinced that the future of the digital estate planning market are companies that give their users value both during life and at the time of death.

Enter SecureSafe. SecureSafe offers an Entrustet-like product with expanded features and an incredible reputation for security. SecureSafe is a part of DSwiss, a large software security company, which means in addition to incredible site security, they are stable and in it for the long haul. SecureSafe does quite well in Europe, but was looking to expand operations into the U.S. What Entrustet could offer most was both an enthusiastic userbase, our partnerships with estate attorneys and the rest of the industry.

This acquisition is a classic win-win. For Entrustet, we merge our site and users into the leading international competitor. It’s a company with software we respect, a profitable bottom line, good financial backing, excellent security, and an impressive management team–we can rest easy at night that our users will be getting a top-notch alternative.

We’d like to thank you, our users, advisers, investors especially those of you who have been with us from the very beginning.  If you have questions, please connect with us.  We’d love to hear what you have to say.

Jesse Davis and Nathan Lustig
Cofounders, Entrustet

Tags:

capital entrepreneurs · entrustet acquired · entrustet acquisition · entrustet secure safe · jesse davis · madison wisconsin startup · nathan lustig

Note: This is a guest post by Justin Toladro of Life Insurance Finder from Australia

A legacy has been part of human nature since the beginning of time.  Old wisdom prescribed ‘planting a tree’ and bearing a son to carry on a legacy, to gain a sense of immortality, and to leave something behind that is sure to outlive us.

Many write books, blogs, and have obtained a strong online presence, which equates to a lengthy and diverse digital legacy.

A digital legacy is quite different than a physical legacy that includes a son, or a tree or any other kind of physical treasure.  It is a part of us that contains our innermost thoughts, our political and religious beliefs, our love letters and what makes us who we are.  It is something that is not quite tangible, but yet, is accessible.

Yet, to some of our friends and family, this digital legacy, with all of its photographs, mementos, emails and posts, may be an even more satisfying and lasting memory of our lives and how we lived them, to pass on to our children, grandchildren and friends and loved ones.

We live in a digital world that is rapidly replacing the physical word, as far as documentation, and personal data.  Everything is emailed, faxed and downloaded, and most of us even pay our bills online, and carry on all of our financial matters there as well.

But what happens to that legacy when we die?  Where does it go and what remains of our digital selves after our Digital Death?

Why digital data should be preserved:

When someone dies, most of the digital information that they created and participated in, such as profiles in many of the social network sites, or business identities, stays behind.

Deciding what part of your digital self you’d like to see remain can mean what part of your personal legacy you leave behind.  The decision of course, is yours, but what if you die before you make a decision about that digital legacy? What is left of you after your death if there are no instructions in which to guide your legacy?

And what exactly is out there to see that you’d not be particularly proud?

Importance of digital data:

Mark Raby of TG Daily, says “38% of Americans would rather lose their wedding ring than all the files on their computer, and that’s just the beginning of the insights provided by a new study on the importance of digital data.”  Although these statistics are sketchy, I mean how many people are going to admit this?  The truth is, our computers and data are what most of our lives revolve around.  Everything we do, care about, feel and believe are resting somewhere out in cyberspace.

Preserving your digital data:

Raby says that most people do not even back up this critical data.  So, a great start would be a back up system to ensure that those critical photos, documents, music and other online information is safe, and will not be lost should you experience a hard drive crash.

Another method many people use is a ‘flash drive’.  This is an exterior drive that condenses your information and stores it off the computer should a crash occur, and can act as a guide for family and friends, as well.  It can contain sensitive information that can be locked in a safe, or other secure method to be opened upon your death.

Digital Will:

This is one document that will not only benefit you and how you want to leave your digital legacy, whether it remains or is removed after your death, and is also a guideline to how you want your family to see your legacy.  Do you want personal information left in email accounts, or social network sites?

This is the place to state your wishes, and also give family and friends access to what you feel is appropriate.

Creating a digital will is not difficult, most times it is just attached to an existing will or living trust.

Start a list and keep it updated:

Making a list of all of your online activities for a month would be a great start to recording and keeping the important digital legacy that is you.  Suggestions are to begin by creating a document in a word processing system, which allows links to specific sites.

Adding user ID’s and passwords, as well as what data is there can relieve even the most computer savvy person, when and if something happens to you.

This document should be incorporated into the digital will you’ve created and should be kept with a person you trust, or a legal representative to be given access only to the people you have chosen to give access.

Keeping your online data safe, stored, easily accessible and edited for content will leave a lasting digital legacy for which you can be proud.

Tags:

death insurance · digital death · Digital Estate Planning · life insurance

The Internet that began as a place of near total anonymity (one where no one knows you’re a dog) is in the midst of a pendulum swing to the opposite extreme. No longer is online life shrouded in ambiguity, instead it has become a place filled with people. Friends, family, co-workers, getting online is now more like a huge party with everyone you know. A party whose front door are sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Likes and postings on our homepages in many ways now determine the types of sites, news stories and videos we see, read and watch. But is this much access to the thoughts of others a good thing?

There is a darker side to the personalization of the Internet. One that, rightly, has many people worried about a privacy that they once took for granted. This conundrum comes from the Internet’s struggle to find balance between its users competing desires for both privacy and individual identity.

On one side of the argument you have people like Mark Zuckerberg, who believe that the more connected and transparent the world is the happier its inhabitants will be–that is, it’s fun to see what your friends are doing across the digital landscape; what they read, what they buy, who they talk to, ect,. And at the end of the day, no one’s forcing you to share anything, right? Plus, why wouldn’t you want people to know what you’re doing unless you have something to hide, huh?

This can start to sound very similar to the old justification for secret or moral police. Professions that, interestingly enough, don’t always attract the most moral people. When we give people so much power over the information, which in many ways helps to define us, it gives way to the big brother question; who watches the watchers? Also, though no ones forcing you to share your information, the history of Microsoft, Facebook and others show that companies can be a bit less than transparent in ways in which they use your data.

In spite of this, it has in the past, and in the future will continue, to be about money. The reason companies like Facebook are able to make money is because the information they have on their users is gold to advertisers. Those targeted ads–for everything from Security degrees from barely accredited schools to the best abs of your life to great ways to meet Christian girls- they are the price we pay for a free service. So while we all may complain, at the end of the day we would rather endure buxom anime elves telling us to join the best game of the year than paying a monthly membership fee.

So, while free services and ads may inextricably linked for the near future, that does not mean that your privacy is at immediate risk. Just like its our choice to put information about ourselves on the Web, it is also our choice what sites we use to do so. If it turns out Facebook can’t meet its member’s privacy needs there are literally dozens of other sites waiting to fill the vacuum. At least to some degree, the power is in the hands of the people.

The amount of data we store in the many niches of digital ecosystem continues to swell in both volume and value. It is for this reason that services like Entrustet’s Account Guardian are becoming more and more of a necessity to protect your online legacy and ensure it gets to who you want it to.  And, unlike social media, Account Guardian is both free and we keep your information completely private.

Tags:

online privacy

The question of whether or not to raise taxes in order to bring the federal dept under control has been raging for the past few months. On one side, Republicans refuse to consider any tax hikes, believing this will slow down the still ailing economy. On the other side, Democrats counter that without raising taxes there is no way to equilibrate the books without destroying programs that people need. Unless you are living under a rock you have not doubt heard the heated rhetoric.

It can be hard to understand how two parties, both of whom claim to be working towards the same goal, can have such fundamentally different views on how to get there. The reason is that there is a foundational difference in each party’s view of what enables an individual to be successful. This conflict of visions is epitomized in the debate over estate tax.

The reverberations of this argument could also very well have far reaching consequences in an area of inheritance that has hitherto been completely tax-free: digital assets.

To start with lets get some facts about federal estate tax down. Firstly, the estate tax is currently at 35% of any inheritance over $5 million, which is not willed to a federally recognized spouse or charity, this is the lowest it has been since 1931 (not including 2010 when there was no federal estate tax). Second, these current rates mean that the estate tax only applies to 0.14% of inheritances in the US, but would still generate around $11.2 billion in revenue. With such a small percentage of Americans subject to this tax you may ask, ‘why such a big fuss?’ Again, the principle reason is ideological. Who has the right to the money that you made?

Democrats believe that true capitalism is only possible through equality, and that unregulated free markets cannot provide this equality. The estate tax, they believe, is a good way of making sure that wealth does not become distributed to just a few families and that each generation proves itself, rather than simply living off inheritance. They claim that, as the inheritor did nothing to earn the money, she does not deserve it. In the words of Winston Churchill the estate tax, “provides a certain corrective against the development of a rich and idle class.” Liberals also argue that no man is an island. That it is the government and society that created the environment within which the entrepreneur could succeed, and as such an inheritance tax is completely justified.

The death tax, as Republicans call it, is seen as an affront to capitalism for several reasons. For one, it disincentivizes hard work and entrepreneurism. A study done by the conservative lobby group the US Tax Foundation, in 1994, found that the 55% estate tax level, which existed at that time, had the same effect as doubling an entrepreneur’s top effective marginal income tax rate. Many conservatives would agree with liberals that an inheritor did nothing to earn that money. However, they would say, neither did the government. The money belongs to the person who earned it and as such they can do whatever they damn well please with it, including leaving it to an heir. A tax of this nature is seen as punishing wealth gained by legal means and implicitly declaring that socialism/collectivism is superior to capitalism. Finally, Republicans cite that estate taxes are so difficult to regulate that most of the money gained from them just goes toward the cost of policing, so there is not much benefit for the government to begin with.

So will there still be an estate tax in the future and will it be expanded to include digital assets? Yes and yes. Though the estate tax has significantly fluctuated in recent years, it brings in far too much money to be abolished, especially in times like these. Not only that, but taxing 0.14% of a population who just got a multi-million dollar inheritance isn’t likely anger the majority of Americans, many of whom are struggling to pay the bills.

As far as digital assets there is simply too much value in them the government to ignore them forever. However, as with many technologies, laws are struggling to keep pace with the amorphous evolution of the Internet. Though the definition and implementation of such a tax will be quite difficult, and the first attempts will almost certainly be inadequate, efforts towards it are no doubt already underway.

Tags:

democrats · Digital Assets · estate tax · federal debt · heir · inheritance · money · republicans · tax · technology · US tax foundation

What gives money value? The answer to this question is simple and paradoxical; our belief in its value gives money its worth. Economics calls this the subjective value theory and if we hold this to be true, then as long as we can convince a group of people something has value then we can, in effect, make our own currency, can’t we?

Well that’s the idea behind Bitcoins, a “decentralized internet commodity” that can be purchased with ‘real’ money and used to buy physical products. They are the brainchild of Satoshi Nakamoto (probably a pseudonym) who in 2009, in an effort to circumvent central banks and the dangers he saw in them, created a peer-to-peer network, much like bittorrent, through which his digital currency could be traded. Rather then having someone like Ben Bernanke inject hundreds of billions of dollars into an economy through policies like quantitative easing, a set and predicable number of Bitcoins (currently 300 an hour) are created. These coins are then distributed to community members who sacrifice some of their computer’s processing power to host the system. Once the Bitcoins are deposited in your ‘wallet’, either on your personal computer or a third party’s servers, you can transfer them to buy things or exchange them for cash based on market rates.

Other than the ‘cool’ factor that Bitcoins certainly do possess, there are several other reasons that their advocates believe they are superior to tradition currency. Probably the single biggest reason, and the one that gets economists all hot and bothered, is that Bitcoins are based around the same principles as natural resources, such as gold. There is a finite amount and, over time, the new amount of that resource entering the market will go down. Remember those 300 coins produced every hour today? Well that will drop by half every four years until, in around 2030, no more new Bitcoins will be produced. It even one-ups gold in that there is no chance of some prospector stumbling on a huge deposit of Bitcoins and driving down prices. This, at least in theory, should make it more stable.

Unlike paper money there is no unique serial number or marking for each Bitcoin. Instead, the system relies on a transaction record that records the amount of each transaction per block and references that against the other blocks to ensure that no counterfeit coins were created. In doing this Nakamoto effectively circumvents the need for a central database, like the Federal Reserve, to keep track of the serial numbers of all the coins.  The cool part about this is that it also means that the bigger the system gets, and the more blocks that are added, the harder it is for someone to counterfeit the coins. This is because in order to fool the system you would have to control over half the computers on it; not an easy or inexpensive thing in a peer-to-peer network of 10,000+ computer savvy people. The other nice aspect of the transaction record is that it means you don’t have to be connected to the system to receive payment.

So with such great attributes are we all going to be using Bitcoins instead of dollars in a few years? No, and here why.

For one governments don’t like them. Senators note that it could easily be used to launder money and that, because this is no central authority, there is no insurance. FDIC is not terribly likely expand to cover Bitcoins anytime soon.

Secondly, Bitcoins have already shown the most worrying feature of using a relatively small, restricted quantity as a monetary unit: hyper-deflation. Since they first became tradable for U.S dollars in April of last year they have seen a staggering 9,667-fold increase in value. Going from being worth three one hundredths of a dollar to $29 per Bitcoin. This astronomic rise in value has also been punctuated by precipitous drops throughout that same period, a trait that doesn’t tend to engender a great deal of confidence in a currency’s long-term stability.

This criticism, however, can be overblown. Bitcoins are an experiment that came into existence barely two years ago and are being used by relatively few people. Though their short history has been a bit of a roller coaster, comparing Bitcoins to world currencies backed by governments that control real territories and economies, at this point, isn’t quite fair either.

Another issue stems from the fact that Bitcoins are stored in a ‘wallet’ on your computer. Because of this, if your computer gets stolen or hacked you could lose your Bitcoins.

Though these shortcomings are understandable they are also the reason that hordes of people aren’t rushing to switch their hard earned savings into these electronic coins. When it comes to keeping your money safe its understandable to stick with the tried and true method. Though our current financial system is certainly not without its faults, people like the idea that there is a government looking after their cash more than they like to hope that some computer wiz is double-checking each line of open-source code in the next Bitcoin update. That’s why, at least for the time being, the average Joe is going to keep with the old saying; its better to stick with the devil you know than the one you don’t.

From our side of the court, we have yet see people protecting their Bitcoins through Entrustet. However, with their growing popularity and value it’s only a matter of time before people start thinking of how to pass them on.

Tags:

bitcoins · currency · deflation · Digital Assets · Entrustet Interns · federal reserve · virtual assets