The New Digital-Asset Disclosure Mandates in Divorce: New York, California, and the Coming Multistate Wave

This session examines California’s mandatory digital-asset disclosure framework in dissolution proceedings, from the 2025 Digital Financial Assets Law through the sanctions available when a spouse conceals holdings. Attendees will learn how the DFAL interacts with the Family Code fiduciary duty regime, how the IRS Form 1099-DA reporting regime creates an independent paper trail practitioners can leverage in discovery, how to rebuild intake to surface hidden cryptocurrency exposure, and how California’s valuation date rules apply to volatile assets in a community property system. The session closes with forensic blockchain tracing, exchange subpoena practice, and the remedies available under Family Code sections 1101 and 2107. Attorneys leave with a checklist-level command of California intake questions, discovery targets, and sanctions strategy specific to digital assets.

This session equips New York family law practitioners to handle digital assets from first client contact through final settlement under the revised Statement of Net Worth, effective March 1, 2026. Attendees will learn precisely what the revised disclosure form now requires, how to rebuild intake questionnaires to surface hidden cryptocurrency, NFT, DeFi, and staking exposure, how New York’s valuation date rules and the passive/active appreciation distinction apply to volatile assets, and how to deploy blockchain forensic tools and the IRS Form 1099-DA paper trail in discovery and at Daubert. The session closes with a comparative analysis of the structural differences between the New York and California frameworks — giving attendees the multistate perspective the program’s title promises — followed by settlement drafting pitfalls and live audience Q&A.