If the spouse that hid the crypto account had instead invested in actual gold or other valuables, typically this would be listed on the Family law worksheets where spouses must declare their property. When property is not declared, oftentimes the court *may*, if egregious enough, award the asset to the other party. This has happened for example, when a CA wife won a big lotto payout, hid the fact (while married) and then soon divorced the husband. When the husband accidentally found out after the divorce, he re-opened the divorce and then proceeded against the ex wife for failure to disclose. The court found that non disclosure was thus illegal because she won the lotto when married and thus it was community property--and the Judge awarded the entire amount TO THE HUSBAND. For that matter, post Camp fire cases may indicate that wrongdoing was done when only one party cashed the fire checks, or received money payouts and failed to disclose to spouse. That is a breach of fiduciary duty and the Court will not tolerate actions like that... There are severe penalties if proven, against the wrongdoer. If you have this issue I (attorney herein) may be able to help you.
Further, there have already been appeals to the CA State Appeals Court on bitcoin cases, including the fact that usually, something like bitcoin would be considered in the realm of a monetary item, even if it is not USA government dollars or coins. The fact that it can be bought and then sold, etc. tends to simply mean it is something that has value and owned by someone, thus it can likely be divided (the valuation is just another factor...)
Attorney herein does not see that much difference between the hidden lotto winning and things like hiding bitcoin? Nearly all computer data on household computers can be traced, and if your spouse buys a new computer and you don't know what happened to the old computer, this could be a problem if the data was on the old computer. Most bitcoin is done on a computer although I suppose one could use a friend's computer? (I have several experts on computers that are very high on the chain and can trace such actions.)
Therefore, if your spouse seems to know a lot about bitcoin and his/her friends do also, you may need to use stealth to discover how much he or she has invested. Bitcoin will likely only go up and not down since in bad financial times, this type of currency will often be volatile.
I recommend reading this link to Ken Reyes' article, an attorney/accountant from Los Angeles: https://www.kenreyeslaw.com/blog/2021/may/do-i-have-to-disclose-my-bitcoin-to-my-spouse-in/
Showing results for california bitcoin cases,appeal, etc.
Archer v. Coinbase, Inc. :: 2020 - California Case Law https://law.justia.com › california › court-of-appeal Aug 10, 2020 — The court of appeal affirmed. Archer failed to establish the existence of an agreement by Coinbase to provide the Bitcoin Gold to him and failed ...
Marriage of DeSouza - California Courts of Appeal - Justia Law https://law.justia.com › cases › court-of-appeal Aug 10, 2020 — Husband's bitcoin transactions, after the automatic restraining order following a petition for disso... Read the full annotations for this case.
