Cryptocurrency is property. California Code of Civil Procedure §695.010 says all property of the judgment debtor is subject to enforcement of a money judgment. Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, NFTs — none of it is outside the reach of a California writ. The challenge is not the law. The challenge is execution.
This guide explains how it actually gets done.
The two categories that decide everything
Before any procedure matters, you need to know which kind of crypto the debtor holds. The distinction controls every strategic decision that follows.
Custodial holdings sit on an exchange — Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, Binance.US. The exchange controls the private keys. The debtor holds a contractual right to withdraw, identical in legal character to a bank account. These are reachable through standard third-party process.
Self-custodied holdings sit in a private wallet the debtor controls directly — a Ledger or Trezor hardware device, a MetaMask browser extension, a paper backup of a seed phrase. No third party holds anything. Recovery requires the debtor’s cooperation, voluntary or compelled.
Most enforcement attempts fail because the practitioner treats both the same. They are not the same.
Step one: discovery
You cannot collect what you cannot find. The judgment debtor examination under CCP §708.110 is the entry point, and serving the order creates a one-year lien on the debtor’s nonexempt personal property. That lien matters here because crypto values move daily and the lien attaches at service, not at later transfer.
The questions that need to be on the record, under oath:
Has the debtor ever purchased, mined, received, or held any cryptocurrency or digital asset? Which exchanges, platforms, or applications have they used — ever, not just currently? Do they control any self-custodied wallets, and what are the public addresses? Have they received crypto as payment for services, as a gift, or as compensation? Have they transferred crypto to family members, business entities, or foreign exchanges in the last four years? Where is the seed phrase or hardware wallet physically located today?
Pair the examination with document subpoenas to known exchanges and to the debtor’s banks. Bank records are the most underused tool in crypto enforcement. ACH transfers to Coinbase, Kraken, or Gemini show up on statements with clear identifiers. A debtor who denies ownership while bank records show $280,000 transferred to Coinbase over three years has a credibility problem the court will recognize.
Where the matter justifies the cost, blockchain analytics — Chainalysis, TRM Labs, CipherTrace — can trace funds across wallets from a known starting point. Expert witness work in this field is now established practice in civil collection, and courts accept the methodology.
Step two: levying custodial holdings
When the crypto sits on an exchange, treat the exchange as you would a bank.
A writ of execution under CCP §699.510 served on the exchange’s registered agent reaches the debtor’s account. Coinbase is headquartered in San Francisco and accepts service through its legal process portal. Kraken, Gemini, and Binance.US all have documented compliance procedures. The exchange will typically freeze the position upon service, liquidate to USD, and remit to the levying officer.
California Financial Code §3503, part of the Digital Financial Assets Law effective January 2024, deems customer assets held by licensed exchanges to be held in trust for customers. That provision protects customers from the exchange’s creditors. It does not protect the debtor from the debtor’s own creditors. A judgment creditor of the customer reaches the customer’s holdings without obstruction.
Where the exchange is foreign or unlicensed in California — many offshore platforms fall here — the levy mechanism breaks down. Those holdings require either (1) the debtor’s compelled cooperation through a turnover order, or (2) coordination with counsel in the exchange’s jurisdiction. Plan accordingly during discovery.
Step three: assignment orders for payment rights
CCP §708.510 authorizes the court to order assignment of any right to payment due or to become due. This is the right tool for two recurring scenarios.
The first is staking and yield. A debtor with crypto staked on a platform earns regular rewards — those are payment rights, assignable on the same theory as wages or rents.
The second is the contractual withdrawal right itself. Where standard levy proves cumbersome with a particular platform, an assignment order capturing the debtor’s right to withdraw can compel the platform to remit on demand rather than process a writ. Courts have flexibility here, and creative use of §708.510 reaches assets that traditional execution misses.
Step four: the self-custody problem
This is where most enforcement work either succeeds or quietly dies.
A turnover order under CCP §699.040 compels the debtor to deliver the private keys, the seed phrase, the hardware wallet, or the crypto itself to the levying officer. The order is enforceable by contempt. The Imperial Bank line of authority confirms that turnover orders reach property within the debtor’s possession or control, and crypto sitting in the debtor’s MetaMask wallet meets that standard.
The defense you will hear is “I lost it.” Sometimes that is true. More often it is a calculated bet that the court will not punish the claim. Two responses work.
The first is documentary impeachment. Bank records, exchange records, prior tax returns, prior loan applications listing crypto as an asset, and social media all create a record that contradicts the loss claim. Courts faced with that record have rejected the defense as a credibility matter.
The second is a receiver. CCP §708.620 authorizes appointment of a receiver to enforce a judgment. A receiver with cryptocurrency expertise — and several practice now — can take possession of hardware wallets, compel disclosure of seed phrases under court order, move assets to a court-controlled wallet, and liquidate. Receivership is dramatically underused in crypto enforcement and is the right answer for any matter where self-custodied holdings are substantial and the debtor is uncooperative.
Charging orders for entity-held crypto
When the crypto is held through an LLC or partnership — a common structure for tax and liability reasons — Corporations Code §17705.03 authorizes a charging order against the debtor’s transferable interest. The charging order requires the entity to pay over to the creditor any distribution that would otherwise go to the debtor and constitutes a lien on the interest. The court may also appoint a receiver and order foreclosure on the membership interest.
This matters because debtors who anticipate enforcement frequently move crypto into a single-member LLC believing it provides cover. It does not. The charging order reaches through.
Valuation and timing
Crypto is volatile. The People v. Ung court noted the substantial risk presented by fluctuating values, and that risk runs in both directions. A levy that catches a position at $90,000 in Bitcoin can be worth $60,000 by the time of liquidation, or $130,000. The practical implications:
Move quickly. Liens attach at service of the examination order; do not let a sixty-day delay become a six-month delay. When the exchange offers in-kind transfer to a court-controlled wallet rather than immediate liquidation, evaluate whether holding through volatility serves the creditor or hurts. The right answer depends on the matter and the client’s risk tolerance.
What goes wrong
Three failure modes account for nearly every uncollected crypto judgment.
The practitioner asks generic asset questions and never specifically inquires about digital assets at the §708.110 examination. The debtor answers truthfully — no, I do not have a brokerage account — and the crypto holdings are never disclosed.
The practitioner identifies an exchange account but serves the writ on a generic registered agent address rather than the exchange’s documented legal process portal, and the levy sits unprocessed.
The practitioner discovers self-custodied holdings, sends a demand letter, and stops there. No turnover order. No receiver. No contempt. The debtor moves the assets and they are gone.
Each of these is preventable.
When to bring in specialized enforcement counsel
Cryptocurrency enforcement is not collection work. It is collection work plus blockchain forensics, plus exchange compliance procedures that change quarterly, plus a developing body of case law on turnover orders for digital assets, plus the strategic judgment to know when a receiver is worth the cost and when it is not.
Trial counsel who win the judgment, family law counsel who establish the obligation, and out-of-state counsel domesticating a sister-state judgment do not need to learn this work. They need to refer it.
The Grundon Law Firm handles post-judgment enforcement exclusively, including the increasing share of California judgments where the debtor’s assets sit on an exchange or in a hardware wallet. Refer the matter. Keep the client. Get the money.
