When you die, what happens to the you that exists online? In August 2024, 21-year-old martial arts monk Qiufeng from the Shaolin Temple in Henan Province, tragically passed away in a car accident. The death of the young man, who had amassed millions of followers by sharing his daily life at the temple on social media, sparked reflections on the topic of digital inheritance.

Unlike many digital creators, he hadn't monetized his influence through livestreaming sales or brand partnerships, leaving no complex financial interests to untangle. His followers responded with a wave of digital mourning, creating tribute accounts that quickly gathered their own communities. Even his family's personal accounts saw follower counts surge as people sought connection to what remained of him online. Two months after his death, his family made a formal request to preserve his account as a permanent memorial—a digital gravesite for his millions of followers to visit.

Yet Qiufeng's case represents a simple version of this modern dilemma. In this digital era, those passing away leave behind a much more complicated legacy—from e-wallet balances to monetized platforms with ongoing revenue streams, each asset raising difficult questions about ownership, value and the very nature of inheritance in the digital age.

The legal definition 

Professor Zhai Jiguang of the Civil, Commercial and Economic Law School at China University of Political Science and Law emphasized that virtual property left by the deceased should be legally recognized as digital assets. He outlined defining characteristics of such assets: They are intangible, data-based and hold economic value. "Any property meeting these criteria that belongs to the deceased can be classified as a digital asset," he told China National Radio.

Zhai further categorized digital assets into two types: those with pure property value, such as digital currencies, which do not involve personal privacy, and those that combine financial and privacy value, such as mobile numbers, social media accounts and e-mail addresses.

In an article published in the second issue of Studies in Law and Business in 2025, Li Shanping, a lecturer at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, pointed out that while Chinese law has, in principle, acknowledged the legal status of online virtual property and brought it under legal protection, specific ownership rules and inheritance mechanisms remain under development. The absence of an explicit official definition of "digital assets" continues to create ambiguity, leaving many inheritance situations difficult to resolve.

Complicating the matter further, nearly all platform user agreements stipulate that users retain only the right to use an account, while ownership remains with the platform. Legally, this means the digital accounts we use every day are not entirely ours.

The question of what happens to this digital footprint after death often sparks heated debate. The public discussion around the question "Do social media accounts disappear when someone dies?" gained significant attention when Weixin initially stated that inactive accounts might be reclaimed—raising fears that years of digital memories could be erased overnight. Although Weixin later revised its policy and committed to preserving such accounts, public concern persists. This tension highlights a growing conflict between platforms' rational security policies and families' emotional need to preserve the digital echoes of their loved ones.

Zhou Ran, a student at East China University of Political Science and Law, came face to face with this very dilemma. Following his mother's passing, he sought to inherit the Weixin Official Account she had lovingly built under her real-name verification—a digital space where she had published 239 articles and cultivated a community of more than 1,300 followers. Yet his request ran into a wall: Under the service agreement with Tencent, which operates Weixin, ownership of Official Accounts remains with the company, while users are granted only an exclusive usage right tied to the original registrant. 

Believing the platform's terms violated his legitimate rights, Zhou took Tencent to court. His case, accepted on June 12, has since become the first in China to assert inheritance rights over a Weixin Official Account—and the case remains pending today.

In the wake of such disputes, platforms are gradually exploring solutions. Bilibili, a video-sharing platform, for instance, has introduced a "memorial account" feature to protect the profiles of deceased content creators. Weixin, too, has announced that starting from this September, it will no longer reclaim accounts for long-term inactivity—a meaningful step toward preserving digital memories that might otherwise vanish without a trace.

The data left behind 

Gao Nan, a professional long engaged in China's funeral industry, started using social media this August to draw attention to the issue of "digital inheritance." His posts resonated widely. Within just three months, he received hundreds of inquiries from people concerned about what will happen to their online assets.

He has observed a growing trend, particularly among younger generations, of including digital legacies in their wills. In 2021, a post-90s esports player registered a will with the China Will Registration Center that explicitly listed virtual properties including gaming accounts.

In early 2023, a Bilibili content creator with millions of followers adopted an even more refined approach: He stipulated that his Bilibili channel, a platform with ongoing operational value, should be entrusted to a friend to sustain its legacy, while other virtual assets valued at 3 million yuan ($420,000) were bequeathed directly to his parents.

Yet a fundamental question remains: How can such unpredictable assets be accurately quantified? Gao emphasized that virtual property, such as in-game items, often carries real-world value that can be strikingly volatile. He cited the virtual glove and weapon markets in online game Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) as a prime example, with prices being known to swing wildly.

"We've seen university students lose everything speculating on these items," Gao told China Newsweek. "Some watched assets worth hundreds of thousands of yuan (tens of thousands U.S. dollars) vanish in minutes."

Such extreme price swings reveal a valuation challenge. Wang Qi, an associate professor at Beihang University Law School, explained that the value of many digital assets remains highly unstable. Along with the in-game items and virtual currencies, that may fluctuate drastically due to shifting market sentiment, game updates or regulatory changes, the worth of a social media account relies heavily on hard-to-measure metrics such as engagement rates and follower loyalty, making objective appraisal difficult.

An even greater obstacle, Wang said, lies in platform policies that often explicitly prohibit the transfer or sale of accounts. These restrictions not only prevent the lawful conversion of such assets into cash but also remove any clear benchmark for their appraisal. Compounding the issue is the absence of unified national standards or accredited professional bodies capable of conducting reliable virtual property assessments. Without a credible valuation framework, dividing these assets among heirs or resolving related disputes, becomes fraught with uncertainty.

In an era where digital memories are deeply woven into the fabric of our emotional lives, Wang suggested that the question of how to balance platform governance, personal privacy and inheritance rights has evolved beyond a technical dilemma. It is, rather, a challenge calling for both legal innovation and societal wisdom.

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson 

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