Family offices have historically served as the quiet custodians of wealth: discreet, deliberate, and designed to provide long-term alignment between capital and values. They were built to shield wealth from external interests and maintain continuity across generations. However, the modern context—defined by speed, volatility, and digital transformation—means this legacy model is increasingly out of sync with our current financial landscape.

Globally, more than 12,000 single-family offices now manage an estimated $6 trillion in assets—a number that has surged 10x since 2008, according to EY. Yet even as wealth expands and diversifies, many family offices still operate under outdated assumptions: that wealth is static, locally concentrated, and best preserved through conventional channels. These legacies limit agility, risk appetite, and values alignment at a time when capital itself is being redefined.

A recent report from The Economist Intelligence Unit, in collaboration with DBS, confirms a growing demand for tailored, purpose-driven solutions. The modern family office is being reimagined—not as a static repository of wealth, but as an agile platform for deploying capital in line with long-term aspirations.

The Great Recalibration

In 2023, 68% of next-generation wealth holders said they plan to overhaul their family office structure within the next five years, according to Campden Wealth. Their expectations are clear: greater transparency, more active engagement, and a stronger integration of purpose. Millennials and Gen Z inheritors also bring new lenses, prioritizing impact, technology fluency, and cross-border engagement. Many are digital natives with hybrid identities, navigating multiple jurisdictions, causes, and ecosystems. In this context, cookie-cutter strategies and off-the-shelf products fall flat.

This is forcing a re-evaluation of the underlying architecture. Some families are transitioning to multi-family offices (MFOs) for economies of scale and governance infrastructure. Others are building hybrid structures that blend internal leadership with outsourced execution. Yet many MFOs and traditional wealth managers focus on product distribution rather than customized strategy, missing the deep engagement required to understand a family’s identity and reflect it in a meaningful portfolio. Meanwhile, the conventional family office model remains resource intensive. It’s costly, time-consuming, dependent on human capital, and often vulnerable to generational fragmentation. In any case, structures must reflect the family’s unique values and levels of involvement.

Bespoke’s founder-led model is not a branding tactic, it is a design principle. Leadership remains directly engaged with clients, ensuring continuity, institutional memory, and strategic agility. Relationships evolve in real time, shaped by shifting macroeconomic dynamics and family priorities.

Designing for Intentionality and Agility

Too often, family offices are built around inherited templates rather than lived values. Intentional design means translating family goals into structural decisions—about governance, liquidity, tax posture, and operating cadence. Yet the industry is still dominated by product-first providers. A 2022 BCG report noted that more than 60% of wealth management firms prioritize product distribution over personalized strategy.

This leads to misalignment. Families may aspire to invest in regenerative agriculture or early- stage tech, only to be funnelled into generic fund-of-funds. Or they may want tighter oversight of direct investments but lack the infrastructure or partners to make it feasible.

Firms like Bespoke are responding by rejecting standardization in favor of tailored structuring—backed by high-touch advisory and flexible governance models. Founder-led by design, Bespoke emphasizes continuity, institutional memory, and agility. Strategic relationships are cultivated over time, not handed off.

The Family Office as Expression Engine

At its best, a family office is not a repository of money but a reflection of identity. That includes intergenerational co-investment, operating companies, philanthropic arms, and new ventures seeded by next-gen leaders. It is not about empire-building but meaning-making.

Bespoke integrates values-based investing into the architecture itself—offering families a platform to express purpose through capital. This could mean backing women-led VC funds, building climate-forward real estate portfolios, or structuring donor-advised funds that evolve with generational priorities.

One example: when a crypto-native client approached Bespoke with decentralized assets and a global footprint, existing providers struggled to accommodate the complexity. Bespoke responded by engineering a structure designed for speed, volatility, and borderless capital—merging digital fluency with strategic foresight.

Bespoke doesn’t reject the family office model—it reclaims its original intent: trust, purpose, and strategic clarity, now built for scale and with the flexibility required for navigating a fast changing world.

If you’re exploring how to align your wealth with long-term purpose and strategy, we invite you to connect with us. Whether you’re establishing a family office or rethinking an existing structure, Bespoke offers discreet, high-touch advisory tailored to your needs. Contact us to schedule a confidential consultation—we’re here to help you navigate what’s next with confidence and intention.

This information is intended for general educational purposes only and should not be construed as legal or investment advice.

The same instincts that drive people to seek maximum control and maximum simplicity over their wealth can blind them to the hard truths of preserving wealth and enjoying it peacefully. Whether you’re aiming for asset protection, tax efficiency, or meaningful privacy, deliberately separating yourself from direct control over your assets is not a barrier to overcome. That “friction” is the path to true strategic advantage. Architecting your structures is the fullness of wealth sovereignty.

Low Friction Ownership: The Illusion of Control

Owning assets outright–either in your personal name or in a simple revocable living trust–feels frictionless. You feel like you have 100% control. Transfers are easy. Access is immediate. There’s no complex structuring or heavy compliance burden. But what you gain in short-term convenience, you often pay for dearly in long-term vulnerability–especially as wealth builds.

Low-friction ownership leaves your assets exposed. Beyond local “homestead exemptions” and narrow statutory protections, assets are completely vulnerable to potential creditors. (With roughly half of all marriages ending in divorce, a large percentage of creditors share the same roof–and bed–with the defendant!) The value of these assets remains inside the owner’s taxable estate for both federal and state purposes, and all income streams remain subject to personal income tax.

For most individuals, estate tax is immaterial–either because their wealth is well below applicable estate tax exemptions or because they think death is a long way off. But many individuals are well above the most generous federal exemptions, and many live in states with much lower state estate tax exemptions. And while life expectancy is higher for ultra-affluent individuals than for the general population, humanity has not yet overcome mortality. It’s a sobering truth that life can end anytime, anyplace. “Life’s final auditor” doesn’t discriminate based on the strength of one’s balance sheet.

In sum: low friction equals low protection, low privacy, and zero tax leverage.

Moderate Friction Ownership: The Middle Way

Moderate friction is where many intelligent wealth strategies operate. These often include limited liability companies, family limited partnerships, irrevocable trusts with retained rights, grantor trusts, and other structures where the owner gives up some direct control while still keeping significant access.

Protection improves along this middle way–at least somewhat. Properly designed (and carefully operated) LLCs can shield against outside creditors’ claims. Certain irrevocable trusts can offer partial privacy. In some cases, tax strategies like S-Corp LLCs can lower self-employment taxes or shave income tax burdens at the margins.

Moderate friction strategies fall short when meaningful asset protection or significant tax planning is needed. Retained powers and interests are usually available to creditors and generally keep the value of the assets in your gross estate when you die. Above the estate tax exemption, federal tax hits at 40%. Some states add state-level tax on top. Moderate friction strategies have an important role to play, but they leave meaningful wealth exposed.

High Friction Ownership: Where Real Strategy Begins

“High-friction” strategies are where meaningful wealth preservation and structured sovereignty starts. This is the realm of independently-managed LLCs, bifurcated ownership structures, and irrevocable trusts specifically engineered to break the owner’s “dominion and control” for tax, asset protection, and privacy purposes. These strategies exchange unilateral, low-friction control for much higher levels of:

• Asset Protection: Wealth is shielded behind strong legal barriers, often governed by laws of much more private and robust jurisdictions. Family wealth remains beyond the reach of future creditors because the wealth is legally out of your hands—managed by people you choose for your benefit or for the benefit of your loved ones.
• Tax Planning: Irrevocable non-grantor trusts can shift some income out of high-tax states, reduce or eliminate state-level estate taxes, and remove wealth from your taxable estate – for generations.
• Privacy: Layered ownership provides cascading privacy. Intelligent, carefully-managed structures minimize your public footprint while maintaining legal integrity.

The central idea is simple: in order to preserve meaningful wealth, you must be willing to give up some direct, unilateral control over it.

Dominion and Control: The Critical Break

In estate and income tax law, “dominion and control” is the defining measurement. If you maintain full control over your assets–or the structures that hold your assets–the law will treat the assets as still yours. That’s true no matter how many fancy documents you’ve signed. This means the assets are still taxable to you and subject to the claims of creditors.

High-friction strategies often sever or sufficiently dilute your dominion and control to achieve:

• Income tax planning: shifting income to lower-tax jurisdictions, or into other tax-optimized strategies.
• Estate tax planning: removing value (and future growth) from your taxable estate.
• Asset protection: building a moat between creditors and your wealth.

Without legally severing your “dominion and control,” none of these benefits materialize. 

Designing the Right Balance: Friction vs. Access

Structured planning requires a blended, thoughtful approach. Overplanning can suffocate flexibility, unnecessarily constrain cash flow, and create more administrative burden than is appropriate. Thoughtful wealth strategy seeks to balance friction across layers:

• Low/No Friction: Use this sparingly. Maintain free access for personal liquidity and consumption/enjoyment, operating businesses, and other assets where access and flexibility outweigh the need for protection. Only apply “no friction” solutions to wealth you’re willing to lose.
• Moderate Friction: This level is best for wealth that requires active management, investment flexibility, or eventual transition to higher-friction structures. For many individuals and families, most wealth should be in “moderate friction” strategies.
• High Friction: Reserved for wealth intended for legacy, multi-generational family wealth, protection from major risks, and shielding from taxation over generations. Highest friction equals the highest protection but the lowest level of direct access for you.

In every case, the level of friction should match your planning priorities. Assets intended for long-term family prosperity deserve the strongest defenses. Assets reserved for consumption, opportunistic investment, or unstructured philanthropy can remain more freely available.

Embracing Friction to Build Real Resilience

The dream of seamless, instant, unrestricted ownership is alluring. Many people think this is “sovereignty.” But when wealth is designed to span lifetimes, friction isn’t a bug; it’s a feature. Sovereignty is intelligently designing the structures to manage your wealth.

If you’re serious about preserving wealth, maintaining privacy, and mitigating tax exposure, the question isn’t how to eliminate friction. It’s how much friction you’re willing to architect into your plan today–to buy resilience, protection, and autonomy for the future.

This information is intended for general educational purposes only and should not be construed as legal or investment advice.

On Day 3 of the Onchain Giving Summit hosted by Endaoment, Bespoke founder Matt McClintock speaks to Adam Blumberg, Bespoke Client Services Associate and co-founder of Interaxis, about the importance of incorporating philanthropy into estate planning.

Navigating the intersection of charitable giving and tax planning can unlock significant financial and philanthropic opportunities. Whether you’re looking to maximize your tax benefits, manage appreciated assets, or support causes you care about, various strategies can enhance both your financial plan and charitable impact.

Maximizing Tax Benefits Through Charitable Giving in Estate Planning

Charitable giving is a powerful way to support causes you care about, and it can also play a key role in estate planning. Whether making outright gifts to family members or donating to charitable organizations, there are significant tax benefits available. For cash gifts to qualifying charities, you can deduct up to 60% of your adjusted gross income (AGI). Donations of property, such as real estate, offer deductions ranging from 20% to 50% of AGI, depending on the type of asset and charity. Thoughtful philanthropy not only helps others but can also create lasting tax advantages for your estate.

Navigating Charitable Donations of Cryptocurrency: Timing and Appraisals

When donating cryptocurrency or digital assets to charity, it’s essential to establish the value at the time of the gift. For tax deduction purposes, the gift must be supported by a qualified appraisal, just like any other donation. Fortunately, there are expert appraisers who specialize in valuing digital assets like Bitcoin, ensuring accurate reporting for charitable contributions.

Raise Your Charitable Impact with a Donor-Advised Fund

Donor-advised funds (DAFs) are a smart, flexible option for individuals looking to make large charitable gifts but aren’t yet sure where to direct the funds. After experiencing a major income tax event, many donors want to secure a significant charitable deduction without needing to decide immediately which charities to support. A DAF allows donors to contribute now, receive the tax benefit, and take their time selecting causes to fund later. It’s an ideal solution, especially when gifting non-traditional assets like cryptocurrency. With tools like DAFs, philanthropy becomes more adaptable, offering greater control and financial benefits for donors.

Leverage Charitable Lead Trusts for Tax Benefits and Future Generational Wealth

A charitable lead trust offers a strategic way to support charities while benefiting your heirs. By establishing this trust, you direct it to make fixed annual payments to a qualifying charity, such as a donor-advised fund or family foundation, for a specified term (e.g., 10 or 20 years). At the end of this period, any remaining trust assets transfer gift-tax-free to your chosen beneficiaries, like your children. Additionally, you can receive an upfront tax deduction based on the trust’s initial value. This setup not only supports charitable causes but also provides tax advantages and protects your heirs’ future interests.

Unlock Tax Benefits and Charitable Impact with a Charitable Remainder Trust

A Charitable Remainder Trust (CRT) is a savvy tool for managing appreciated assets like Bitcoin or ETH while supporting charitable causes. By transferring these assets into a CRT, you avoid immediate capital gains taxes when the trust sells them. Instead, you receive an income stream from the trust for a set period or for life. At the end of this term, the remaining assets go to your chosen charity. This strategy not only maximizes your charitable impact but also provides you with tax benefits and ongoing income, making it a powerful option for both philanthropy and financial planning.

This information is intended for general educational purposes only and should not be construed as legal or investment advice.

Large financial institutions are often known for their global reputation, robust resources, and established trust. But when managing significant wealth, it’s critical to look beyond the name and ask these questions to truly understand who is helping manage your wealth.

1. How do you ensure that your unique interests are prioritized?
2. Are the relationships with your advisors meaningful and built to last?
3. Is the institution’s commitment to your success consistent and aligned with your long-term goals?

These are questions worth considering regardless of the size of the wealth manager. However, they are easier to answer when you work directly with individuals who understand your personal journey and are invested in your future. This is where smaller Private Wealth Managers (PWMs) and Multi-Family Offices (MFOs) offer distinct advantages.

Alignment of Interests and Incentives

Large financial institutions often have proprietary investment funds they are incentivized to promote. This can complicate decisions about what’s best for the client. We do not offer any in-house investment products, nor do we have investment quotas. Our sole focus is on providing strategic guidance that aligns with the client’s personal objectives.

Another way we align our services with our clients is by operating on a fixed-fee model rather than hourly rates. This approach encourages a regular and ongoing dialogue with our clients and allows flexibility to modify strategies as needed. This model reduces any stress or concern about billable hours and helps us to focus on the client’s long-term success.

We measure success not by assets under management but by the impact we help our clients create.

Discretion and Privacy

Discretion and privacy are often underappreciated in wealth management but can be critical when it comes to inheritance and legacy planning. Large institutions often do not prioritize privacy in a way that smaller firms do.

At Bespoke, we emphasize discretion throughout the wealth management and inheritance transfer process. From safeguarding your assets from potential creditors to structuring your inheritance to avoid public judicial proceedings, our strategies are designed with privacy in mind. We believe in taking ownership of this process and being proactive to ensure that you retain as much control as possible over how your wealth is distributed.

Self-sovereignty is planning for and exercising your ability to maintain control of the process and keep your financial affairs outside of the public court system. Working with a small, trusted team of advisors like ours allows for more careful planning, ensuring that your personal affairs remain private, both during your lifetime and after.

A Personal Approach and Building Long-Term Relationships

It can be easy for large institutions to fixate on investment returns and lose sight of what matters most—your legacy, values, and protecting your family’s future. Achieving this depth of understanding can be challenging with larger institutions, where the relationship may feel impersonal and transactional.

Wealth management should be considered in the context of how you can live the best version of your life by leveraging your wealth and creating a framework for your family and future generations to do the same. Clients must think deeply about what their wealth means to them. At Bespoke we ask our clients ‘what kind of life do you want your children to have? How can you ensure that your values are passed on and respected?’ Legacy planning is about properly preparing the transfer of ownership to future generations in a thoughtful and organized way. For a thoughtful conversation on these topics, please listen to our Co-founder Matt McClintock’s conversation with Jacob Shapiro (Head of Geopolitical & Macro Research, Senior Client Relationship Manager, Bespoke) on The Jacob Shapiro Podcast – Matt McClintock: The Good Life and Personal Sovereignty: Introducing Bespoke.

Smaller MFOs focus on building long-term relationships with a foundation of trust and respect. By deeply understanding the client’s family dynamics, personal goals and financial aspirations, we create tailored strategies that reflect not just financial goals but generational legacies. This is difficult to replicate at larger institutions, where the volume of clients and conflicting priorities can dilute personal attention.

Comprehensive and Holistic Planning

There are many variables at play and implications to consider in estate planning, with smaller PWMs and MFOs uniquely positioned to offer guidance and planning that is more thoughtful and holistic. Larger institutions may offer similar services, but smaller firms with highly experienced and knowledgeable advisors excel in designing comprehensive, cohesive and one-of-a-kind wealth strategies.

At Bespoke, we offer a fully integrated service that includes investment management, tax mitigation, estate planning, philanthropic strategies, and specialized asset protection. Our clients often seek privacy, the protection of wealth from predators, family-controlled governance structures, and customized solutions to manage complex or concentrated assets.

We also work closely with clients to strategically deploy financial capital to their communities in ways that align with their values. In The Last Trade: The Bitcoin Heritage Blueprint with Matt McClintock (1:25:05), Matt describes multiple examples of UHNWIs who have made commitments to improve communities that are deeply important to their lives.

Customized Investment Solutions

Smaller PWMs and MFOs often provide more flexible and tailored investment strategies than large institutions, which can be limited by standardized offerings. At Bespoke we can design strategies that reflect our client’s unique risk profile, family dynamics, and long-term goals. We aren’t bound by institutional mandates or investment quotas, allowing us to focus entirely on what makes sense for each client.

This includes managing risk across multiple jurisdictions, creating investment opportunities in emerging markets or alternative asset classes, and leveraging opportunities that large institutions may overlook due to their scale. We maintain a broad view of markets, new technologies, and global opportunities, balancing these with a long-term perspective on risk management. Our expertise in legal and tax strategies enables us to navigate even the most complex situations.

For example, we work with a number of early bitcoiners who understand the trajectory of this new asset class. Working with and prioritizing an allocation to bitcoin while it’s experiencing its monetization phase is incredibly important when considering asset allocation. We’re able to step back and understand the opportunity cost of premature portfolio rebalancing in this environment.

Flexibility and Iteration

Wealth management is a dynamic process. Everything in life is subject to change, often in ways we can’t control. Markets shift, regulations change, and family circumstances evolve. We believe wealth planning is an iterative process that requires ongoing dialogue. Our strategies are designed to be flexible, allowing us to make adjustments as family requirements change.

This level of adaptability is often harder to achieve with larger institutions, where processes are more rigid and transactional. Smaller PWMs and MFOs excel in maintaining this level of flexibility, allowing them to better serve clients in an ever-changing environment.

The most important thing to consider with estate planning is that every individual and family has unique needs and deserves a thoughtful well-designed wealth management strategy. Smaller PMWs and MFOs have proven time and again that they can provide an equal level of services that are often more personalized and customizable.

If you’re interested in learning more about Bespoke’s approach to private wealth management and how we can help you build a secure financial future, we invite you to reach out to us directly. We’d be happy to set up a confidential consultation at your convenience.

Thank you for considering Bespoke as your partner in wealth management. We look forward to the opportunity to work with you.

The following information is intended for general educational purposes only and should not be construed as legal or investment advice.

PTCs are family-owned trust entities that offer a unique blend of control, flexibility, and multi-generational involvement in managing family wealth. Find below a summary of the article Private Trust Companies: Unlocking Control and Flexibility in Strategic Estate Planning.

Trusts are commonly used in estate planning as they allow individuals to modify their relationship with their assets. Irrevocable trusts, in particular, offer various tax advantages, privacy, and wealth protection. However, establishing an irrevocable trust requires surrendering some control over the assets, highlighting the need for a trustworthy trustee. Private trust companies address this by combining the professionalism of a professional fiduciary with family control and involvement.

PTCs are especially beneficial for families with concentrated assets like family-owned businesses or real estate, as they provide expertise and continuity in managing such assets. They also offer scale and flexibility for families with diverse liquid assets, creating pooled investment vehicles to minimize costs and access otherwise unattainable opportunities.

Wyoming is highlighted as a leading jurisdiction for establishing and operating PTCs. The state offers favorable tax laws, including no taxes on income, capital gains, gifts, or estates. It also provides robust privacy and asset protection, keeping details about PTCs and the trusts they manage confidential.

Private Trust Companies: Unlocking Control and Flexibility in Strategic Estate Planning outlines the structure and governance of PTCs, emphasizing the importance of selecting board members and officers carefully. It recommends establishing Wyoming as the situs for PTCs and undertaking ongoing administration and compliance tasks. It also discusses the distinction between regulated and unregulated PTCs, with Wyoming permitting both types.

In conclusion, PTCs offer a powerful tool for strategic estate planning, enabling families to customize their strategies while benefiting from favorable legal frameworks, tax advantages, and enhanced privacy protections. 

The information in this blog post is intended for general educational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice.

In the world of estate planning, few things have had as much impact as email and the internet. These technologies changed the way we interact both personally and professionally, allowing us to exchange ideas and value across borders instantaneously. As internet commerce and communication expanded, the need for secure and confidential information transmission grew, leading to the rise of cryptography and blockchain-based data networks. 

Blockchain networks operate without a central server, relying on interconnected peers to verify the validity of data transfers and store transaction records. However, there is no clear incentive for unrelated peers on a decentralized blockchain network to expend resources to validate transactions. Cryptographically secured blockchain tokens, also known as cryptoassets or cryptocurrency, provide incentives for participation on blockchain networks.

Bitcoin is widely believed to be the first successful decentralized blockchain network with a secure token-based economic incentive model. Since its launch in 2009, Bitcoin has spawned an entire economy with thousands of cryptoassets and separate blockchains, with a global economy measured in trillions of dollars.

Estate planners must be familiar with cryptoassets and blockchain technology, as their clients may have wealth comprised of these assets. There are many unanswered questions regarding the treatment of these assets in estate planning documents, as well as transfer and valuation issues.

For further discussion of these topics, read the full article that appeared in the Estate Planning Magazine. It is a primer on digital assets and strategies for their transfer. As these technologies continue to evolve, they will undoubtedly have a significant impact on the fields of law and finance, emphasizing the importance of expertise in this area. 

Estate Planning in the Era of Digital Wealth by Matthew T. McClintock, Vanessa L. Kanaga and Jonathan G. Blattmachr originally appeared in Estate Planning, a Thomson Reuters publication.

The following information is intended for general educational purposes only and should not be construed as legal or investment advice.