A digital executor is the person you designate to deal with your online life after you die: closing accounts, retrieving files, transferring assets held on platforms, and carrying out whatever instructions you left about what should be preserved and what should be deleted.
The role sits awkwardly in law. Most states do not recognize digital executor as a distinct appointment the way they recognize an executor of an estate, so the designation usually operates as a direction to your actual executor rather than as an independent grant of authority. In practice this means naming one is useful but does not by itself confer legal power.
The reason to name someone anyway is that the skills required are different. Administering an estate calls for diligence with courts and paperwork. Handling digital property calls for comfort with two-factor authentication, recovery flows, hardware wallets, and provider support processes. The sibling who is excellent with the probate filings may be the wrong person to move a hardware wallet, and vice versa.
For the designation to work, your primary estate documents should authorize the executor to delegate digital matters, and your instructions should be specific about intent: which accounts to memorialize, which to close, which archives to preserve for family, and which private material should be deleted unread. Without stated intent, a well-meaning person is left guessing at what you would have wanted.