We focus so much on irrelevant risks, and focus so little on relevant risks.
Losing your keys, phishing/scams, malware, locking yourself out. Much more likely than a $5 wrench attack, confiscation, and evil spies.
But note, I’m developing a hardware wallet.
For those that do self custody, I want to have a good solution. But I can’t see the need for anything beyond a smartcard or small USB stick with 2 buttons and a display.
I don’t think the other options have much benefit, except for show-off. Which the market unfortunately wants…
Bitcoiners spend too much time and money talking about self custody and doing a pissing contest of which setup is better, I wonder if it was worth it at all
Also, seedless is likely much better for normies. Advanced users can have it, but it’s not the way for normies that decide to go this route
Replies (3)
You guys have not learned the lesson from centralised third parties doing fractional reserves on Monero.
Self-custody is not really about protecting your coins from tail risks, though CEX rug pulls happen all the time.
It's about keeping the collective social contract intact, that there will only be 21M coins (and a couple more IOUs), but not 210M or 500M virtual Bitlycoins that play silly games with underlying centralised (custodied) supplies.
It fascinates me, how many Bitcoiners do not get this.
It's also the reason why Monero people warned about ETFs. ETFs are a tool for centralised control over price.
Your ranking is right: loss, phishing, lockout beat the $5 wrench. But they need different fixes. The 2-button signer kills malware and address swap; it does nothing for a lost seed or a lockout, which needs a restore you have tested. Seedless just moves recovery to the vendor.
You’re optimizing for UX while the dollar bleeds. 30% inflation wipes keys clean. Self-custody is the only hedge against the fed’s quiet confiscation.
