Not your keys, not your coins

bitcoin Sep 17, 2023

With the constant dramas all around the crypto world and seeing thousands of people losing their savings to custodians and "crypto banks", I've decided to make this short video. Making this video took me less than 20 minutes so if you don't manage your own private keys yet, this shouldn't take you more than 10 minutes to reach peace of mind with your HODL coins.

Before we start let me however clear up some very common misconception we encounter every time when people talk about this topic.

There is no assets in your wallet

People always talk about taking self-custody of their assets by taking them off-chain. There is no such thing as moving coins TO your wallet.

Wait, what?

Correct, ALL coins and other tokens only exist ON their respective blockchain. Thus you cannot move coins TO a wallet or store coins "off-chain". Having said that, you can move your coins, tokens, NFTs to an address for which you control the private key giving you access to your assets ON the blockchain.

Once you understand this you'll also understand that your wallet cannot get hacked, you cannot lose coins and if you lose your phone or your HD crashes the only thing you'll ever need to regain control over your assets ON-CHAIN is the private key controlling access to those assets.

In other words, your wallet is a signing device and your private key identifies you as the owner of any asset "associated" ON the blockchain with that address.

So let's do this!

(Note: The wallet used in this example is deemed compromised. Do not send tips to any address, do not use these keys or seed in any form whatsoever!!!)

You see? I've created a fresh wallet in less than 10 minutes, backed up the seed (of the entire wallet) and I backed up the private key of the wallet I (demo wise) planned to use. 10 minutes of my time to protect myself from Counterparty failure, insolvency or rug pulls FOREVER.

Now that you understand the beauty of private keys, did you know that you can import the same key into various wallets to access your coins from any device you like? That's because your coins are on the blockchain and you can "sign" accessing them from ANY device or numerous devices. Again, that's why you cannot lose coins even if your device gets lost or breaks down.

Thanks for taking the time to read/watch. I hope this will take the so called "self-custody fear" away from some of you.