Bitcoin Custodial Wallets Are Fine

I propose the bitcoin/cryptocurrency industry refer to cold storage as your self-bank, as that is a more relevant equivalent to fiat, whereas a wallet can be compromised and contains what you’re comfortable losing if you lose your traditional wallet/phone while out and about.

The amount of work it takes to run non-custodial lightning is just not worth explaining, to those not interested in such. I’m totally content with my custodial web wallet – my phone is worth more if compromised.

In fact, even when I once had my phone stolen many years ago, my custodial wallet sats were still safe.

Non-custodial wallet dogma unnecessarily confuses people, and requires higher technical know-how, and creates more likely mistakes.

Consider for a moment telling someone before they leave their house that they shouldn’t carry money in anything less than a handcuffed briefcase carrying their fiat, with at least a 5 digit PIN – this hopefully highlights how extreme this line of reasoning is, especially when the briefcase is worth more than the fiat they have inside it.

By referring to self-custody as a self-bank, and no longer referring to it as a wallet, it makes it very simple for anyone transitioning from fiat to understand the difference between the two. Having to explain the polarity of custodianship and temperatures of a wallet is unnecessarily confusing and I don’t think it’s too late to change this narrative as adoption continues to scale.