Self Custody:

Why?.. not your keys, means not your crypto.

The current news of yet another centralized cryptocurrency freezing withdrawls and annoucing insolvency is ringing in our ears.
We can see that depositing your assets on a centralized exchange, or centralized lending project, where your cryptocurrency resides in their wallet, protected by their keys, means if they go backrupt or get a margin call, your crypto gets liquidated with their crypto, because it's in their wallet.
The current cries from the people whose money has most likely been lost forever also rings in our ears.
The wailing cries and gnashing of teeth are terrible to behold, but what should we learn here?
How can we benefit in wisdom from these tragedies?
One answer is to learn self-custody.

Cryptocurrency terminology like cryptocurrency security, is a boring topic until you lose your crypto.

Self custody is a term which seems to sound like a sleep inducing lullabuy to most people, and they immediately start to drift off to sleep.
But self custody is a fairly straight forward concept, you control your crypto, in your wallet, protected by your keys.
Self custody is also a huge responsibility; if you lose your keys, you lose your crypto, there is no Help Line or Customer service in the world of self custody.
Guard your seed phrase, make duplicates of your paper wallets and paper notes with your seed phrase.
Always close the wallet and test the seed phrase and passwords for accurateness before sending the majority of your crypto there.
Your backup plan, should have a backup plan, and that backup plan should have a backup plan.
Rememeber that in the world of self custody, you are customer service, you are the Help line, and you are the person that future you will praise or curse, because of your plan or lack there of...

A honest self appraisal is needed

The importance of self sustody is clear to everyone right now, but consequence of doing it wrong are great.
So the pros and cons should be considered, and after an honest appraisal of your skills, a decision made.
Be honest with yourself and know that you have options:
- centralized exchanges
- decentralized exchanges
- hot wallets, cold wallets, hardware wallets, paper wallets
- profesional custody businesses, who are not exchanges

Last words

Knowledge is power, honesty is golden, and self custody is like a chain saw to a hand saw. Both wonderfully advanced, and potentially dangerous, wield it with care.

About @shortsegments

Shortsegments is a writer focused on cryptocurrency, the blockchain, non-fungible digital tokens or NFTs, and decentralized finance for over four years.

He is also a project builder, with two current projects:

No Loss lottery, a prize linked savings account here on Hive, which awards more the 100 Leo in prizes weekly, and which recent surpassed 5000 tickets sold. @nolosslottery
Easy DeFi, which provides decentralized finance as a service: a two step process for investment into decentralized finance, which allows investors to bypass the complexity of the usual 10-12 step processes which are necessary to invest in decentralized finance. EasyDefi features investment pools on Cubfinance on the Binance Smart Chain blocjkchauin, or PolyCub on Polygon. Pool members can invest Leo, Hive, HBD or SPS. Learn more here

Leofinance, where you can blog or share financial topic content to earn cryptocurrency, as part of a passionate social media community.

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Self custody and cryptographic security, it's to boring to learn until you lose your crypto.