The average newcomer juggling multiple seed phrases, hardware wallets, and pass-phrases is far more likely to mishandle private keys than to fend off sophisticated hackers. However, the absolutist wing of crypto culture continues to frame any reliance on custodians as cowardice or ideological betrayal.
Evangelists of self-custody love to quote the mantra ‘be your own bank’, yet they rarely admit how many people have already locked themselves out of that bank forever.
In June, industry estimates put the amount of Bitcoin lost permanently through misplaced keys at up to 2.9 million, equating to about 14% of the entire supply. That is real economic vaporware produced not by regulation but by user error.
Meanwhile, a mid-year crime report shows $2.17 billion has been stolen from crypto services in just the first six months of 2025, making this year the costliest on record. Self-custody doesn’t eliminate risk; it merely changes its form, turning institutional failure into personal fallibility.
The purity test ignores a basic truth: that security is a spectrum, and that beginners sit at the insecure end until they learn the ropes.
Custody at scale beats ideology
Critics fret that exchange-hosted wallets or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) compromise the ethos of decentralization. …