Learning the Hard Way or the Hardest Way
Teaching Bitcoin Self-Custody Through Involvement
For many things in life, we can learn the hard way or the hardest way. But, there is no learning the easy way.
Bitcoin is no exception to this rule.
Once again, with the recent downfall of Prime Trust, we are witnessing another example of a failure of third party custodians, for which there will be a handful of people who learn the hardest way. The real question is, how could they have learned in a way that didn’t involve financial loss?
The answer to this is simple. By investing time into learning about the origins of Bitcoin and self-custody. By making this commitment, people won’t learn easy, but, they wont have to learn the hardest of ways, through the pain of financial loss.
Mastering self-custody takes time, patience and a commitment to learning. Thats one of the greatest things about Bitcoin. We get to learn continuously and in real time. By investing the time into learning about self-custody, the act of holding one’s Bitcoin without the need of a third party, we prevent painful lessons that may spell the end of one’s Bitcoin journey.
There are some ways in which financial loss CAN occur in self-custody, such as losing ones seed phrase providing access to their funds, withdrawing funds to the wrong address etc. However, these early mistakes are avoidable and easily remedied by starting one’s self-custody education in a low-risk manner. Meaning, with minimal commitment of funds. Those who take this approach will get to a level of comfort in self-custody that surprisingly requires a minimal amount of time commitment. In fact, I would venture to argue that someone with no knowledge of Bitcoin could learn how to safely buy and self-custody Bitcoin in a total time commitment of around than 2-4 hours, with another 2-4 hours invested prior to committing significant funds. That’s sacrificing a few movies on Netflix, in order to discover one of the most rewarding financial tools of our lifetimes: bitcoin in self-custody.
Some may benefit from “youtube tutorials’ and self learning while others prefer a helping hand from a close and trusted friend. But there is no shortage of help out there.
The most important part of self-custody? Remembering why it was created as a foundational value of Bitcoin to begin with. That foundational value is self-reliance. It is the ability to control your money and assets without relying on a third party, which will never prioritize your interest and well being the way that you will yourself. This has been proven countless times throughout history. In the end, many third parties inevitably fail, whether that failure is malicious or intentional, or a result of shortcomings or time. In life we are constantly failing, its part of learning. But with self-custody, someone else’s failure doesn’t have to be a hard lesson you learn through financial loss.
One of the best ways we can help others in Bitcoin is by starting people from a place of self-custody and emphasizing it’s importance. This is something I am bringing to unions and organizations whenever I can. It is also helpful for individuals.
If this is useful to anyone I hope you will share. Stay safe out there, stay learning, and stay Bitcoin!