In the meantime, sites like
vekja.net and
www.mybitcoin.com have been experimenting with account-based sites. You create an account on a website and hold your bitcoins on account there and transfer in and out. Creating an account on a website is a lot easier than installing and learning to use software, and a more familiar way of doing it for most people. The only disadvantage is that you have to trust the site, but that's fine for pocket change amounts for micropayments and misc expenses. It's an easy way to get started and if you get larger amounts then you can upgrade to the actual bitcoin software.
Was the creator of bitcoin suggesting that online custodial wallets were a good alternative, especially for smaller amounts?
Isn't he probably right ? I mean, instead of setting up a full node can't we just use the most trusted online website for smaller amounts of bitcoin ?
I know there's no point of holding bitcoins if we don't own the private keys but people are doing it already.
Thousands if not millions of traders are holding their bitcoins on exchanges. If not major chunks of bitcoin but still small to medium amount of their portfolio will still be on exchanges for active trading.
May be this is what Satoshi meant.
