Prioritize Self-Custodial, privacy and safety as a Bitcoiner

[suzanne5223]

Bitcoin is on the verge of a new era we have never seen or experienced before, with 95.10% BTC mined, which makes this time the moment we have to prioritize self-custodial, privacy, and safety more.
Sadly, the rate of BTC ETF investors are increasing.
Ignore the investment in the BTC ETF because Bitcoin was created to be fully p2p decentralized crypto with no trust in a third party, get a secure open-source hardware wallet, or hd airgap wallet.

The dream of everybody who understands the potential and benefits of Bitcoin is to hold at least 1BTC out of the total 21 million coins, but for someone its a lost dream. Nevertheless, holding 0.1BTC is still a good thing.
Nevertheless, if you have the privilege and opportunities to hold at least 1 or more BTC in this current market, it normal for excitement to kicks in due to the future benefits of it, and this is happened this is when a Bitcoiner needs to be very careful of the company s/he keep, prioritize privacy more, and be careful about the information s/he share, especially online.

This reminds me of the story of what happened to  Kaitlyn Siragusa, aka Amouranth, who's a streamer and OnlyFans content creator. She holds 211 BTC, which is worth $20 Million at the time of the incident last year, and reveals her crypto portfolio online.

Afterwards, her Houston apartment was invaded by an armed robber. She was pistol-whipped and forced to give up her wallet, but she was able to tweet for help, and luckily, her husband was armed. He fired shots, and the attackers fled. Although 4 suspects were later arrested, if her husband is not available, there's a chance that she will be killed.

Used this incident as an example, and as a reminder, because in the future, when the eyes of some people, organizations opened to the benefit of BTC alot of BTC holder maybe the next target, and there's no guarantee that the workers of the firm you bought their BTC ETF from who know your ETF worth wont be after your life or family in the future.

[SilverCryptoBullet]

Bitcoin is on the verge of a new era we have never seen or experienced before, with 95.10% BTC mined, which makes this time the moment we have to prioritize self-custodial, privacy, and safety more.
Sadly, the rate of BTC ETF investors are increasing.

Centralized exchanges, custodial wallets, close source wallets, and Bitcoin Spot ETFs are not good for storing bitcoins. It's very a classic warning against risk and many people did many reminders in the past like my initiative.
Events made you scare about custodial wallets, centralized exchanges.

Warnings are like nothing and meaningless for those people until they lost money, and cried.

[Nathrixxx]

Some will be interested in going for bitcoin, but along the line, they willnget into having a misplaced priority and go for alts or ETF, since they don't know the difference, another challenge are on those that will surely made the right choice for bitcoin, but leave their privacy behind and concentrate on all that could render them under a custodial means, which does not make a difference from a person that uses the bank, this new year, we have to up our game and learn the more, understand what Bitcoin is, the security measures in it, have privacy and know the wallet to use that can always support us with maximum safety and not render us to the hands of centralized authorities.

[Sticky Bomb]

Self-custody is very important. It is more mentally relaxing when I know that no one else is aware of my holding, it gives some sense of security since bad actors cannot act on unknown information. Trusting a third party no matter the branding (CEX, ETF) e.t.c. is undermining your privacy and you cannot lay claim to those coins since it is not in your custody.

Self custody is actually non-negotiable and very important, the only person qualified to know about your crypto holdings should be your trusted spouse or your next of kin. friends and family members are not to be trusted even one bit.

[MaxMueller]

Totally agree with OP.
With state actors get into game (possibly as an opponent)
 Who wants to have your coins) you should think twice which data are published to public or even to single actors like cex.

[Merit.s]

Some people forget that bitcoin is money, they show people their wallet and balance which leads to them being attacked. If you can't tell anyone your bank account and show him your balance, why will you do that with bitcoin that is more valuable than fiat. Keep your bitcoin investment a secret to save your life.

Open source noncustodial hardware wallet are good because they are cold storage making it difficult for hackers to have access to.

[Kasabus]

Used this incident as an example, and as a reminder, because in the future, when the eyes of some people, organizations opened to the benefit of BTC alot of BTC holder maybe the next target, and there's no guarantee that the workers of the firm you bought their BTC ETF from who know your ETF worth wont be after your life or family in the future.

No need to brag about what you hold online. I get that influencers usually share stuff like that, but there should still be limits, especially when it comes to Bitcoin where a lot of bad actors are watching.

Honestly, it feels less risky for me to say I have 20 million in a bank account than saying I hold Bitcoin. With banks, there are proper procedures, KYC, and safeguards before money can be withdrawn. With Bitcoin, once someone gets access to your wallet, it’s gone. Sure it can be traced on the blockchain, but that doesn’t prevent the crime from happening.

Even if my holdings are small, I’d never reveal them. Better to stay low key, be like Satoshi, even if none of us can really live like that.

[Z-tight]

and there's no guarantee that the workers of the firm you bought their BTC ETF from who know your ETF worth wont be after your life or family in the future.

Sometime last year, cybercriminals bribed a few coinbase customer support agents to steal sensitive customer data, which they did. And the scammers blackmailed Coinbase for $20m in order not to release and sell the information they were able to harvest through the rogue employees.

So my point is that, kyc is very dangerous. Even if access to kyc information in these services is strictly limited to a handful of employees, there is still a chance of insider attacks. There is still a chance that your personal information would be sold in the dark market. That is the danger of kyc.

[Renampun]

Self-custody and privacy in Bitcoin ownership are things that should not be ignored because without self-custody, you don't truly own your Bitcoin, you don't hold anything, and don't have any authority over your assets since the exchange or custodial holds all your assets. and privacy is also very important, if someone doesn't protect their privacy, they can be in danger, such as the case of that woman who became the target of thieves because she was so careless in sharing information about her Bitcoin ownership on social media, and it is very possible for people who don't protect their privacy.

[lionheart78]

Self-custody and privacy in Bitcoin ownership are things that should not be ignored because without self-custody, you don't truly own your Bitcoin, you don't hold anything, and don't have any authority over your assets since the exchange or custodial holds all your assets. and privacy is also very important, if someone doesn't protect their privacy, they can be in danger, such as the case of that woman who became the target of thieves because she was so careless in sharing information about her Bitcoin ownership on social media, and it is very possible for people who don't protect their privacy.

Indeed and as the title of this thread stated, it should be the top priority when engaging in cryptocurrency specifically Bitcoin.  Many people think that it is ok to flaunt their Bitcoin holdings or shout on social media about their profit just to brag, not realizing that there are lots of bad players online waiting and looking for people they can rob or swindle.

Anything about finance  must be kept secret, and with cryptocurrency, having non-custodial wallet, privacy and anonymity play a very important role to safeguard Bitcoin holdings.

[FirmWars]

A lot of message passed about the different scam incidents happening around the world today is enough for crypto enthusiast to learn a  lesson from it and protect their asset, if we can't learn, it means we didn't read, learn or hear of the bad circumstances that other Bitcoin investors have faced and as this year has started, scammers are also practicing on who their next target is, before this year is over, some persons are going to still be victims but the advantage of people here reading messages is to assist protect our asset. I'm prioritizing self custody and the privacy of my asset, it's something that's necessary to do and the information has been sang like a song here over and over again.

[VRExpress]

Some people forget that bitcoin is money, they show people their wallet and balance which leads to them being attacked. If you can't tell anyone your bank account and show him your balance, why will you do that with bitcoin that is more valuable than fiat. Keep your bitcoin investment a secret to save your life.

Open source noncustodial hardware wallet are good because they are cold storage making it difficult for hackers to have access to.

Bank is bank, not a gold rush like Bitcoin, many people already accepted that they missed the opportunity and those who don't feels like it is something good to show off, this might sound stupid but it's how some people feel, it makes them feel special and some told the world around them that Bitcoin would have a great future, they don't listened, now that Bitcoin is worth a lot they feel it's good to tell them. " I told you so" yet this is stupid of them. They must have underestimated those people too much, thinking that these people can't hurt them.

[Localhostspeed]

Centralized exchanges, custodial wallets, close source wallets, and Bitcoin Spot ETFs are not good for storing bitcoins. It's very a classic warning against risk and many people did many reminders in the past like my initiative.
Events made you scare about custodial wallets, centralized exchanges.

Warnings are like nothing and meaningless for those people until they lost money, and cried.

Bitcoin spot ETFs??? Excuse you!
I thought ETFs are just platform where you buy ETFs as an instrument that mimic the way Bitcoin moves, it can't be withdraw and it can't be deposited because it's handle by individual company that provide the service. If you buy Bitcoin ETF from Blackrock, you can can't withdraw it from there and you can't deposit another different ETF from a different platform. So when you said spot ETF, I was confused for a moment because that doesn't exist at all.

If not for anything and you don't care about privacy at all, people need to understand that you can't fully trust an exchange, they are fragile with liquidity, they can be dangerous and they can go wrong only to file for bankruptcy and there is nothing you as a user can do about it again. I may not be a victim of FTX exchange but the affected users are still crying and regret the actions they did. Out of those numbers, I believe some people have not learnt their lessons, they preferred to hold coins on custodial exchange.

[She shining]

Most theft on banks are usually caused by The workers or associate. You can t really trust your information with another specifically when it comes to finance.

[Natalim]

Most theft on banks are usually caused by The workers or associate. You can t really trust your information with another specifically when it comes to finance.

That’s exactly why bank secrecy laws exist. Employees aren’t allowed to disclose customer records, even to their own family, because that’s already a crime. But can we really trust everyone to follow that. Some might still leak information and feed it to criminals, which can lead to robbery or even kidnapping for people with large balances.

That’s why it’s never really safe to openly store or talk about money in banks either. Bitcoin is actually safer if you keep your information private, but it completely defeats the purpose if you go public and tell everyone how much you hold. Even exaggerating it, whether true or not, already puts your life at risk.

[EluguHcman]

Bitcoin is on the verge of a new era we have never seen or experienced before, with 95.10% BTC mined, which makes this time the moment we have to prioritize self-custodial, privacy, and safety more.

New verge era you mean I hope is the ATHs? Also note we can only see this new change when price surpasses the current ATH @ $126K being the previous ATH? Be it known too that the Bitcoin mechanism core is unadjustable and even while it is an open source for new technology modifications but in the Blockchain, I am wondering what else would be the new era.

We don't have to take excellent responsibilities of our securities and Privacies only due to when we have a huge funds in our wallets, we can always keep the concious ness up and note a silly fragile handling or not making your funds safety a priority can also be as risky of loosing our financial values.

[Josefjix]

Most theft on banks are usually caused by The workers or associate. You can t really trust your information with another specifically when it comes to finance.

Yes, that has been the hidden factor for so many theft in many corporate industries and even banks too as well. It's always an insider job who exposes the secret information knowingly or unknowingly through business deal negotiation.

[Alphakilo]

Most theft on banks are usually caused by The workers or associate. You can t really trust your information with another specifically when it comes to finance.

Yes, that has been the hidden factor for so many theft in many corporate industries and even banks too as well. It's always an insider job who exposes the secret information knowingly or unknowingly through business deal negotiation.

My issue points to privacy concerns. We are not really immune to the Blockchain and other KYC requirements because even with regulations being enacted in some countries and regions, the claim for such regulatory policies is to curb terrorism, money laundering and fraud cases.
Still, we are told how private cryptocurrencies investment is even with self custodial wallets, there really isn't much privacy if the attacker means to steal or hack your wallet when they fully know you have sufficient amount of Bitcoin in there.

What's really the authentic privacy tools that would guarantee privacy and ultimately control of one's Bitcoin self custody portfolio?

[Donneski]

I understand that stories like this are uncomfortable to many but truth is that they highlight a reality many people ignore and that's; Bitcoin changes the relationship between wealth and personal responsibility.

 Owning BTC isn’t just about numbers on a screen, it comes with real-world consequences if privacy is neglected. The tech gives us freedom but it also demands maturity and discretion. Sometimes the smartest move is simply staying quiet and keeping your life boring.

[livingfree]

Bitcoin is on the verge of a new era we have never seen or experienced before, with 95.10% BTC mined, which makes this time the moment we have to prioritize self-custodial, privacy, and safety more.
Sadly, the rate of BTC ETF investors are increasing.
Ignore the investment in the BTC ETF because Bitcoin was created to be fully p2p decentralized crypto with no trust in a third party, get a secure open-source hardware wallet, or hd airgap wallet.

We can't do anything to these people to stop them from investing to Bitcoin spot ETFs. That's their preference and what we can give them as a favor is to educate them.

This reminds me of the story of what happened to  Kaitlyn Siragusa, aka Amouranth, who's a streamer and OnlyFans content creator. She holds 211 BTC, which is worth $20 Million at the time of the incident last year, and reveals her crypto portfolio online.

Afterwards, her Houston apartment was invaded by an armed robber. She was pistol-whipped and forced to give up her wallet, but she was able to tweet for help, and luckily, her husband was armed. He fired shots, and the attackers fled. Although 4 suspects were later arrested, if her husband is not available, there's a chance that she will be killed.

Used this incident as an example, and as a reminder, because in the future, when the eyes of some people, organizations opened to the benefit of BTC alot of BTC holder maybe the next target, and there's no guarantee that the workers of the firm you bought their BTC ETF from who know your ETF worth wont be after your life or family in the future.

That's her recklessness.

And the lesson that we can learn from that, isn't about the holders of the brokers and whichever company where they've bought those stocks of BTC ETF.

But about being lowkey and never bragging of what you have in the public.