Bitcoin Is Getting Easier To Purchase, But Harder To Truly Own.

[sunsilk]

So this as raise an interesting question; Are we increasing the number of bitcoiner users or are we increasing the number of bitcoin owners? These two are not necessarily the same thing.

I think it's both. We're increasing both users and owners. Because someone who's owning bitcoin is also a user and somehow they'll like to spend it even a little of it for some things.

IMHO, the time is coming that your title is right that it's going to be harder to own it.

Why? the price will become more expensive, we'll have lesser supply in the circulation and at point that the exchanges will start to limit the purchases when they also see the demand increases.

[UchihaSarada]

Once upon a time to purchase Bitcoin was not very easy back then.

It's because in the past, the Bitcoin adoption was very small, and there were very little people who are sellers and buyers. It was like big barrier to find sellers and buyers for a Bitcoin trade but fortunately the Bitcoin pizza trade changed many things for Bitcoin adoption.

Pizzas for bitcoins?
Did Laszlo Hanyecz exchange 40000 BTC for 8 pizzas, not 10000 BTC for 2 pizzas?

1.The idea of buying versus owning Bitcoin is not the same thing as before.

It's the same with people who buy bitcoin and store bitcoin in their non custodial wallet, nothing changed, nothing prevented them doing that if they want to be their self custodians.

2: Convenience Is Replacing Self Custody.

It's people change, not Bitcoin change. When people understand risk of online sites, centralized exchanges, custodial wallets, they will decide storing their bitcoins in self-custodial wallets.

3. More Bitcoin Users, Fewer Bitcoin Owners?

Don't care about it, pay attention on your bitcoin accumulation, storage and security.

[Bastketsrus]

The phrase "Not your keys, not your coins" shouldn't be taken lightly, as it teaches an important lesson regarding the importance of safeguarding our crypto (Bitcoin) privately (without third-party interference). Storing Bitcoin with a centralized party carries double the risks compared to storing it independently.

Several cases have occurred with several exchanges, one of which is Mt. Gox. While there is a possibility of a refund from the exchange due to the issues, but wouldn't that be a very lengthy and time-consuming process Furthermore, if a similar case occurs in the future, there is no guarantee of a refund, right? Maybe, it will be lost forever.

I don't mean to scare anyone here; I am simply explaining the risks, and I don't expect a similar case to happen again. I simply want to advise us all, not to place too much trust in third parties, or centralized entities. That is all.

I agree. Exchanges are fine for trading, but not for storing long term. Mt. Gox is a reminder that if you don't control the keys, you also don't fully control the coins.

[rat03gopoh]

Bitcoin adoption has been steadily increasing, but how many of these new adopters are "in control of their coins?

"Adoption" itself is still debated, with some arguing that Bitcoin must be accepted, used, and implemented to reach adoption. Owning it simply involves believing in its future based on intrinsic value (limited supply, unlimited value) or opportunism (buy low, sell high), and sometimes, as you said, they don't actually own it.

[BlackBoss_]

"Adoption" itself is still debated, with some arguing that Bitcoin must be accepted, used, and implemented to reach adoption. Owning it simply involves believing in its future based on intrinsic value (limited supply, unlimited value) or opportunism (buy low, sell high), and sometimes, as you said, they don't actually own it.

The adoption for Bitcoin is clear and it has actually become bigger and better with time. I see the ongoing debate is whether Bitcoin has reached mass adoption, achieved mainstream level or not, and if not yet, when it will achieve that "mainstream adoption" milestone.

Honestly I really don't mind too much about it, as I care more about my accumulation as I am not rich, I don't have abundant money and investment capital for bitcoin accumulation. That means I need more time for my accumulation so if mainstream adoption won't come too soon, it's not big problem with me. I consider it as a gift for me and my bitcoin accumulation. More time means I will be able to accumulate more bitcoins while price will be still low and cheap for my future entries.

[michellee]

Although to purchase Bitcoin was not very easy in the past, we learned something value which is how to secure our Bitcoin and other important things, that is knowledge that people now may not apply. New people should aware this and must learn more because the situation changed and many scams programs watching them and waiting them to make a mistake.

But if we talks about owning Bitcoin, that means we really owns and keeping Bitcoin in our wallets and we will not storing in the exchanges especially in a long term. We should remember that anything can happens to the exchanges so we must keep that in our own wallet avoiding the bad things happen.

We can't let the exchanges do that, that means we don't own our Bitcoin fully because that will be Not your keys, not your coins - that is the thing that we must remember so keeping in our wallet will be necessary.

[davis196]

There's always risk involved when you own a financial asset. Relying on third parties has the risk of your crypto trading platform going bankrupt or getting hacked. Keeping all your crypto in your cold wallet has the risk of losing access to your passwords and seed phrase, there's also a risk of someone stealing your hardware wallet of your hardware wallet getting broken. 100% safety cannot be achieved, it doesn't matter if you truly own your BTC or not. I don't think that it's "harder to truly own" your BTC in the current day and age. The process is pretty much the same as it used to be 5 or 10 years ago. Setting up a cold wallet isn't rocket science. We have to bear in mind that most crypto noobs start using hot wallets and centralized services before switching to cold wallets later on.

[ejikeme24]

Yeah,  these aspect you're talking about is where most of us don't understand. Personally i see exchange as a place where we can easily purchase bitcoin then after making our purchase it's advised to transfer it in non custodial wallet where we can have full control over our asset. If you hold your Bitcoin in an exchange the third party will be in your control, they have right to ask you when to withdraw and when not to withdraw they can even decide to seize your assets or profit and you can't do anything about it, it is more like our traditional bank that controls your funds.  Bitcoin is a Long term investment so for that we need to make a separate wallet for it where there will be no challenges like missing or funds or the platform being hacked or something like that, non custodial wallets are the best wallet to use for long term holdings.

[JoyMarsha]

The truth of the matter is that not all newbies get all the information about how to buy and save up their Bitcoin in a way that it will be good for them without issues.

I remember a time when I was a newbie, I made the mistake of not writing my seed phrase and storing it in a safe, which later cost me a lot. I also stored my Bitcoin in exchanges which I found out later that I have no complete ownership of it.

All these findings were later discovered after spending a year or so on Bitcoin investment. Immediately start to take the right step to own and take responsibility for my Bitcoin by myself not on an exchange

[MadSl1m]

the thread's framing it as a learning problem, people just won't bother with self-custody. there's a structural layer underneath that the 'just learn' answer misses. the ETF wave didn't only move coins to a third party, it funneled them behind one third party. over 80% of US spot bitcoin ETF assets sit with a single custodian, Coinbase, roughly $74B. so 'harder to truly own' isn't only about individuals being lazy, it's that the easiest on-ramp now routes most new demand into one custody choke point. that's a single point of failure no amount of personal seed-phrase discipline fixes.

[Supreme Donvic]

Yeah,  these aspect you're talking about is where most of us don't understand. Personally i see exchange as a place where we can easily purchase bitcoin then after making our purchase it's advised to transfer it in non custodial wallet where we can have full control over our asset. If you hold your Bitcoin in an exchange the third party will be in your control, they have right to ask you when to withdraw and when not to withdraw they can even decide to seize your assets or profit and you can't do anything about it, it is more like our traditional bank that controls your funds.  Bitcoin is a Long term investment so for that we need to make a separate wallet for it where there will be no challenges like missing or funds or the platform being hacked or something like that, non custodial wallets are the best wallet to use for long term holdings.

Using an exchange to accumulate Bitcoin or to buy Bitcoin and then sending it to your wallet is the best thing to do, it is wrong for you to use an exchange to hold your bitcoin for a long term because it is very risk if anything should happen to that exchange it will affect your Bitcoin so it is better that you have total control of your own Bitcoin.
Some people are also scared to control their bitcoin by themselves and the reason why they are scared is because they feel they may lose their secret phrase, anyone who wants to invest in Bitcoin for a long term and cannot take responsibility of controlling his Bitcoin is not worthy of having or investing in Bitcoin, anyone who wants to go into bitcoin investment should be able to take the responsibility of self custody.

[bakasabo]

From my point of view it was never complicated to obtain bitcoin, it isnt that hard to hold it (the only issue is security of your system), but it is getting harder and harder to get profit or to get to final stage of getting profit, from having it. Easy to buy, not hard to wait until prices goes up, hard to turn bitcoin into fiat without being forced to share profit (to pay taxes) and to keep anonymous (at the place where I am it is close to impossible to stay anonymous while converting crypto to fiat if you dont want to lose 10% or more of your convert value).

[Vaculin]

But, if the majority of Bitcoin holders never go beyond custodial services and are we closer to the original vision of bitcoin or further away?

How hard can it be to own your bitcoins? It's very simply to have full ownership of your coins. Purchase it through any means you want, centralized or decentralised, get a self custodian wallet, write out your 12 words and store them in a safe place. Transfer your coins and hold. Is that quite difficult for any serious person? People these days are just too lazy or careless. They are only focused on how they could make their next millions from bitcoin investment but they have forgotten that even before you make profits you have to secure what you have first. Bitcoin was created to be decentralised, you and your keys, you are your bank. So why give access of your coins to a centralized platform?

Its just that people do not see yet the real advantage of a non-custodial wallet because buying from a centralized exchange and holding it still work, but the moment they start to experience the lapses of such centralized exchanges, that's probably the time that they will rush to secure a non-custodial wallet, however the damage has been already done. They lost their bitcoin, and they lost their hard-earned money that was used as the capital.

Bitcoin ownership is never actually hard, but those who continue to trust those centralized exchanges and risk their bitcoin makes it way more complicated.

[KiaKia]

It makes no sense to me, I bought Bitcoin because it's true ownership can't be compared to anything else in this world, it's why I store money in Bitcoin, my money remains my money and I am the bank of myself.

I have also read some comments on this forum about people buying Bitcoin simply because they own it originally, people who keep their Bitcoin on the exchange or thirdparty hands don't either understand Bitcoin or they wished for a centralised bitcoin.

Some people likes how the banks operates and that's also what they wished that Bitcoin became, it's why third-party will always feel good to them, and this doesn't mean that I should do the same.

[macson]

People who don't store their Bitcoin in a self-custodial wallet don't truly own their Bitcoin because they're only given a snapshot of the balance in their account --- the exchange is the true owner. Only until the Bitcoin is transferred to their self-custodial wallet can they truly be considered the owner of it.

Going into self-custodial isn't difficult. All it takes is transferring the Bitcoin they bought on the exchange and storing it in their self-custodial wallet. It's nothing harder, it's just a matter of laziness --- if they were that lazy, they wouldn't do something this easy.

[Nathrixxx]

From what I understand based on my experience and what you're trying to portray here on this discussion, bitcoin is getting more adoption, but the people are not interested about how their assets could be in their custody, because this is a decentralized coin and we must be in control of anything that has to do with our assets in Bitcoin, and not that we render it to the hands of those that we restrict us from gaining access, this is why we don't have to only invest, but also make necessary efforts to learn about the security and privacy in Bitcoin network.

[Natalim]

From my point of view it was never complicated to obtain bitcoin, it isnt that hard to hold it (the only issue is security of your system), but it is getting harder and harder to get profit or to get to final stage of getting profit, from having it. Easy to buy, not hard to wait until prices goes up, hard to turn bitcoin into fiat without being forced to share profit (to pay taxes) and to keep anonymous (at the place where I am it is close to impossible to stay anonymous while converting crypto to fiat if you dont want to lose 10% or more of your convert value).

Yes, owning bitcoin isn't really hard and complicated, but those who buy bitcoin without being aware of security measures will always find theirselves not the real owners of their bitcoin, but its the exchange itself. Maybe because they have trusted centralized exchange like no other, thinking that bitcoin is safer when its being held by them, not by a self-custodial wallet.

Centralized exchanges offer convenience, bank-like features like password reset and customer support, while self-custodial wallet comes with responsibility, of course those who want to avoid stress will definitely choose centralized one over self-custodial wallet.

[Luzin]

A lot of new buyers think that once they just buy Bitcoin, they automatically own it. But in most cases, what they have is an account with a third party that holds the Bitcoins for them. So as long as the platform is still running, everything looks fine.

Why do we need to be especially cautious with new users? There are many sites that take advantage of newcomers to sign up on platforms and deposit money to get Bitcoin. But in the end, their money is lost. Honestly, learn from honest experts so that beginners do not suffer losses.

However, once access is denied, funds are frozen, withdrawals are delayed or the service is closed, users soon realize that there is a difference between exposure and having the control over Bitcoin.
There is a reason for the old saying: "Not your keys, not your coins".

There are many options for buying and exchanging, so choose a credible one. Indeed, if you have already obtained it, there should be no problems in cashing out or transferring assets because that is how the exchange system works. As long as we keep the assets in the exchange, they are not entirely under our control and this can become an issue and a loss. For safety, it is better to immediately transfer the assets to a personal wallet like a hard wallet.

[Questat]

If you are really dedicated to buy and own bitcoin like you are the sole owner, I don't think that's gonna be hard for everyone since as much as possible our top priority is to protect our wallet and secure it 24/7 at any threat of loss or theft.

Owning bitcoin brings also a huge responsibility, so if that what you mean the reason why its hard to truly own bitcoin, then I don't think you are seeing the real essence of bitcoin. Bitcoin is not just an asset, but it could be our source of retirement, an inheritance we can pass to our kids and grandkids, and a legacy that we can leave next to us, so if you can't perform your responsibility well, just settle on trusting centralized exchanges and be ready for the risk it may offer.

[X-ray]

So, it comes down to people not investing enough time into learning how bitcoin works and how self custody works.

To me, all those problem can easily be solved by putting time into learning self custody wallet, even the hardware wallet ones and withdraw your bitcoin to your self custody wallet.

It's not exactly harder to truly own, some people just don't care and don't really want to invest enough time.