Is self custody getting a bit too complicated for beginners?

[Catenaccio]

I actually think it’s easier to guide beginners who have never stored or purchased Bitcoin on a centralized exchange toward using a hardware wallet. It’s better to get them used to it from the very beginning.
Those who already store their Bitcoin on a centralized exchange need something to raise their awareness about the benefits of storing their Bitcoin in their own wallet. This is because they find it easier to quickly access the exchange when they want to buy or sell.
But over time, their understanding of centralized exchanges and secure wallets for storing their assets will grow.

They can hesitate to spend money for purchasing their first hardware wallet but it's good if they use non custodial and open source wallets alternatively. Hardware wallets are only one of options when people want to go self custodians, it's not the only choice.

I also see that it's good to start with open source non custodial wallets, that are good, safe and secure, and can help newbies getting experience. After a while of participation, experience in this market, they can come to time of be ready spending money for first hardware wallets.

With newbies who consider that self custody is too complicated, let them be as we all ready try to educate them. If they are not ready to change, they will have to experience and must change in the future after having loss by security issues.

[Z-tight]

What did you find so daunting while setting it up? There is nothing so difficult about what you mentioned in the op, so i do not know what you are complaining about. I consider a hardware wallet to be newbie-friendly and if your story is true, the owner of that device didn't need your help in setting it up and his wallet is probably compromised already.

Self-custody is the recommended way to store your BTC. As long as you have a safe place to keep your seed phrase backup and you do not talk too much about your stash, you'd hardly run into any problem.

[macson]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten.
-.-

Is that true? Because I think it's always been like this, so what's so difficult about it? Because there's nothing difficult, I think even teenagers can do it. There's just no need for so much drama by saying that it's more complicated. No, it never is. You just have to learn. Just like when you were introduced to a smartphone for the first time, it's like this too --- it just takes getting used to and learning.

[Natalim]

If you compare it creating a custodial wallet and let the third party or a centralized exchange holds and manages your private keys in your behalf, of course creating a self-custody wallet may be more complicated. But its just the beginning that's actually complex, but when you realize all its security and freedom advantages, you will know eventually that its all worth it.

So do not see it as a threat to you, but having in full control of your wallet and secure all the safety measures that you know is the best feeling and advantage having a self-custody wallet.

[JeffBrad12]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

I'm pretty sure my experience using hardware wallet has been pretty simple so far. Those wallet have invested good amount of money to make their interface intuitive and less confusing.
They also created follow through videos in youtube that even an old senior citizen can follow through, it's only intimidating the first time just like other things out there you're not familiar with. You will get used to it in maybe next 30 minutes.

[Danica22]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

I'm pretty sure my experience using hardware wallet has been pretty simple so far. Those wallet have invested good amount of money to make their interface intuitive and less confusing.
They also created follow through videos in youtube that even an old senior citizen can follow through, it's only intimidating the first time just like other things out there you're not familiar with. You will get used to it in maybe next 30 minutes.

I am using Trezor and I also have a similar experience to you in that everything is quite simple and easy. But honestly, I do not think that if I gave it to my parents or middle aged people, they would have the same experience and say it is easy for them.

Just because something is simple and easy for us does not mean it is simple for everyone else. We differ in our perceptions and knowledge, so the user experience will also be very different.

If we are being honest, hardware wallets and non custodial wallets are more complex than using a bank account and centralized exchange.

[HONDACD125]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

Why does it need to be extremely simple for people to understand? It's not rocket science; one can easily understand everything if they have some knowledge, and getting knowledge is also not difficult if you spend some time on it. People want everything to be extremely easy for them and then they will use it, but that's not how it should be. People need to start putting in some efforts if they want better security, but if they don't care about security, then they can surely just keep their funds in centralized exchanges because it's easier for them to manage the funds in there, but they need to understand that an exchange is not a wallet, it is supposed to be used for buying and selling cryptocurrencies but not for storing them there.

Any person who decides to get into the crypto market should make sure they acquire enough knowledge before they get started. You can't rely on others to get everything done for you every single time, which is why it's important that you know everything before you get started. Learn about wallets, learn how you can set them up and use them, learn about how you can use exchanges, how you can buy and sell, how you can make transactions, etc. All these things are important for newbies to know, and these are the most basic things to learn.

[Miles2006]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

You might want to save the stress and then decide to use a centralized exchange, whatever is bringing this thought actually is never the right option, the mindset of wanting everything stress free also doesn’t work perfectly besides these complicated features are mainly the reason why your coins are secured.
Let’s be sincere, there’s no long procedure though like op mentioned above, everyone would love to undergo these kind of stress in terms of transaction, security rather than being scammed, we all know how the centralized system works except you always want a third party holding your funds meanwhile these funds can easily get stolen, prioritize your privacy first when dealing with bitcoin.

[SilverCryptoBullet]

You might want to save the stress and then decide to use a centralized exchange, whatever is bringing this thought actually is never the right option, the mindset of wanting everything stress free also doesn’t work perfectly besides these complicated features are mainly the reason why your coins are secured.
Let’s be sincere, there’s no long procedure though like op mentioned above, everyone would love to undergo these kind of stress in terms of transaction, security rather than being scammed, we all know how the centralized system works except you always want a third party holding your funds meanwhile these funds can easily get stolen, prioritize your privacy first when dealing with bitcoin.

Using centralized exchanges bring more stress to me because I know that there are many risks if I use centralized exchanges, as I have to fund my account which I can not control my fund after deposits, and mostly I have to submit personal identity documents for KYC.

I have risk of losing my money after a deposit, as who knows what will happen with that exchange, with my account after that.
I have another risk of losing my identity documents through KYC.

Events made you scare about custodial wallets, centralized exchanges.

[Callido]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

I don't know what is stressful about creating and storing seed phrase, except you made the explanations very complex for the person to understand. Local banks do give series of codes that should be protected by the customers, the code has a link to their account, if the code is accessed by others, it can be used to alter their balance, that is the same as Bitcoin, protect your seed phrase at all cost.

People are too lazy to learn, don't get yourself involved with someone who think putting effort to understand funds management is stress or much work load, protecting our investment is the most important part of investing.

[lionheart78]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

It is not that hard, even a beginner can do this stuff.  There are lots of guides and instructions everywhere, you can just do a quick search, and you can see all the information needed for this activity.  Aside from that, the hardware wallet itself came with a guide on how to initialize it.

It became very hard and confusing if a person rush to learn them.  Just take it slow and follow the instructions step by step, and you'll find out, it is just a mere read, copy, and paste stuff. I bet there is no need to teach us how to connect a hardware wallet to our device.  Even doing the backup of the seed phrase or private key isn't that hard.  Unless the person cannot read or has an intellectual disability, setting up a hardware wallet is not that complicated.

[BRINIRHA]

I think for beginners they are not really struggling but are still quite insecure because they are not used to what they are doing so they will always think that this is a very difficult step to take because they are worried if they make a mistake.
But if they are already familiar with it then it is not complicated, the most important thing here is that when we tell them then we also have to provide a reference so that they can learn it continuously because even though direct explanation will be more effective but learning something must be accompanied by the right reference so that they can search further about the understanding they want to seek.

Beginners are like babies who don't know anything but when they are directed and seriously study it then they will be easier to understand without having to worry too much including in the matter of keys and wallets.

[Smartprofit]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

Why does it need to be extremely simple for people to understand? It's not rocket science; one can easily understand everything if they have some knowledge, and getting knowledge is also not difficult if you spend some time on it. People want everything to be extremely easy for them and then they will use it, but that's not how it should be. People need to start putting in some efforts if they want better security, but if they don't care about security, then they can surely just keep their funds in centralized exchanges because it's easier for them to manage the funds in there, but they need to understand that an exchange is not a wallet, it is supposed to be used for buying and selling cryptocurrencies but not for storing them there.

Any person who decides to get into the crypto market should make sure they acquire enough knowledge before they get started. You can't rely on others to get everything done for you every single time, which is why it's important that you know everything before you get started. Learn about wallets, learn how you can set them up and use them, learn about how you can use exchanges, how you can buy and sell, how you can make transactions, etc. All these things are important for newbies to know, and these are the most basic things to learn.

I have a slightly different approach... When I first became interested in cryptocurrency, I didn't try to learn everything at once... There was so much material to study that it would have taken a very long time. So, I didn't try to build a complex system from the start. 🙋

I limited myself to learning one wallet and how to buy cryptocurrency from one seller. Then I studied the interface of one cryptocurrency exchange. In other words, I built the system gradually. At each stage, my system was very primitive, but nevertheless coherent and functional.

As I acquired more knowledge, I complicated the system. I had to completely rebuild it, removing some elements, adding others. I believe this approach is the best.

You can acquire new knowledge endlessly. If you're entering the crypto industry with a small amount of money, you need to quickly build a working system. Even if it's not perfect from a security standpoint at first. The main thing is that it works. And is simple enough.  As a newbie gains knowledge, they can make their work system more complex, more functional, and more secure.💁

[bitbollo]

Yes, in a certain way there are too many resources like never before!
Explain to user self-custody or in general how to use bitcoin has never been easy . I would start from paper wallet/basic wallet or even old "slow" softwares - or just running a node. Most of the time the best question is: Can you store for me?
 
Once you get that bitcoin is something that run "alone" or doesn't need even the internet to work, that everything is based in pure math and energy... well, self custody would become just a must.

You also have specific instructions likewise... an entire protocol created from the scratch.
https://glacierprotocol.org/

[Ziskinberg]

For beginners, maybe it would be quite complex especially if you are doing it on your own without some friends or peers that will guide you in making a self-custody wallet. But there's no hard if you do some research and watch reliable videos prior to that, it will help you a lot and help you understand things that you have no idea from the very beginning.

If you aim for the best for your wallet and yourself, then you really have to make some efforts and focus on how to do it even if it means a bit hard. But everything comes easy once you have it, and start experiencing the advantages of having your own self-custody wallet. It comes with responsibility so you have to be responsible on its security and safety at all times.

[Sonia_123]

No we are not, these are the necessary step to take in security your wallet, what if it was a traditional banking method are there not steps we will follow in banking to be a customer, what about the forms and other demands we need to meet in our banks before our funds can be properly kept for us by them.

 I don't see any difficulty in putting someone through in a proper way to secure his funds and if the person if feeling over stressed, then he his not serious yet about the security of his funds, then he will be left with experience to be his teacher.

[topbitcoin]

I was trying to help a friend set up their first hardware wallet yesterday, and it really hit me how intimidating this stuff has gotten. Between writing down seed phrases, managing passphrases, and explaining different address types, their eyes completely glazed over.It made me wonder, are we making security so complex that we're accidentally forcing everyday people to just leave their coins on centralized exchanges? How do we fix the user experience without sacrificing the whole not your keys, not your coins philosophy?

It becomes a very natural thing because when we are beginners, we will always be rigid in seeing and applying something including this hardware wallet. I've been in such a situation so I understand about the anxiety of beginners but the longer it will get used to it and when they first try they will feel how different it is so this natural condition will change along with the development of the beginners themselves.

The most important thing here is when you try to provide understanding to beginners you must be prepared for the hassles that occur because usually beginners will always ask a lot of questions even though what we think is quite easy but because they are still new and new to it then they will always ask if there is something they don't understand or feel awkward.  On the one hand for beginners who are still in the early stages, they should look further so that they can understand and be able to distinguish how the risks of being in a centralized and being in a hardwallet or others because although there may always be those who serve as mentors or shareholders for them but still looking for further information will be very useful for the future.

[mirakal]

I am not seeing that way. There are necessary steps that we need to do in order to successfully create a self-custody wallet. Though it may be quite hard for those who aren't familiar of it, but if that's the way what it takes to secure our own wallet and take full-control over third parties, then let's do it. Everything can be learned, it only takes patience and high understanding on the purpose why you are doing this.

However, users can always have a choice and won't make this thing difficult. But they should be ready any time seeing their hard-earned bitcoin lost or stolen because they end up trusting the wrong exchange.

[PrivacyG]

We have not been used to using any thing close to Bitcoin.  The closest is maybe using banking but even that is still far away from Bitcoin.  So in most situations it is as difficult as trying to learn a grandmother to play shooter video games.

The thing is.  If the elderly were able to move on from dumb phones to smart phones and are now even using video calls, online banking, playing games on their phones and other more complicated things then someone can learn to properly store and use Bitcoin too.  But they need time.  Bitcoin is not a 5 minute learning course.  It has a learning curve you can not skip or fast forward.

No we are not making it more complicated.  You made it more complicated by explaining probably way too much information in a too short time.  Which is overwhelming.  Explain the basics and let them ask questions if they have any.  That may be more fun.

[Sanitough]

It could be a bit complex for beginners since self-custody wallets shift its absolute responsibility from the bank to yours, from a centralize exchange to yours. So everything now is already in your full control, you alone control your private keys and should do everything to provide utmost security that any third party or scammers will never have the chance to access it.

But for this to happen, you have to follow and completely comply all those necessary steps and requirements, even if it means you have to go through some  difficulties.