These are my own views and opinions and should not be confused with financial advice.
Self custody should absolutely be the ultimate goal for every crypto enthusiast. However, it should only be attempted once you have sufficiently educated yourself to do so.
If you think about a new person coming into the crypto space, the first thing they're told is, get your coins off the exchange, but the learning curve they have to go through to self custody is insane. They have to learn which wallets are best to use for their chosen coins, they have to learn what their keys are, learn how to store their keys safely, learn about addresses, learn which network to use for their coin, learn how to change networks, learn what gas is. Then after mastering all that they have to start to think about whether their chosen wallet has had any exploits, whether their hardware wallet is compatible with their coin, whether the company who made the wallet is storing their keys online, where are they going to store their own keys, is the device they store it on air-gapped, if they're keeping a manual copy, is it safe, will they remember where they've put it, does anyone else know it's location, do they trust them 100%? Then there are exploits, phishing scams, dodgy links, bad contracts.. the list is endless really.
The alternative is to hold your coins on a centralised exchange, and in my opinion, in these times it isn't as bad as it's made out to be. The obvious big worry is fraud. FTX has given us all PTSD, however the big exchanges are making moves to be more transparent because of this, with proof of reserves audits. With the billions these exchanges make, they have more than enough money to hire a cyber defense team, and if they do manage to still get exploited like one did recently, they make enough profit to make you whole again these days. You do have to bare in mind though, that if you go down this route, you are essentially signing over your crypto to this company.
Ultimately it is up to you what you do with your coins, just don't feel like you have to take sole control of them before you feel ready!
Get $25 when you open a Nexo account!
