With all the events of the past week in Canada and the government adopting emergency powers which included freezing individuals' bank accounts who either participated in or funded the peaceful trucker protest, the Bitcoin community commentary was overwhelming about the importance of Bitcoin self custody. The discussion revolved around custodial accounts which can be frozen (bank accounts, credit cards, brokerage accounts, individual retirement accounts, money payment accounts like PayPal, and cryptocurrency accounts maintained on exchanges such as Coinbase, etc.) versus non-custodial accounts like a Bitcoin self-custody wallet which can not be frozen. Needless to say, this is deeply troubling since the government can essentially "financially cancel" someone on nothing more than suspicion of having done something wrong, versus actually charging someone with a crime and having to go to court to prove that. Lyn Alden wrote a great thread on this that I have reproduced below:
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Bitcoin Self Custody
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With all the events of the past week in Canada and the government adopting emergency powers which included freezing individuals' bank accounts who either participated in or funded the peaceful trucker protest, the Bitcoin community commentary was overwhelming about the importance of Bitcoin self custody. The discussion revolved around custodial accounts which can be frozen (bank accounts, credit cards, brokerage accounts, individual retirement accounts, money payment accounts like PayPal, and cryptocurrency accounts maintained on exchanges such as Coinbase, etc.) versus non-custodial accounts like a Bitcoin self-custody wallet which can not be frozen. Needless to say, this is deeply troubling since the government can essentially "financially cancel" someone on nothing more than suspicion of having done something wrong, versus actually charging someone with a crime and having to go to court to prove that. Lyn Alden wrote a great thread on this that I have reproduced below: