Lol its very amusing when ppl are upset and shocked when a custodial company announces that they are not gonna carry the burden and expose themselves to endless legal abuse from US gov just so you can send and receive some sats.
Everything custodial that doesn't have kyc is going down the same path, if you think otherwise you are fooling yourself.
Noone is doing time just because you are too lazy to use breez/phoenix/zeus/mutiny
Breez- app store
Phoenix-app store
Zeus- app store
Is it the custodial aspect of the other wallets that is the problem or are all wallets soon gonna go against Apple's/USA's regulations?
sure, app stores are the next problem (and we're already seeing a lot of this with all the nostr zaps issue), but thats a harder problem to solve atm.
with custodial entities they need to make a reasonable effort to cut you off. Its not just about removing it from the app store, they will end up doing things like firewalling off country ip spaces etc, so even if you get the apk you need to vpn to an "approved" geography to use the service
and you have to think of the second order consequences - if the self custodial wallets have the user numbers of WoS then it will be easier for them to get more funding -> more research and development -> better ux for users, possible alternatives to app store etc.
the problem is also the mentality of the users, you can see the same responses every time - people demanding that companies and founders fall on their swords,screaming outrage and rugpull every time something like this happens, even tho its inevitable given the current legal and regulatory env globally.
Its impressive WoS operated globally for as long as they did( with them being shut down/changing how they operate at some point a certainty).
Reminder to those who think like this:
Self-custody, as it is, will. ot save us. It will not be possible for everyone to own a utxo. Custodians will be necessary unless we take drastic action.
agreed, but if we cant onboard 8billion people self custodially RIGHT NOW does it mean that we should give up trying to get the 10s of millions of people who potentially use it atm to do so? they are the ones that will spread the word around to their social circles and if all this decentralization technology fails because one custodial provider stopped serving US market (and will probably expand the list to all the overreaching shitholes of the "developed" world sooner or later) then we didn't achieve much.
We need the first couple 100m of users to be as self sovereign as possible - they are the critical mass for any kind of changes needed to protect the unfortunate souls who won't own their own utxos in time
This also buys us time to figure out new technological advancements that need discovery and maturation before wide adoption
Thanks for that thoughtful reply. Well said.
I have to say though, I see things very differently. It's crazy that the feds feel entitled to tell Americans who's allowed to custody their Bitcoin and who isn't.
Hopefully we get some better technology that makes self-custody scale better, but I think we should also plan for a future where we don't.
We need to support good (non-kyc) custodians and force the feds to accept them. (The miners would be great custodians.)
