Who benefits and is incentivized to self-custody? Those with some technical abilities who are concerned about protecting themselves from existing or future government oppression.

Who benefits and is incentivized by custodial services? Governments, banks, corporations, financial institutions, yield seeking investors, sovereign wealth funds, those with limited technical capability, those wanting to hold bitcoin in a tax advantaged account, 99% of the world’s money.

If a bill were passed that ensured bitcoin is legal to use as long as it’s custodial would most of the world care?

Wouldn’t Larry Fink call the politicians on his payroll and tell them to support such a bill to increase flows to his ETFs?

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Ask China how their big ideas to control Bitcoin went.

I’m not implying anything about control by my note. I’m just walking through the logic of custodial versus self-custody solutions. There will always be options for both, technically, but custodial solutions will be far more popular based on incentives and human nature. I’d prefer to believe that everyone will self-custody, but that’s a delusional belief unless some major catalyst triggers a complete collapse of existing institutions.