In the Wake of FTX, People Are Looking To Self ‐​Hosted Wallets

Nicholas AnthonyThere may be many moving pieces surroundingwhat has happened with FTX, but a  general takeaway from this saga is that the fall of FTX is a firm reminder of why cryptocurrency was created in the first place: to remove the need for third party intermediaries. With that in mind,Erik Voorhees, founder of ShapeShift, said it well when he noted: “The solution [to FTX] is right in front of us: decentralized protocols solve these very problems. … There’s just such hesitancy for people to step into the actual promise of crypto because they are comfortable in these walled gardens.”It ’s certainly unfortunate that it took something like the events of the past few weeks to break through the hesitancy Voorhees described, but that seems to be what is starting to happen (Figure 1). At the very least, the rise in Google activity around terms like “Ledger Wallet,” “Trezor Walle t,” and “Cold Storage Wallet” suggests that people are aware thatthefull potential of cryptocurrency is better achieved by decentralization.Self ‐​custody, however, is not just important for protecting oneself against questionable custodians. As RepresentativeWarren Davidson (R ‑OH) pointed out whenCanada froze the bank accounts of protestors, much of the protections from the state that decentralized cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin offer also depends on self ‐​custody. For example, where current financial surveillance and control largely depends onthe third ‐​party do...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs