Topic: "Not your keys, not your coins", What's the threshold before it fails? (Read 560 times)

I wouldn't be so hasty as to attribute this answer to their "lack of awareness". Most of the time, people will choose convenience over security if they were to be given a choice between the two. This is also the reason why most people would prefer having money sent over to their exchange addresses or hot wallet addresses instead of their cold wallets. It's just way easier to transact especially if the wallet you have is more on the connectivity side of things.

I say until we get a wallet provider that offers both security and convenience, people will continue using these exchange wallets since it's just that workable having them around. The rest of us had to deal with it and continue with the not your keys not your coins narrative.

the main risk is if the FEE's become to impractical for normal people to operate on the network, which then forces people into using centralised custodians of offchain systems, is where problems start

although i have ALOT more coins on my keys then you, does not make me more decentralised then you for having more coins in my control of my value/wealth.. the amount per users is not important
the utility of the network  to allow peer to peer payments is important

if centralist idiots are telling people not to do their coffee/pizza purchases on bitcoin and promoting bitcoin fees should rise and suggesting people should rent out some other systems balance to make payments on other systems.. thus giving funds to custodians.. thats where the problems start

a certain person thinks bitcoin should become a system that only supports 2 custodians peer-to-peer reserve swapping, where all of their customers use another network.. and he calls that bitcoin decentralisation success

the not your keys is not the failure.. the fee wars and limiting transactions per block, is where things fail, because it promotes making people give up coin control to have convenience (your chicken fear comes after the egg problem that causes your fear)

It's merely a question of how much of the total supply should be in the vaults of centralized entities before we can start to say that Bitcoin is failing as a permissionless, censorship-resistant cryptocurrency. Because if you store your coins with a centralized third-party, those coins are not truly yours, their not permissionless, and definitely not censorship-resistant.

Plus we haven't started to truly think about the situation of "what if most of the Bitcoins in circulation are in the vaults of centralized institutions", which might be a topic of serious concern years from now if some threshold is reached?

not your keys not your coins is not a % of network strength

the network strength has nothing to do with keys..
its the decentralised nature of the blockchain, where the ledger is not locked to a centralised server for a one copy ability to edit.
its the decentralised nature of the mining power that the blocks are not all created in one location/jurisdiction/controller

the not your keys not your coin is about personal wealth protection

the network does not fail if numbskulls think they own value in a custodian. its the numbskulls failing themselves by not protecting their value by not using the network

you cant claim the network has failed, due to users not even using the network.. its the users not using the network that failed themselves

Those third-party services will cause more problems for people who use those platforms to store their bitcoins.

Will it affect people who are more knowledgeable, experienced and careful to store bitcoins in their non custodial wallets?

Short term, they can see losses on screen, paper losses when market is dumped by fiascos from third-party companies like FTX, Terra. But if they can hold, don't trade, don't use leverage, they will not have forced liquidation and they will be fine.

Long term, they will get benefit as people who lost bitcoins, and bitcoins lost forever including from third-party fiascos will be gift for everyone, donation to everyone.

You're right, its strength and "robustness" does rely in its decentralized nature, but that's truly the question. What's the threshhold? 50%? 60%? What if more than 70% of the total supply are held in the vaults of trusted-third-parties?

Currently, these are the largest centralized entities that HODL Bitcoin in their vaults, it's probably growing, https://bitcointreasuries.net/?maximized=treemap

It could continue to get worse after legacy asset managers like BlackRock start buying and HODLing Bitcoin in their vaults too.

While the pie chart may be alarming, let's not jump to conclusions about Bitcoin's failure just yet. It's important to remember that the strength of Bitcoin lies in its decentralized nature. As long as individuals continue to hold and transact with their own keys, the true spirit of Bitcoin lives on.

It's truly a challenging question that should never be stopped from being considered and reconsidered. Centralized entities accumulating more and more Bitcoin under their custody could open another "possible" attack vector, and it could be very dangerous.


I believe many people currently don't care, but they should, and I believe they will. Let's hope that either it will not be too late, or that they learn the easy way.

We must not forget one thing: being your own bank also means taking a lot of responsibilities: one simple mistake and potentially you could lose everything you have, with no possibilities to get it back. Not everyone is ready to take such risk. 81% anyway is a lot, I didn't expect such high percentage, hopefully in the future that number will decrease.

As a matter of fact, that number is already suggesting that Bitcoin has somehow failed. But this is not representative of what the future brings. And, of course, that's not even saying that Bitcoin is a failure. Bitcoin remains to be what it is-- a solution to the big fiat joke. These survey numbers don't debunk that. Anybody who wishes to opt out of the fiat anytime has Bitcoin to run to. And these people who have yet to thoroughly understand or absorb the failure of the fiat and banking systems may one day get it.

Simply said, I'm not at all bothered by this. If there's 5% of the entire global population who have sought refuge in Bitcoin either because they're unbanked or because they've been victims of extreme inflation, unlawful seizure or censorship, exorbitant remittance or payment processing fees, and so forth, then Bitcoin has already served its purpose.

There is no force - but only the best advice so that bitcoin users are fully aware of the risks involved in entrusting their investment assets to third parties.

Every user must know that they have the right to take care of their own assets as if they had a bank in their own hands. Some do ignore the risks - but others do care. In the end, each of them has a different risk tolerance so they are free to make choices where and how to store their coins. Even if we recommend something useful - it's hard to change the decisions of people who believe in something they think is safe.

I would say it would be 51% on which it is really that considering that Bitcoin had failed but well numbers couldnt really be just that a solid thing that would indicate that Bitcoin did really fail.It id really just turns out that

lots of people didnt understand the true utility or the whole reason on Bitcoins existence on the time that they would be entrusting their coins into those banks which we know that they are really that heavily centralized.
People never ever learn until they would be able to realize that they are still under with government surveillance or simply with their eyes on which everything could really be traced on or simply people do make out some crypto investment for the same of not making themselves getting behind on whats the new trend or whats the current popular thing but misses out the whole point on what Bitcoin is all about.

For those enthusiast then they would be surely be laughing into those people who had still trust up with those institutions despite on owning Bitcoin. They arent just that simply
aware on what decentralization or anonymity is.

The presence also bears the "decentralized" status, signifying the absence of any regulating entity. Moreover, users possess the freedom to determine the usage of their BTC as they see fit. There exists no centralized institution coercing BTC users down a particular path; however, each of these institutions wields a potent marketing strategy. Regrettably, this has led to a scenario where many individuals have begun entrusting their Bitcoins to third parties.

If you disagree with the current state of affairs, do you wish to compel all these third-party entities to adhere to your commands? Alternatively, do you aspire to assume control of all the BTC held within centralized institutions?

Decentralized things become centralized once it is put into a centralized platform. Bitcoin can only give you the full potential of decentralization as long as it is in your hands. By keeping it in a centralized bank's vault, you will hand over your control over the asset. I am not sure if is it because of laziness or lack of knowledge, but because people don't want to take the blame for their own actions. They try to blame others. What if the bank goes bankrupt, They can't create new Bitcoin out of thin air as it is that easy for fiat money. Once it is lost, it is lost.
So what's the point of keeping Bitocin in a centralized bank? Those people need to learn what it means to be fully decentralized. Otherwise, when they lose it all, they will blame it on either Bitcoin or the bank. They will never think that they were the ones who put it in there in the first place.

"2"? Therefore if two entities controlled 90% of the total supply it shouldn't be concerning? There would be a possible custodial banking situation for Bitcoin. It should definitely be concerning.

The "2" argument is good for boot-strapping the network because it starts with at least two peers. I'm asking about something else entirely.


That's at the current state of Bitcoin because the supply is fairly distributed. I'm asking about how much of total supply must be controlled by a Cabal before it becomes truly concerning. Because controlling most of it might mean a custodial banking future for Bitcoin, in that the Cabal might let you use "Bitcoin", but only as IOUs in their centralized ledgers.


A custodial banking future for most of the supply of Bitcoin won't be concerning at all? If that's the future, then those users are not actually using Bitcoin. Concerning if many people will believe that's "OK".

It does. The price is determined by the collective prosperity of the network. We're being reliant on the partition of work, and the value of our work is defined by beyond what ourselves and our people value. It's defined by the competition among all people doing the same work. If individuals beyond this forum deposit coins into exchanges, and these exchanges subsequently employ fractional reserve systems, leading to an increase in the money supply, it will directly impact the value of your coins. (as it happened already with FTX)

I like DooMAD's answer, so that puts the threshold at 2.

New participants already have to "ask" someone to use Bitcoin. Usually that "asking" involves paying them to buy Bitcoin, but the end result is the same: they need something from existing Bitcoin owners (and obviously I'm ignoring the possibility for mining here, because that's not what most new Bitcoin users do). Luckily, money talks, so there's always someone willing to make a deal.

One of the great things about Bitcoin is that it doesn't matter what other people or even governments do. "They" can use Bitcoin custodial, on side-chains and second layer, or a bank could even make up "fractional reserve Bitcoin". As long as I have my private keys, none of that matters to me.

OK, then from that premise, if User A owned and locked 99% of the total supply, with new participants having to ask permission from him/her to use the currency, then could we say that it has failed or not? The answer is obvious.


But what is the threshold? Where should the network participants draw the limit? I'm merely asking out of curiousity.

Yeah, @HeRetiK already said the same thing I felt, because I know that there are some addresses that hold a large amount of Bitcoin, so, the 81% Bitcoiners that wants to store their Bitcoin or crypto assets in the banks doesn't have or would not have a very large amount of Bitcoin in their possession, Oh! Boy... Come on, imagine someone who has been holding 100 bitcoins in their cold storage going to the bank to store them because of some bullshit bank crypto safe storage. It's never going to work.


Someone that have about $100,000,000 worth of assets in Bitcoin would not want to do foolish things that can risk their asset, but would definitely want to learn and acquire every necessary education that can help them keep their investment or asset safe. @Wind_FURY, If you have a huge lump of money (like the figure I mentioned above) in your possession, you will not really be lazy about the security of that fund; you will definitely make sure that your money is secure, but when you have just $1k or $5k, you might not treat the security of your asset the way someone who has $100 million would treat theirs.

Just like the "read" on that chart, which states that "most Bitcoin holders in the U.S. would move their asset to the bank if it had a safe crypto storage," I want to say that the U.S. is not the entire world, and the entire world is not foolish, so I don't see this happening any way; only the uneducated bitcoiners will store their bitcoin in a centralised organisation.

Those who understand crypto very well knows that third-parties must be erased, why would anyone want to keep their crypto with banks when you have your crypto wallets, (the safest place for your crypto currencies) , well you've said it all, most people lacks understanding about why crypto existed, most importantly Bitcoin.

The only thing the central bank and the government can't take over is Bitcoin, they need your private key to get your Bitcoin and you giving yours up means you are foolish, the real reason Bitcoin existed is because of it's ability to erase any third-party when making transactions.

Each and every individual that owns Bitcoin are responsible for whatever happens to their Bitcoin, if you think it's safer in the hands of your bank then you don't deserve to have Bitcoin, you are using it as the problem it was created to fix.