Stop Asking Permission: Why True Bitcoin Ownership Begins with Self-Custody.

The real risk is not that people will fail at self-custody. The real risk is continuing to build our financial future on a system of IOUs and permission slips.

Have you ever tried to make a large purchase with your own money, only to have your bank card declined? Or attempted to wire a significant sum and were met with a multi-day waiting period, a barrage of questions, and the lingering sense that you were being audited for the privilege of using what is rightfully yours?

This experience is so universal that we’ve accepted it as a normal part of modern finance. We tolerate the delays, the arbitrary limits, and the business hours. We accept that our access to our wealth is conditional. What we fail to recognize is the profound truth of the situation: every time you use a custodial service, you are asking for permission to use your own money.

Your bank account, your brokerage app, your centralized crypto exchange—these are not vaults where your assets sit with your name on them. They are ledgers of debt. The institution owes you a certain amount, and they grant you access to it based on their terms, their hours, their risk assessment, and their legal obligations. You don’t hold the money. You hold a promise, an IOU.

In this light, the concept of self-custody—the act of holding and controlling your own digital assets directly using cryptography—ceases to be a radical, fringe idea for tech-savvy anarchists. It reveals itself for what it truly is: a return to financial first principles. Self-custody isn’t radical. It’s common sense.

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The $300 Billion Illusion: How AI Became Wall Street’s Biggest Scam.

One small problem: OpenAI doesn’t have the money. Neither does Oracle.

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