Why “Not Your Keys, Not Your Crypto” can be a dangerous mentality

A good warning and a money loosing sentiment

The crypto community is full of sayings that are repeated over and over again. Many are great. I like “DYOR” or “Do Your Own Research”. This reminds people to not trust every blog and realize that each person is responsible for where they decide to invest their hard earned money. I like “hodl” instead of “hold”, because it gets back to the roots of bitcoin.

A saying you see quite often, that has a grain of truth, but a pound of money loosing sentiment is “Not Your Keys, Not Your Crypto.”

Where its right

The saying “Not Your Keys, Not Your Crypto” is correct in reminding people to take personal responsibility for the custody of their crypto assets. You can’t just expect someone else to secure your crypto or rely on someone else to make it possible to access your crypto. The reminder about personal responsibility is great!

There have been cases of exchanges being hacked and loosing all assets, so the warning and mentality come from hard earned lessons.

Where its dead wrong

If you are ever going to view cryptocurrencies as the asset class bitcoin intended, you have to treat it like money. Would you teach someone that money is only there’s if they retain the cold hard paper cash? Not your paper, not your cash? No, you teach them how to figure out if their money is reasonably safe in one institute or another.

Many platforms insure deposits. While the protection isn’t as great as FDIC insurance at many banks, a lot of these policies have similar standing from a risk/reward perspective. Can I guarantee that none of these platforms will get hacked? No. Can you guarantee your private keys for your crypto can’t be hacked, lost, or destroyed? No. Even if you only write the private keys on paper and store them in a fire/flood proof safe, you can still lose access to the safe or have it broken into. Many fire proof safes aren’t really great for paper and the paper can char/burn while still in the safe after a while in the flames. A lot of flood proof safes are only guaranteed for a certain amount of time in water (think minutes or hours, not days or weeks).

Instead of living in fear of being hacked, we need to practice responsible practices.

• Don’t reuse passwords
• Use long, random passwords with numbers, symbols, upper and lowercase letters
• Only use platforms that are actively working to protect your information and assets and have insurance policies in place to handle hacking loses
• Don’t put all your crypto in one platform – 2% better interest isn’t worth the risk of having all your assets in one place – find a risk tolerance you’re comfortable with and spread things around between 3 or 6 or 10 or more platforms.

No risk, no reward

If you go around with a “not your keys, not your crypto” mindset, you’ll likely pay more in exchange and transfer fees and lose out on the best interest rates, staking rates, and yield farming rates. If you want to put your money to work, you lend it out to a bank to make interest, or you put it in the stock market where you’re lending it out to companies to help grow your cash. Do the same with your crypto. Use platforms like MyConstant and Celsius to make money on crypto.

If you plan on hodling your crypto for say 5 years, you could in some cases double the amount you are hodling. At 13.99% for SNX and MATIC, Celsius can double these assets every 5 years or so. 20 SNX becomes 40 SNX. 2000 MATIC becomes 4000. In 10 years, at those rates, 20 SNX become 80 SNX. In 15 years, 20 SNX becomes 160 SNX. Compound that with the expected increase in the value of these assets and this kind of decision now could be the difference between retirement and not.

Interest rates are subject to change, but as crypto goes mainstream, many of the altcoins could see huge interest opportunities for sustained periods if their use requires high liquidity. Make money on crypto by lending it to a reliable platform today!

Stablecoins – so much better than bank interest to make money on crypto

If I go to my credit union right now, they hope to impress me with 1/4 of a percent interest. At that rate, it’d take me 4 life times to double my investment. At that rate, inflation eats my savings for dinner.

Stablecoins are the bridge between money in your bank and the crypto world. They are pegged to a fiat asset or gold as valued in a fiat asset. Most right now are pegged to the USD dollar. Because of their utility as an almost instant way to transfer value without having to wait for ACH transactions to clear or pay wiring fees, they are going to change the way we bank. That said, they need a ton of liquidity. This is why most of the best crypto interest rates right now are on USD Stablecoins. Stablecoins help you beat inflation and make money – letting you earn 10-12% or more each year on your original investment. This is as good or better than the average stock market gain, without the ups and downs.