Self-custody

Holding your own Bitcoin private keys. Nobody can freeze, seize, or lose your sats — except you.

Self-custody means you hold the private keys to your Bitcoin yourself, rather than entrusting them to an exchange or service. The keys live in your wallet (and the seed phrase you backed up); only you can authorise a transaction.

Self-custody is the opposite of custody — where some company holds the keys for you, like a bank holds your fiat. Custodial services are convenient but they can freeze accounts, get hacked, or go bankrupt. Mt. Gox, Celsius, FTX — every major collapse in cryptocurrency history was a custodial story.

The trade-off is responsibility. With self-custody, the seed phrase is yours to protect — there's no "forgot password" recovery flow because there's no central authority. BTCBitByBit is self-custody only by design. We never have access to your keys or your funds.

Learn this in our courses

Course topic

Wallets & self-custody

How to store Bitcoin so that nobody — not even us — can take it.

Related terms

Glossary

Custody

Who holds the private keys. The single most important question to ask any wallet or exchange.

Glossary

Seed phrase

A 12 or 24-word phrase that backs up your entire wallet. Lose it, lose your sats. Share it, lose your sats.

Glossary

Private key

The cryptographic secret that authorises spending Bitcoin. If someone gets your private key, they can spend your sats.

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