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JWP - podcast album covers - 2

I asked Bitcoin Twitter a simple question this week: if you own meaningful Bitcoin, which worries you more, a 50% price drop, or losing access to it?

Almost everyone said losing access. The thread is worth reading: https://x.com/jakewoodhouseio/status/2069199376166301735

One reply put it simply: a 50% drop means you’ve lost half. Losing access means you’ve lost it all.

That’s what this episode is about.

I recently reviewed one of my own Bitcoin setups and found a gap. A vault I’d created that wasn’t properly documented; specifically the derivation path required to rebuild it independently if my provider disappeared. I’ve been doing this for over a decade and still found a problem.

That’s a provider dependency: when your recovery process depends on a specific company, software, or service remaining available.

In this episode I cover what that actually means in practice: a friend’s Sparrow update prompt and why pausing before clicking yes was the right instinct; the AUSTRAC Travel Rule coming into effect in Australia on 1 July 2026; a Ledger that died inside a 2-of-3 multisig and turned it into a 2-of-2 overnight; and the questions every Bitcoiner should be able to answer about their own setup right now.

Self-custody is not a destination. It’s a process.

If your family cannot recover your Bitcoin without you, you have a Bitcoin dependency. If you cannot recover your Bitcoin without your provider, you have a provider dependency. Both are worth solving.

jakewoodhouse.io/bca

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0:00:00
Hello and welcome to the podcast. Could you recover your Bitcoin without your provider?
0:00:09
Now this is a new twist on a similar question to last week, which is really around,
0:00:13
oh, what happens if I’m no longer around? Can my family, my loved ones access my Bitcoin?
0:00:19
But this is more focused on, well, hang on, what happens if part of the tech stack that I’m using
0:00:24
is no longer around. And it’s a huge question. So I’ll remind you, could you recover your Bitcoin?
0:00:31
And this is a question to anyone listening. Could you recover your Bitcoin without your provider?
0:00:36
Now, what do I mean by that? Well, it depends what kind of Bitcoin custody you’ve gone for.
0:00:40
Are you owning Bitcoin in true multi-sig self-custody, which is what I would always advocate
0:00:46
for if you own Bitcoin in size and you’re keen on reducing single points of failure,
0:00:52
but you might be using a multi-sig provider like a nunchuck or an unchained or a thayer or shout
0:00:58
out to daniel who’s launched guard block recently there’s lots of providers but what happens if
0:01:03
those platforms are no longer around can you rebuild the wallet somewhere else using bitcoin’s
0:01:09
native open source design and just yeah have you thought this through because it seems so
0:01:16
straightforward doesn’t it oh i’m going to set up my bitcoin self-custody but then what happens if
0:01:20
part of that tech stack suddenly doesn’t appear. And I’m going to frame this episode with, you know,
0:01:26
what I get out of this as a question and some of the things that have happened to me, even in recent
0:01:31
times, asking this to myself. But I asked Bitcoin Twitter some questions recently, and I’m just going
0:01:38
to pull up the tab. So if you own meaningful Bitcoin, which worries you more? A, a 50% drawdown
0:01:45
in price or B, you lose access to it. And as it stands today, 47 comments, and they’re so
0:01:52
interesting. I’ll run through some more of those in a minute. But just to kind of tease out what
0:01:58
this episode is all about. It’s like, a lot of people have thought about this. But have you
0:02:01
actually tested what happens in a scenario where that is actually the case? And what does it all
0:02:08
mean? How safely can you sleep at night? So I’ll repeat the question, could you recover your Bitcoin
0:02:13
without your provider. And to go through these comments on Twitter, I mean, basically, everyone
0:02:19
went for the second option, which is, I’m absolutely terrified of losing access. And it said one comment
0:02:25
was great. It’s like, well, option A is you’ve lost 50% of the value. But option B, you’ve lost 100%.
0:02:31
It’s like, yeah, great point. And you’re like, okay, well, what are some of the specific examples?
0:02:36
Well, you know, here, Michael Bright, clearly option B.
0:02:42
I remember that feeling when my ledger was asking if I want to restore from a passphrase or create a new wallet.
0:02:48
And I read something like that. It’s like my heart suddenly flutters, too.
0:02:51
He was like, yes, I was completely shaking, hardly managed to press the buttons.
0:02:55
But thankfully, it did work.
0:03:00
You know, Luke Parker, how is this even a question?
0:03:03
100% of people who own meaningful amount of corn have already sat on it through a couple of 50%
0:03:09
drawdowns and stacked like crazy during them losing access to them is literally their worst nightmare
0:03:16
and of course I’ll link this this thread it’s well worth going through but
0:03:21
you know vintage fella b definitely access bitcoin from can fall and rise into oblivion
0:03:29
but access is what makes this even worthwhile to care about or to worry about in part A.
0:03:35
Sorry, I’ll reread that.
0:03:36
So he’s obviously choosing option B, but definitely access is the one that he cares about.
0:03:42
The BTC can fall and rise into oblivion,
0:03:45
but access is what makes this even worthwhile to worry about in part A.
0:03:50
Yeah, so the price action of Bitcoin, you only worry about that if you’ve solved part B.
0:03:56
Now, I’m not going to go through and quote all of these,
0:03:59
But there were some great things.
0:04:02
Here’s another one.
0:04:03
So J2Day.
0:04:06
In his case, he’s not worried about either option.
0:04:08
He’s worried about KYC Bitcoin and the ability to use or lose that data by our government.
0:04:14
Mainly concerned about a 61A2 and or a wrench attack.
0:04:18
Great point.
0:04:20
So in that sense, he actually cares about point B.
0:04:24
So it’s not neither, is it?
0:04:25
But these are big points.
0:04:26
It’s like in Australia at the moment, there is an ongoing debate happening at the very
0:04:30
highest levels of parliament with the in-power political party doing deals with other cross
0:04:37
parties in order to push through high taxes.
0:04:40
It’s like, oh, suddenly you’re going to owe the government of Australia 30, 33% every
0:04:44
time you make a capital gain on your Bitcoin.
0:04:46
Is that really any different to saying, okay, we’re actually going to confiscate all gold
0:04:50
from the populace?
0:04:52
They’re still taking value, which wasn’t the case or set of rules previously.
0:04:56
anyway let me not go I’m not gonna spend too much time on this uh because I could go through all of
0:05:01
these you know as I said 47 comments and counting but the point is is have you asked this question
0:05:06
could you recover your bitcoin without your provider and just throwing it out there on on
0:05:12
Twitter for a second or x sorry many people are like well obviously losing access is is the absolute
0:05:18
worst case scenario and so let me frame this slightly so I I recently came across a situation
0:05:25
where I realized my own custody wasn’t as ship-shaped as it should have been.
0:05:32
And where I’d gone wrong is a fringe issue in that it’s very unlikely to happen.
0:05:40
But the multi-sig platform that I’ve been using now for five years,
0:05:45
within it, I can create vaults.
0:05:47
And when you create a new vault, the way to recreate that vault,
0:05:53
If the multi-sig provider was not there today, there’s an open source tool that they happily share saying, OK, you can go and use this software, follow this guide.
0:06:04
You’ll be able to rebuild your multi-sig wallet somewhere else if we went bankrupt and disappeared tomorrow.
0:06:09
But to do that, you have to have the derivation path.
0:06:14
Now, I don’t want to get super technical here.
0:06:16
It’s something I’ve had to learn by doing.
0:06:18
You can figure it out.
0:06:19
Don’t worry.
0:06:20
It’s just part of the process.
0:06:22
But the point is, is I had set up a Bitcoin treasure map or what I’m now calling the family Bitcoin plan, shared it with whoever was necessary, was comfortable with my multi-sig setup.
0:06:33
But then in hindsight, realized that once it was set up, I’d actually created another vault and that vault wasn’t documented in the plan.
0:06:41
and the point is so the plans change slightly and i haven’t had my access document up updated in the
0:06:48
very difficult scenario in which the multi-sig providers no longer around and and what would
0:06:54
happen in that case well thankfully it’s not become reality but it does give you the heebie-jeebies
0:06:59
it’s like whoa that’s a serious chunk of value sitting in there that i thought i’d stored safely
0:07:05
but in the very unlikely scenario that multi-sig providers disappeared and you have to recreate
0:07:09
the wallet elsewhere. If you don’t have those derivation paths, what happens? And these are why
0:07:17
we ask these questions, right? I’m holding value, I’m storing wealth, I’m being my own bank, Bitcoin
0:07:23
is the tool to do this. Volatility, as per this tweet that I put out and the comments underneath,
0:07:30
is absolutely secondary to certainty on custody or certainty on access or reduction of risk
0:07:37
against lack of access.
0:07:40
So I had an uncomfortable moment And that someone that been storing Bitcoin in self for at least half a decade with multi And prior to that another half a decade with single And it uncomfortable It really does make you go that not part of the plan That hope to God that doesn happen
0:07:59
The good news is that with a bit of spring cleaning, with a plan in place, with specifically the family Bitcoin plan that I can produce for you, you don’t have to worry about these things because I’ve made the mistake before, essentially, and that’s now squared away.
0:08:18
So not only is it a case of like, okay, audit where you’re at, what’s your portfolio allocation to Bitcoin?
0:08:25
How are you set up physically?
0:08:27
You know, if you’re traveling a lot or if you live in a very much like a fixed residence, there’s different ways of doing things.
0:08:34
And therefore, it’s basically it’s very bespoke for each person.
0:08:39
But if your system changes or if your situation changes, then your custody backup plans also need to change with that.
0:08:46
So it’s really, I guess, like a process of it may be simple, but you’ve got to make sure that it remains simple such that the cost of getting it wrong doesn’t go up.
0:08:56
And so self-custody, it’s not a destination.
0:08:59
It’s a process and it’s constantly evolving and you’ve got to have periodic reviews.
0:09:04
And that’s why when I’ve created these family Bitcoin plans, I also have at least an annual review.
0:09:09
Now, bespoke to the person, maybe they want more quarterly or maybe they want to have coaching sessions with their partner or their kids or however it might want to be set up.
0:09:18
Anything is possible.
0:09:20
So now I really want to talk about like, OK, there’s.
0:09:28
Yeah, this is to dive into a little bit more on the on the technicals here of like the derivation path that I touched on.
0:09:34
So self-custody, it’s like all things in life.
0:09:42
Self-custody of Bitcoin is on a scale or a spectrum.
0:09:46
And I’m actually going to create a piece of content around this in terms of mapping out the ecosystem and where I see it today.
0:09:54
And if you think about it like this, like, OK, the first step that someone’s going to take is they’re going to move their dollars, their pounds, their yen, whatever it might be, euros, onto a crypto exchange.
0:10:03
And they’re going to buy some Bitcoin.
0:10:04
and they more often than not they just sit it there right sitting on coinbase or wherever
0:10:09
but essentially that is an iou that that crypto exchange has for you and they go oh you’ve got
0:10:15
one bitcoin sitting there but really that bitcoin’s pooled with a bunch of other bitcoin and perhaps
0:10:20
it’s been leveraged against who knows how it’s been rehypothecated it you carry crypto exchange
0:10:25
risk when you leave your bitcoin there and so i would always advocate for self-custody some people
0:10:31
find it easier to go for an ETF because they just want the price exposure. But an ETF like BlackRock
0:10:37
is custodying the Bitcoin somehow. And again, the ETF is an IOU. Maybe you want to get exposure to
0:10:43
Bitcoin with a Bitcoin treasury company, like a MicroStrategy. You might do that because the
0:10:49
capital you’re in control of is in a retirement account and you can’t physically buy Bitcoin in
0:10:54
self-custody because of how it’s regulated. There’ll be funds out there that have that same
0:10:57
problem as well. But the first step is right, okay, we’ve got to go to self custody. So for
0:11:02
the average retail investor that I might speak to, the high net wealth or whatever, set up a wallet,
0:11:09
move your Bitcoin there from the exchange. Now, have you got that wallet just on your phone?
0:11:13
You require simply a passcode and a seed phrase, or maybe you’ve got a hardware wallet,
0:11:18
and you’ve written down the seed phrase, and you have a single SIG, or maybe you’ve got more
0:11:22
advanced, and you’ve then got a multi-SIG, and you’ve got geographically dispersed keys.
0:11:25
you might have ended up getting lured in by one of the multiple options that now exist
0:11:30
for collaborative custody or corporate custody such as like an on-ramp right no one actually
0:11:37
holds a key except for a bunch of companies or collaborative custody where a trusted advisor
0:11:43
might have one of your two of three keys or you’ve built your own multi-sig yourself something
0:11:48
like a nunchuck does this very well i also really like the idea of the insured option
0:11:54
that Anchor Watch uses.
0:11:57
So there’s lots and lots of different ways,
0:12:00
but essentially these are all different forms of Bitcoin
0:12:03
on a spectrum.
0:12:05
And you go from super convenient
0:12:08
through to super secure
0:12:10
or extremely well protected
0:12:13
through to not too well protected.
0:12:15
And it’s up to you how you want to store it.
0:12:18
I even like the idea of,
0:12:19
oh, someone’s going to break through the front door
0:12:21
and $5 wrench attack you.
0:12:23
okay well I’ve actually got a wallet that’s super long term that you actually cannot access this
0:12:28
without at least 24 hours worth of work because you’re gonna have to travel somewhere to get it
0:12:32
you might have a smaller account that’s like okay look I want to get my kids back here’s some
0:12:36
some bitcoin whatever works for you but you’re going to buy the hardware wallet you’re going to
0:12:42
write down the seed phrase you’re going to store it safely and then you think okay done but the
0:12:46
point is, is that’s only part of the picture. And you might have the keys, but can you independently
0:12:53
recover the wallet without the provider? And in all cases, these designers, the designers of these
0:13:04
products have thought about this, right? Like, they often are true Bitcoiners themselves. And
0:13:08
think about custody in a way that’s extremely advanced. And like, if I was me, and I was buying
0:13:14
this product? What happens if Trezor disappeared tomorrow? What happened if Unchained disappears
0:13:19
tomorrow? What happens if Fea disappears tomorrow? Well, they’ve got backup plans, and you need to go
0:13:26
and study them. And this is the point of asking this question, could you recover your Bitcoin
0:13:30
without your provider? And so what information do you need to have in hand to rebuild this wallet
0:13:38
if FAIRs disappeared.
0:13:41
And it might be that you need to download some software.
0:13:44
It might need that you have some wallet descriptions,
0:13:47
some XPubs, some derivation paths.
0:13:49
You might have to contact some kind of coordination service.
0:13:53
You might have to have a specific device
0:13:54
that’s actually compatible with this.
0:13:57
And for sure, you’ll want some documentation
0:13:59
that explains how to do it.
0:14:01
And so, yes, you might well have protected your keys
0:14:04
in a suitable manner, but have you asked this question?
0:14:07
could you recover your Bitcoin without your provider?
0:14:10
And I think far fewer people have actually tested that.
0:14:13
And that gap, that’s where the risk lies.
0:14:17
And so it’s extremely unlikely.
0:14:19
Like I said at the start of this podcast,
0:14:21
what are the chances of the provider of the multi-sig platform
0:14:23
that I’ve been using disappears tomorrow?
0:14:26
That’s already very low.
0:14:27
But even if that did happen,
0:14:30
could you definitely get hold of your Bitcoin?
0:14:31
And this is a question I asked myself five years ago
0:14:34
before I made some major decisions
0:14:36
where I was like, okay, I really want to move into Bitcoin in a major way. But to do so,
0:14:40
I have to be confident that I’ve got this custody piece set up so that if, heaven forbid,
0:14:45
the worst thing happened, like my dad one day, he woke up, he walked out the house and he died.
0:14:50
And he didn’t expect that to happen that day. And so if that happens to you as a Bitcoin owner,
0:14:56
are you confident that your family can get hold of it? So you’ve got to ask this like multi-tiered
0:15:01
level of questions. And so it’s like, what is the risk? So let me give it a description. It’s a
0:15:08
provider dependency. And so like in the last episode, I was talking about Bitcoin dependency.
0:15:13
It’s this idea that your Bitcoin is dependent on you because you’re the password manager,
0:15:18
you’re the treasure map, you’re the wallet configurator, whatever the case might be.
0:15:22
If you not around then your Bitcoin is dependent on you And this is a slightly these different twists It like okay well it provider dependency Have you figured out how you access this Bitcoin if that provider is not there
0:15:35
And so it’s not a criticism, okay?
0:15:37
You’ve got Unchained, Nunchuck, Thayer, Casa.
0:15:40
They’re excellent products.
0:15:42
But it’s not necessarily a question
0:15:45
of whether the provider is good.
0:15:46
It’s actually just a case of,
0:15:48
does your plan survive without them?
0:15:51
And thankfully, it’s actually not too difficult
0:15:53
to set up a situation where you can be confident the answer is yes. So ask yourself, like, if this
0:15:59
company disappeared tomorrow, and I stopped, you know, like their support stops responding, or the
0:16:05
software changed, or whatever, or the ownership of the business changes, or the regulations change,
0:16:10
like unchanged, for example, they do not open accounts in Australia any longer.
0:16:15
Okay, well, what does that mean? Could you still recover your Bitcoin? Now, if you can’t,
0:16:21
you have a provider dependency. That’s what we’ve just highlighted. So I had a friend recently tell
0:16:29
me that their ledger died in a two of three multi-sig. It’s like, what happens? Well, you’ve
0:16:35
suddenly got two of two. Now you need both of those keys to work to move the funds to a new wallet
0:16:41
with a new set of hardware devices to make them three, a two of three again. And, you know, in that
0:16:48
sense you had a device dependency right it’s the same class of problem you’re like there’s multiple
0:16:54
different ways you got to think about this essentially and in some ways it’s learned by
0:17:01
doing but getting hold of this information in advance of the situation is crucial like this
0:17:06
is not a problem for tomorrow it’s a problem for today like like it or not people die and estates
0:17:12
are already being settled and the lawyers don’t know what they’re talking about when they’re
0:17:18
reading about Bitcoin self-custody. They’ve certainly never written wills, or most of them
0:17:23
have never written a will with Bitcoin in it. And it’s actually funny, like, in my opinion,
0:17:28
if you don’t have the keys, you don’t have the Bitcoin. It doesn’t matter what the will says.
0:17:34
So in some ways, your Bitcoin inheritance plan is more important than your will.
0:17:41
And yes, okay, there might be some kind of legal process that could happen afterwards. But if
0:17:45
someone gets hold of that Bitcoin that’s not supposed to, and you cannot, like, what if you
0:17:50
can’t get it back from them, basically? So very, very important to get this right. Now, here’s
0:17:55
another angle that’s important to keep in mind. So a friend recently messaged me, and they had a
0:17:59
Sparrow wallet. Now, this story is bigger than what I’m going to expand into today,
0:18:05
because it’s got stuff to do with an app store and, you know, blah, blah, blah. That’s not the
0:18:11
point of this story. But they got a notification to say that there was an update due on the Sparrow
0:18:15
software. And instead of being like, you know, sure, click, yes, barely read the small print,
0:18:21
carry on, they messaged me and said, by the way, what do you think I should do? And that’s actually
0:18:25
the correct instinct. Because often a software update isn’t necessary in order for you to still
0:18:31
access your Bitcoin. But what if it is? And what does it mean in terms of the software upgrade?
0:18:38
And actually, you’ve got to think about this properly before just clicking yes. And so most
0:18:43
people will just blindly trust the software update thankfully they didn’t and and therefore it’s like
0:18:48
okay maybe you have to verify the signatures again or maybe you’ve got to think through okay what is
0:18:52
the derivation path of this updated software if it means the wallet has changed um this isn’t
0:18:59
this is just very very important because you’re actually thinking about the dependency that’s going
0:19:04
on um and so yeah there’s there’s so much to this right um now forgive me i’ve lost my part here but
0:19:14
um yeah so so where if you trust the software that’s okay but the question becomes like
0:19:24
do you trust the provider do you trust the interface do you trust the software
0:19:28
it’s this sense of trust that you have to be careful of it’s like okay this was actually
0:19:35
creating problems for me um and so to summarize like a a provider of a bitcoin self-custody
0:19:44
tech stack was messaging someone with their their bitcoin stored using their tech saying you need to
0:19:51
upgrade the software. And when that happens, don’t just blindly click go, you go, okay,
0:19:59
what are you changing it to? And why? And how would that potentially impact my family Bitcoin plan,
0:20:05
my inheritance plan? Another angle to this, we kind of touched on this earlier, the idea of
0:20:10
regulation. So here in Australia, as of the 1st of July, there’s a body called Austrack. And they
0:20:17
are regulating the crypto exchanges and every australian crypto exchange has to collect and
0:20:24
share sender and recipient details on every transfer and so exchanges are already jumping
0:20:30
and saying okay is this going to a personal wallet or another exchange and again without
0:20:36
going into the weeds on this one like the sparrow software update the the point is the playing field
0:20:41
is always evolving and in this case it’s a regulatory change and the players in the market
0:20:46
the stakeholders that you’re involved with they have to operate within the remit of their playing
0:20:52
field and that means they’re going to start asking more questions about where you’re sending your
0:20:55
bitcoin to now if you’ve already got bitcoin and self-custody is this a big deal in my opinion it’s
0:21:01
not so don’t worry about that it doesn’t need to reflect on your inheritance plan but if you’re
0:21:07
about to move capital from the old system into the new you’ve got to think about which banking
0:21:12
rounds to use you’ve got to think about which crypto exchange to use you’ve got to think about
0:21:15
where you’re going to actually send it.
0:21:17
It’s quite a treacherous process.
0:21:21
And once you get to Bitcoin self-cust,
0:21:23
you’re like, come on, what a place to get to.
0:21:26
It’s this huge sense of peace, in my opinion.
0:21:29
But beware regulatory updates
0:21:32
because they will potentially impact
0:21:34
how you’ve got your Bitcoin stored
0:21:36
and or how to add to it and or how to sell it
0:21:39
or move it if you wanted to.
0:21:41
The obvious workaround for me
0:21:43
in relation to these Austrac rules
0:21:45
is, and I think this is the case,
0:21:48
that if you’re sending Bitcoin
0:21:50
from a crypto exchange in Australia to your own wallet,
0:21:53
you literally just have to click drop down menu own wallet
0:21:55
and that’s it.
0:21:57
Now, once it’s got to that wallet,
0:21:59
you can obviously send it wherever you like.
0:22:01
There’s then a whole nother debate on CoinJoin
0:22:03
and the legality or illegality of that.
0:22:07
But think of an old Western
0:22:10
and the guys are the getaway cowboys
0:22:12
and they jump down from their horse
0:22:14
and they get a twig and they scrub their tracks out
0:22:17
and they jump on the horse and then put it through the lake
0:22:19
and then ride up over the mountain and no one can find them.
0:22:23
The ability to do that with Bitcoin using CoinJoin tools is already here
0:22:27
and it makes it extraordinarily costly to track funds.
0:22:32
Now, of course, the financial surveillance that exists in today’s world
0:22:35
that’s been completely normalized and monetized doesn’t like that.
0:22:40
And you’ll see more and more and more people being clamped down
0:22:43
for creating technology and tools that do that.
0:22:46
But it’s still possible.
0:22:47
And Bitcoin was designed as a peer-to-peer cash,
0:22:50
permissionless, and you can be your own bank.
0:22:52
So I see countries becoming more and more
0:22:55
regulatory burdensome.
0:22:57
That’s a very likely trend.
0:23:00
But equally, the way that Bitcoin functions,
0:23:04
I’m not too fussed about that.
0:23:06
Now to continue on this idea of like could you recover your Bitcoin without your provider like have you run a recovery test and i think that actually a very important thing to do right you might have done it but has your
0:23:19
missus done it or your partner done it or your eldest child that’s going to be in charge of this
0:23:24
process done it have you gone through the process yourself and made sure that it all works do you
0:23:29
have every piece of recovery information documented and readily available for the person that might
0:23:35
need it like remember if you’ve disappeared they’re going to be grieving they’ll be very
0:23:39
emotional like figuring things out intellectually is not going to be top of the list they want to
0:23:43
make sure all these funds are accessible and usable and and so I challenge you like have you
0:23:50
have you actually tested the recovery end to end and you know does the person that need to know like
0:23:57
where is all the information that they’ve got to get hold of and back to the point before about the
0:24:02
constantly moving goalposts, the regulatory changes or the software changes, will these
0:24:09
instructions still be valid in 10 years time? And that’s a really important one, right? The
0:24:13
concept of stress testing into the future. And I myself, like I mentioned already in this podcast,
0:24:19
I didn’t have a derivation path written down for a particular vault that I created.
0:24:24
Like, shit, that shouldn’t have happened. And I need to fix it. And so the point, yeah, it’s a
0:24:31
constantly evolving and important process to go through. So the instructions that you create
0:24:39
to solve these problems, they need to work years from now, not just today. And they need to work
0:24:44
now because it’s a problem for today. Not, you know, like I said, my dad, he didn’t expect to
0:24:49
die that day. You don’t want to suddenly be hoping that this is all in place the moment something
0:24:53
terrible happens. And so to kind of like zoom out a little bit, I just want to spend a small bit of
0:24:59
time here discussing the difference between what I am focused on and a provider. So when I call
0:25:08
myself a Bitcoin custody architect, this is a job role that provides a service which is Bitcoin
0:25:16
custody architecture. And I think that there’ll be many, many, many people in the world that provide
0:25:22
this type of thing in the years to come. But you essentially need to sit higher up and take a more
0:25:28
bird’s eye, more holistic view of the entire playing field. And so if someone was to come to
0:25:33
me and say, Jake, how should I own Bitcoin? I’ve got a ton of questions I would ask them about like
0:25:38
where they’re at in their life, what their exposure levels are, why they want to own Bitcoin.
0:25:42
And the type of custody option that they go for as a result will be different. And like mentioned
0:25:47
before, it’s on a scale. Do you want to own it just on an exchange? Do you want to own it as an ETF?
0:25:51
Do you want to own it as a Bitcoin treasury company? Do you want to own it in a single SIG,
0:25:55
in a multi-sig with collaborative custody, with insurance.
0:25:58
There’s lots of different things to consider.
0:26:00
But the point being is as an architect,
0:26:02
you create the designs, but you’re not the builder.
0:26:06
In fact, as the designer,
0:26:08
you can look at three different builders
0:26:10
and be like, actually, this is probably the right builder
0:26:12
for this particular project.
0:26:14
And then that builder’s job is to fulfill on the designs.
0:26:17
And so the architect lives or sits like a layer above.
0:26:22
And they ask the question first and foremost,
0:26:24
is this the right solution?
0:26:26
What are the trade-offs?
0:26:27
What are the dependencies?
0:26:29
And what happens if the provider disappears?
0:26:33
So if the builder goes bankrupt
0:26:34
and cannot carry on with the job
0:26:36
or doesn’t finish the job,
0:26:38
what happens?
0:26:39
And so the analogy there being like,
0:26:42
if Unchained disappeared tomorrow,
0:26:43
what are you going to do?
0:26:44
If Fair disappeared tomorrow,
0:26:46
what are you going to do?
0:26:47
If Anchor Watch disappears tomorrow,
0:26:49
what are you going to do?
0:26:50
If Casa disappears tomorrow,
0:26:52
what are you going to do?
0:26:52
if Coinbase disappears to run, what are you going to do?
0:26:55
If Ibit disappears, do you know what I mean?
0:26:56
The list is endless.
0:26:58
The point is, ask that question.
0:27:00
And so it’s not a case of choosing between a provider and an architect.
0:27:05
In some cases, you might need both.
0:27:07
In some cases, you might just need one or the other.
0:27:10
One provides the tools.
0:27:12
The other helps design the system.
0:27:14
And so the family Bitcoin plan,
0:27:16
which is the output of the Bitcoin custody architecture
0:27:20
that I will provide is the tool that sits above.
0:27:25
It’s like a, it is the treasure map in a sense.
0:27:27
It’s like, okay, this is how this all fits together
0:27:29
and is how I remove my dependency.
0:27:33
So that you want to be removing the provided dependency,
0:27:36
of course, like we’ve discussed in this whole episode,
0:27:37
and also you as the user, the individual holding the Bitcoin.
0:27:42
And so let me wrap this up.
0:27:45
Episode 126, I asked the question,
0:27:48
could your family recover your Bitcoin without you? And today’s question is, could you recover
0:27:53
your Bitcoin without your provider? They’re different, but they’re both very, very important.
0:27:59
And if you haven’t asked them with enough depth, if you haven’t asked them with enough
0:28:03
sophistication, if you haven’t asked them with enough what if, what happens if this goes wrong?
0:28:08
What happens if this goes wrong? What happens if this goes wrong? And I’ve been guilty of not doing
0:28:12
this enough myself, then you could get into some really, really hot water that you don’t want to
0:28:16
even consider and so going back to that that thread like I’m sure I can find another one like
0:28:22
Bart Roberts I’ve paid my dues in the worrying department now I go days weeks and sometimes
0:28:30
months without thinking about it at all and then sometimes it pops up on Twitter but without the
0:28:35
social prompts it doesn’t even factor in my day-to-day life so that’s someone who solved
0:28:38
this problem but like I’ve paid my dues in the worrying department they felt this right oh god
0:28:45
Let me find another one because there’s just too many.
0:28:52
Now I’m not going to be able to find anything useful.
0:28:58
Someone says, this is a rhetorical question, right?
0:29:01
Because the answer is so obvious, isn’t it?
0:29:03
Excuse me, that wasn’t actually a very useful aside because I didn’t find anything.
0:29:07
But let me continue to wrap the episode up.
0:29:09
So if you’ve been studying Bitcoin, you have to ask the question, what is money?
0:29:17
And that takes you down a long, brilliant, wonderful rabbit hole that helps you understand economics,
0:29:25
helps you understand the history of money, helps you understand why Bitcoin is important.
0:29:30
So why Bitcoin? What is it? When should I buy it? How should I buy it?
0:29:35
Many people have spent hours and hours and hours thinking about these problems.
0:29:39
thinking about these questions. And where I’m trying to sit, and where I am highlighting we
0:29:44
all need to consider, is like, what happens if you’re no longer around? So there’s a whole
0:29:51
additional step or layer of sophistication, shall we say, that should be considered when taking a
0:29:58
Bitcoin position, such that if you’re no longer around, or your provider is no longer around,
0:30:03
your Bitcoin is accessible.
0:30:06
So if your family can’t recover your Bitcoin without you,
0:30:09
you’ve got Bitcoin dependency.
0:30:10
If you cannot recover your Bitcoin without your provider,
0:30:12
you have a provider dependency
0:30:14
and both must be taken very seriously.
0:30:18
So let me close this out.
0:30:20
Have a look at my website.
0:30:21
I’ll pop it in the show notes,
0:30:23
jakewoodhouse.io forward slash BCA
0:30:26
for more details on what Bitcoin custody architecture is
0:30:30
and the current offer that I have out
0:30:33
to help people with this problem.
0:30:35
It’s something I’ve lived myself.
0:30:37
It’s a feeling that many, many people the world over,
0:30:41
as per this set of comments on this tweet that I put out,
0:30:44
shows you that it’s just a horrible feeling.
0:30:48
But God, it feels great when you actually solve it.
0:30:50
So thanks so much for your time today.
0:30:51
Really hope you enjoyed the podcast.
0:30:53
I look forward to hearing from you soon.