One of the arguments against pushing for greater Bitcoin scalability is, “Most people won’t self-manage anyway, so why bother?”
This is a very presumptive, arrogant and completely false argument. This is the same kind of logical fallacy that humans cannot avoid. Current status is an indicator of future status.
“It’s not raining today, so it won’t be raining tomorrow.” This is exactly what led Bitcoiners to think it was natural to peak at $100,000 to $200,000 during the last market cycle. It’s a type of idea. This assumption was brutally shattered by a double top of 69,000, which is only about 3.5 times the previous high.
The nature of the digital age we live in, and the many fundamental changes we have seen in a short period of time in our lifetimes, is the assumption that the present is indicative of the nature of the future. It’s supposed to sway people from, but for many it doesn’t.
First, many people who are not currently self-managing their coins do not even understand the difference between self-managing and coins sitting on Coinbase. To many uninformed users, they are all just apps that hold Bitcoin. I’ve encountered this misconception countless times while interacting with new users in this field. These users are not yet aware of their potential, so it would be completely foolish and presumptuous to discount them.
Second, users who choose not to self-manage at this time typically do so for fear of losing their keys. It’s not a fear of “responsibility”. It’s the fear of not properly handling redundancies in key management and losing everything you’ve invested through incompetence, legitimate mistakes, or freak accidents.
This isn’t 2013 anymore. People no longer make backups of individual private keys in digital files. Since then, key management schemes have come a long way. Mnemonic seeds, multi-signature wallets, etc. Although not widely used, basic vaults that use pre-signed transactions also exist. Tools exist that allow you to utilize self-storage in a way that provides a safeguard and assistance in case a mistake is made or a coin key is lost.
Unchained exists. Casa exists. Nunchaku exists. Bitkey exists. All of these tools will only get better over time. These recovery-friendly self-custody schemes, powered by Schnorr and Taproot, can blind third-party servers, so during signing and during normal use, these services do not store coins held by users or co-signers. You don’t learn anything about the transactions that you do. Taproot allows wallets to delegate emergency recovery keys to friends and family without having to know anything about the coins unless needed.
Self-custody tools are evolving, and as technology advances significantly, people’s attitudes about self-custody will change as well. It’s pure arrogance to discount the need for scalability because there are reasons not to do so right now.
It’s nothing more than an “I have mine, so everyone else is fucked” attitude. Just because the current state of the world is in a particular direction does not guarantee that it will continue to be that way in the future. Only arrogant people think that way.
This article is a take. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
