When Bitcoin ETFs Protect You From Yourself

PlanB, a well-known Bitcoin advocate, has announced that he sold his Bitcoin holdings in favor of Bitcoin ETF shares.

As you probably know, ETFs have nothing in common with Bitcoin except the price. It's surprising to see someone who understands Bitcoin well suddenly act as if price is all that matters.

PlanB justified his decision by saying he didn't want to worry about maintaining control of his private keys.

This is concerning! It's not the first time an influencer has promoted the idea that self-custody is dangerous. Michael Saylor made similar statements before. We might be witnessing the early stages of a campaign to sway public opinion against Bitcoin's most crucial feature - financial sovereignty.

Though if we look at the crypto space with some irony, there might actually be some benefits to choosing ETFs over actual Bitcoin these days.

Picture this scenario:

• You see a tweet from yet another head of state promoting their country's meme token
• You can't resist the temptation and decide to invest all your savings in this token
• You need $SOL for the investment, but don't have any

If you hold real Bitcoin, you could quickly swap it for Solana, invest in the new token, and... lose most of your holdings.

But if you have Bitcoin ETF shares instead, you can't exchange them that easily or quickly. By the time you could complete the exchange, the tweet would already be deleted, and you'd realize it was a scam attempt.

I used to think national tokens were a brilliant idea. However, the wave of scams surrounding them from the very beginning ruins any appeal. It seems that every time someone exchanges any cryptocurrency for Solana on rabbit.io, we should display a warning: "Need Solana for meme token investments - be careful! It's probably a scam attempt!"

If you find yourself unable to resist scammers, self-custody might not be the right choice for you. Otherwise, Not your keys - not your coins.