Wallets & Security
Somebody holds the keys to your coins. The only question is who.
Custodial means a service holds them. Non-custodial means you do. Both models work, both models fail, and this lesson is about making that a decision rather than an accident.
The problem
Ask for your coins back.
Same request, two custody models. Run it on both sides — then make each side fail in the way that side actually fails.
One request, two models
ILLUSTRATIVE MODELA service holds the keys. The figure is illustrative — what happens to it is the point.
You hold the keys. The figure is illustrative — what happens to it is the point.
Both balances are movable. Press Withdraw on either side to send the same request through it.
Both sides delivered. On the custodial side the request had to be reviewed by somebody else, and it was approved — quickly, in a couple of taps. On the non-custodial side there was no request at all: you signed, and a signature is not something anyone grants. That is the structural difference in one line — parties who must agree, 1 versus 0. Now break each side.
Neither side survived. The custodial failure came from somebody else: the balance still shows, access runs through the platform, and you wait. The non-custodial failure came from you: the balance still shows, on a register everyone can read, and nobody replaces a lost seed. Same end state, opposite causes — and the model you pick decides which kind of failure you are exposed to, not whether you are exposed.
Read the second readout honestly, in both directions. The party that can stop you is also the party that can let you back in after a forgotten password — someone who knows they will lose a seed phrase is genuinely safer with a custodian. And the model with nobody to ask is also the model with nobody to refuse — someone who does not want a platform’s condition deciding when they can move is safer holding their own keys. Neither of those is a recommendation. They are the two shapes the same request can take.
The definition
Three claims worth turning over.
Tap each card for what sits behind it.
Hands on
Six rows, answered twice.
Switch models and read what changes. The rows stay put — only the answers move, and neither column is a recommendation.
Custodial
Two designs, each with a strength and the cost attached to it. The pair you are in right now is a fact about your setup, not a verdict on it.
The bridge
Four checkpoints.
Who holds the keys, how you get in, and what each side looks like when it goes wrong.
“Not your keys, not your coins” is not an order to withdraw everything immediately — it is a reminder that custody is a decision. Active trading on a platform and long-term self-custody can coexist. The only requirement: at any moment, you know who holds the keys. The next lesson moves from who holds them to where they are kept — which wallet fits which purpose, starting with the kind that stays connected.
Check yourself
Five questions.
Answers come straight from this lesson. Submitting completes it.