1. Private Keys Associated With Your Bitcoins

In the traditional banking system, the bank guarantees the amount you have in fiat money in your account.

Your bank is responsible for what you have in fiat money.

If your bank gets hacked and loses millions of dollars, you will get your funds back because the bank is insured against this type of risk.

More and more often, banks are abusing their rights with what you have in your account.

As I explained earlier, many people have their transactions blocked by their banks, or even their assets frozen.

This is happening more and more often when individuals wish to send part of their fiat currency to trading platforms such as Coinbase, Kraken or Binance.

The banks use the fact that they want to protect you from danger as a justification for this censorship.

But you are probably well aware of what you are doing, and you just want to enjoy your hard-earned money as you want.

But you can’t.

With Bitcoin, things are totally different.

First of all, you need to understand that the expression “own Bitcoins” is a shortcut.

No one actually owns Bitcoins.

In reality, you own the cryptographic keys to part of the Bitcoin Blockchain.

This subtlety is essential to understand what is to come.

If you buy Bitcoins via a trading platform, and then leave your Bitcoins on that trading platform, then the trading platform will have the private keys to your Bitcoins.

The trading platform will then own your Bitcoins.

You will have the same risk of censorship as with the current monetary and financial system.

To really take care of your Bitcoins, you must transfer them immediately to a hardware wallet where you will be able to control the private keys of your Bitcoins.

Never forget the following sentence which is simple to remember:

Not Your Keys, Not Your Bitcoins.

Once you have secured your Bitcoins on a hardware wallet, you should then be careful never to divulge your private keys to anyone else.

By taking these two precautions, you will be able to truly protect what you own in Bitcoins, while still being able to use them as you wish without the risk of censorship.