Why it’s important to have control over your own crypto keys

• You may have heard of the old saying “Not your keys; not your coins”. 
• Justin Winston Ono Wales takes this saying seriously and he used the recent ruling in the Archer vs Coinbase case in order to explain how important this old saying is.

You may have heard of the old saying “Not your keys; not your coins”. The allegedly bitcoin obsessed attorney, Justin Winston Ono Wales takes this saying seriously and he used the recent ruling in the  Archer vs Coinbase case in order to explain how important this old saying is.

This case highlights that if you don’t control your own private keys within the crypto space, there are a plethora of things that can go wrong with that would lead to a loss of funds. The reason that this is so serious is because nothing that even the law can do can help you recover the losses.

The Coinbase platform has even been sued by one of its users Darrell Archer; he said they refused to provide him with Bitcoin Gold which he believes he was entitled to following a Bitcoin hard fork.

Writing in a Twitter thread, Wales gave his analysis and explained the issues that come from not holding your own coins.

“‘Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins’ is officially case law thanks to a new California appellate court decision.”

Speaking on Archer’s case, he said he expected to receive a large amount of this Cryptocurrency but his own actions essentially prevented him from ever controlling these coins. He explains below:

“As we know, BTC can be forked into new currencies for lots of reasons by near anyone. As someone that holds Bitcoin you’re entitled to an equivalent number of forked coins. In other words, your Bitcoin includes the value of all its forks. But accessing your forked coins is only guaranteed if you hold your own private keys! If you let someone else custody your crypto it is up to their discretion whether to give you your forked assets.”

Archer expected that the platform would accept the newly forked currency on its platform and handle all the logistics involved with it but unfortunately for him, this was a currency that was never accepted onto the exchange.

It will be interesting to see how this situation plays out. For more news on this and other crypto updates, keep it with CryptoDaily!