Authored by Martin Young via CoinTelegraph.com,
MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor backpedaled on his comment that big banks should take custody of Bitcoin following a torrent of backlash from the crypto community.
“I support self-custody for those willing and able, the right to self-custody for all, and freedom to choose the form of custody and custodian for individuals and institutions globally,” Saylor declared in a post on X on Oct. 23.
Saylor has been taking heat from the crypto community, including Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, after calling out “paranoid crypto-anarchists” in a recent interview.
At the same time, he suggested that Bitcoin holders should trust their assets to “too big to fail” banks that are “engineered to be custodians of financial assets.”
“Bitcoin benefits from all forms of investment by all types of entities, and should welcome everyone,” Saylor added as part of his apparent redemption post on X.
Source: Michael Saylor
VanEck adviser Gabor Gurbacs responded, saying this shouldn’t be a controversial position, “just common sense.”
Dash marketer Joel Valenzuela said it was “capitulation,” adding that Saylor showed his “true colors.”
The Oct. 21 interview sparked debate about self-custody but also enraged Bitcoiners such as Samson Mow, who mocked the “crypto-anarchist” label.
On Oct. 23, Max Keiser said: “The recent comments attacking self-custody demonstrate a regressive tendency to favor the legacy, centralized banking crooks that Bitcoin fixes.”
Backlash from industry influencers. Source: Weiss Crypto
On Oct. 23, the CEO of hardware wallet manufacturer Ledger, Pascal Gauthier, told Cointelegraph, “There is no crypto without self-custody, so it’s a bit of a moot point if all coins go to an ETF or an exchange,” while plugging his products at a blockchain event in Dubai.
Still, this method of self-custody doesn’t come without risk, as the company was hacked in 2020, resulting in a massive data breach and hundreds of thousands of Ledger customers’ personal details being sold on the dark web, leading to a wave of phishing attacks that is still going on today.