Full Custody 🪃

Short, practical drops on culture and technology. 🚀

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To the community 🙏

Good morning! ☀️

A few years back I was designing an entrepreneur development curriculum specifically for immigrant entrepreneurs who were new to the Canadian market. I divided the curriculum in to two parts: tactics vs. strategies.

🤝 Tactics, being those things you and I have to do every day. They're technical. You need permits. You need widgets. You need social handles. That kind of thing.

💡 Strategies, being the long-game. Your sales strategy, your value proposition and your understanding of the problem you're actually solving.

Podcast host Jocko Willink (he's getting really good) lays out the difference in a military context in this short, yet epic, welcome to the new year. 👇

Of course, strategy is far more interesting. In fact, it's the whole game. For example, my media start-up has produced hundreds of podcast episodes and we don't even have a website. A lesson in keeping the main thing the main thing. 👇

BUT, we all need tactics. We all need good tools. I believe that's part of the reason you've joined this community. I wanted to peel back the curtain this morning and show you some of the tools I'm using to take full custody of a percentage of my wealth. 🚀

Disclaimer: This is not financial advice. I would be unqualified to give that. It's a deep-dive in to a topic that fascinates me and is at the core of culture x technology. DYOR.

Full custody ⚡️

There is something incredibly empowering about taking full custody of a percentage of your wealth. Yes, it's a big responsibility. But it's also an opportunity.

In 2021 we saw videos of Lebanese citizens attempting to break in to local banks that had turned off the taps. The countries currency and economy were collapsing in tandem and its citizens had been locked out. Paradoxically, the vaults contain what is supposed to be their money, right?

How could someone deny you access to your own money? Isn’t the bank simply a repository of funds that you have access to 24/7, 365? No. Ask the people of Lebanon or Greece. Both modern ‘democracies’ that have, at one point or another in the 21st-century, closed their bank vault doors to their own citizens because of one economic crisis or another.

Bitcoin fixes this 🌍

Storing your own wealth, before Bitcoin, was next to impossible for most, and operating outside of sanctioned state infrastructure was intimidating. You’re either hoarding cash in your home or moving your money off-shore (for the financially privileged). In fact, many still live day-to-day in cash, as billions remain unbanked.

Alex Gladstein of the Human Right's Foundation is writing the essays on bitcoin's impact on global culture. 👇

What wallets do I use? 📲

As many of you who are not new to the industry know, there is a bitcoin vs. DeFi element in the community at large. I see both sides. 

From a custody perspective, leaving your coins on exchange is no-bueno. Sure, it's perfectly safe most of the time but I don't want any significant sums left on exchange. I want them in my wallet. Software wallets (and your seed phrase that protects them) is actually a fascinating new way to move around the internet. I unpacked that a little bit in a recent posts on the new keys to the internet. 🔑

Let's take a look at some of my favourite software wallets (we'll do hardware in the future for the advanced among you. I see you Stan. 👀)

Bitcoin ⚡️

• Exodus is so good

• Casa is a really cool multi-sig alternative

• Coinbase is a good entry point for most users

• Muun for the ⚡️ users among you

DeFi 🤝

• Can't beat Rainbow!

• Folks often enter the sector through Metamask (for some reason)

• Coinbase again!

Let's grow! 🪃

Surely there is someone in your community who should be here with us, no? That purple button below is our community portal and it unlocks a really fun journey of exploration in to how the world works. 👇

I look forward to seeing who you bring, and I look forward to seeing what you build. 🚀

Gratitude 🙏

I feel lucky to have you on the other end of this newsletter. If you haven't yet, join the community. 👇

See you on the path.

- MG