[howdydoo]

Crypto isn't intented to remove middlemen. It's intended to give people the choice of who to trust. People can choose to trust an exchange, or to self-custody, and deal with the consequences in either direction.

If I choose to self-custody, it's much safer to memorize a seed phrase than to store cash in my mattress. Most people don't bother and use banks. But I think it's good that people now have a choice in the matter.

[acdha]

> Crypto isn't intented to remove middlemen

That isn’t what the sales pitch has been for the last 13 years, with lots of fanciful rhetoric about removing the need for banks (“you can be your own bank!” is basically a cliché by now).

> If I choose to self-custody, it's much safer to memorize a seed phrase than to store cash in my mattress.

Are you sure about this? Lots of people have been phished or compromised, whereas someone breaking in and searching your house is relatively uncommon and limited to people in the same area whereas your cryptocurrency can be stolen by anyone in the world.

[howdydoo]

People give sales pitches for lots of things. You don't have to listen to them.

> Are you sure about this?

Whether I'm sure or not... I think everyone should be given the choice.

[RichardHeart]

I'll quote the first sentence from the Bitcoin whitepaper. "A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution."

[wmf]

Right; it allows not using middlemen but it doesn't force it. Forced decentralization is a mostly unsolved problem.