It is often said that "not your keys, not your coins" but as many people have unfortunately discovered, sometimes it is also "your keys, still not your coins". This is due to common mistakes made while doing self-custody such as not keeping backups or storing seed phrases in insecure ways.

Having done this and worked in IT security for years, I would like to share some tips for making sure your self-custody is done safely:

• Split your holdings into "hot" and "cold" wallets which are stored offline. Hot wallets are your everyday spending wallets whereas cold wallets are stored offline. You want the majority of your coins in cold wallets. It's fine to store a small amount of spending money on your PC or phone just like you would have cash in a wallet, but don't store $10,000 worth of BTC on your phone and then get on the subway with it.
• Make sure you keep at least one backup of your seed phrase. The 3-2-1 strategy is a great way to think of backups. You need three total co