Why crypto keys are necessary, but so hard to remember - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 295 - by cryptohunt.it

Why crypto keys are necessary, but so hard to remember

Welcome to the Cryptohunt Jam, where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain English.

This week, we’ll host several episodes to help you move your crypto into wallets only you control, so you can’t fall victim to a collapsing exchange. We’ll start today by explaining why crypto keys are the literal key to achieving that.

Remember: When you have your money parked with an exchange, like Binance, Coinbase, or the now collapsed FTX, you don’t own it. They do.

But crypto was invented to avoid this ownership problem. Crypto wallets on every blockchain can only be accessed by the owner of the wallet’s key - so our goal is to make you one.

Here’s why it works that way. Think of crypto wallets as safes, made from indestructible glass, on display in a public place. Everyone can see what’s in them through that glass, yet only the person who knows a safe’s combination code can unlock it.

But the safe was constructed by engineers. They are really good programmers, so good in fact that it is virtually impossible for anyone to guess a safe’s password. But engineers rarely make things very usable, and the same is the case here: The tradeoff is, that the password is so hard to remember, that you’ll want to write it down. It’s a mess: random characters and numbers, and lots of them.

This is the reason why you hear about people in the news who lost a fortune in an old crypto wallet: They didn’t make a note of the password way back in the early days, and now they are locked out forever.

So: Now that you understand all of that, you are thinking: I want my money in a safe that I control, not someone else or a company I don’t fully trust. But how do I make sure I don’t lose that stupidly complicated password?

Don’t worry. We are here to help. Tomorrow we’ll discuss how to set up a wallet, and then we’ll talk about options to keep the key safe.

Also: We’ve collaborated with my old friend Alex Valaitis from Web3 Pills on a course about Solana! Be sure to check out the new course on Cryptohunt and make sure to subscribe to the outstanding Web3 Pills newsletter at Web3Pills.com. He covers crypto news every day. So if you are ready to go deeper into crypto and web3 Alex has the right content for you.

This podcast is produced by Cryptohunt.it the easiest place to learn crypto. Copywriting is done by Arndt Voges, Social Media is done by Brett Holleman, Design is done by Carmen Rincon and my name is Christian Byza, Co-Founder of Cryptohunt and I am your host of this daily show.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.