Hello! I am John and I want to teach the Steemit community about the importance of holding your own private keys and the use of hardware wallets.

Hello everyone! I have seen that there is a big crypto community on Steemit, and I think I can play an important role by educating people about holding the private keys in a proper way to prevent theft, lost or confiscation and enhance privacy. I think too many people (especially newbies) are still storing their coins on exchanges, while the ability to own your own money is one of the biggest features of crypto!

HELLO STEEMIT!

KEEP YOUR OWN KEYS!!

Bitcoin is the first money owned by the people, so people: Own it!

It takes some education to learn how to store your cryptocurrency securely and without a 3rd party involved, but once you learned it you can benefit all the privileges that Bitcoin is designed to give you. Exchanges are actually crypto banks, so when you store your crypto’s on an exchange it is not different than holding your money in a bank, and Bitcoin was created to circumvent the banks. See below the difference between an Exchange VS Storing your own keys:

1: KYC and AML VS Private
2: Can be frozen VS Always ready to use
3: Counterparty risk VS Own responsibility
4: Giant centralised honeypot VS Spread out small amounts

Who can explain it better than Andreas Antonopolus?

A hardware wallet is the easiest way to keep your own keys properly

There are many ways to keep your own keys like an hot wallet, paper wallet, brain wallet and of course a hardware wallet. Generally said: The easiest way to do it is often not secure and the most secure way is often not easy. With a hardware wallet you will get the best of both, it is almost as secure as a paper wallet and as easy as a hot wallet. The only downside is that you have to invest some money.

With Bitcoin you can be your own bank, but you have to do it properly.

I use hardware wallets myself

I am a very happy user of hardware wallets, I use the Trezor and Ledger Nano S as well. The Trezor I use for my long term holdings (BTC and LTC) and the Ledger for daily payments and short term alt coin trades. When I want to trade between two coins I normally use Shapeshift so that I don’t need to sign up, deposit and withdrawal etc., when Shapeshift doesn’t support a certain coin the use of an exchange is unavoidable, but I only use it where it is designed to use for: To exchange!

Why Steemit

I think Steemit is a perfect platform for me, it is growing fast, doing amazing things and everyone loves cryptocurrencies. I also like the fact that I can send my earnings directly to my hardware wallet through Blocktrades, no fiat service will be involved. I hope I can add something to this amazing platform, and I am sure this platform can add something for me!