The phrase was coined by the DigiByte Community and spread across social media for months and months on end. In reference to the recent drama unfolding in the proof of stake crypto land these days it’s just become evermore important to understand the deeper meaning of the tagline – “Not Your Keys Not Your DigiByte” or not your Crypto to expand beyond DGB in cold storage.
Understanding this concept is essential to understand principles of self-custody, immutability, freedom of speech & true ownership. Ultimately it’s about keeping your assets safe. Bitcoin/DigiByte were invented to enable OWNERSHIP, to be exchanged peer-to-peer and without the involvement of 3rd parties. The concept is to remove the need for trust. To create trustless systems.
Exchanges play an important part in providing onboarding capabilities, often called on/off-ramps towards anyone who wants to start getting involved with cryptocurrency. They usually are the first choice to anyone who has yet to make a crypto currency purchase. An exchange enables almost anyone to wire money from a bank account to an exchange and to then use these funds to purchase or exchange between cryptocurrencies. Hence, they provide a convenient option for anyone to start dabbling into buying crypto currency and to convert fiat currency into DigiByte, Bitcoin, Litecoin or other cryptocurrencies.
Once a purchase or exchange is made, it’s all about storage & safe keeping. Storage is safer when disconnected from the internet. Therefore a cold storage hardware wallet, possibly with a physical button that needs to be pressed on the hardware of the device to which you hold the private keys, is many times safer than to leave your coins on an exchange. Many quality exchanges are even encouraging their customers to take custody and store cold. Also, storing coins in a cold wallet assures that these coins are taken out of circulation which helps realising the true scarcity of the finite, proof of work, UTXO coins such as DigiByte.
The DigiByte Foundation has entered into Affiliate Partnerships with 4 established and well known hardware wallets. The Affiliate income will be used and re-invested into developer bounties and/or education and marketing campaigns to build greater awareness for the DigiByte Blockchain. In the event that you are still looking for a HardWare Wallet for yourself or as a Gift for a friend or relative, please check out the wallets we are currently working with:
The first and one of the most popular wallets around is the Trezor:
Trezor affiliate link
Another popular and established hardware wallet are called Ledger:
Ledger affiliate link
Another newer contender in the cold wallet space is ElliPal with their AirGapped Cold Wallet:
Ellipal affiliate link
Last but not least SafePal is another hardware wallet in support of DigiByte, offering a very cost competitive device for your considerations:
Safepal affiliate link
The DigiByte Blockchain offers an important promise to its holders, which is the concept of non-dilutive ownership. If you own one DigiByte in a wallet to which you hold the private keys, then you truly own one out of 21 billion units. One DigiByte remains 1 DigiByte out of a finite, hard capped total out of 21 Billion DigiBytes ever to be brought into circulation. Removing your coins into a cold storage device of your choice assures safety of your crypto-assets, it decentralises value and reduces incentives for hackers to get to your coins since only an individual, not a collective value is stored in a person’s cold wallet.
Also, do not overlook NON-Custodial Exchanges, such as https://changeangel.io/ , https://changenow.io/ and/or https://changelly.com/ . All 3 enable buyers to buy DigiByte and many other coins via a simple KYC and a credit card. Purchased coins will not be held in custody. Instead the coins you bought will be sent directly into your wallet, to which you should hold the private keys.
Non custodial exchanges are a great way to dollar cost average into DigiByte on a regular basis and to accumulate coins in cold wallets, simply by using the credit cards and a DGB (or other assets address) to which you have unconditional access to.
Last but not least, the market share of decentralised exchanges is growing by the day. Hence, non-custodial, peer to peer, decentralised exchanges, are likely to grow in relevance quickly from here forward.
Decentralised Exchanges such as https://komodoplatform.com/en/ and their atomic swap technology enable native trades of cryptocurrency across blockchains safe, fast, easy and without a middleman. Wallet to Wallet, because remember, NOT YOUR KEYS NOT YOUR DigiByte.
