How to get your Bitcoin off the exchange and into your own hands

Why this matters

On 29 October 2026, hackers took about US$6.3 billion from Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, in what has been reported as the largest crypto theft on record. Binance said it would cover the losses, but it paused withdrawals while it investigated, so customers couldn't move their own Bitcoin off the exchange.

The lesson isn't panic. It's that when your Bitcoin sits on an exchange, someone else decides when you can access it.

An exchange can fail you in more than one way. It can be hacked, it can pause or freeze withdrawals, it can freeze an individual account, or it can become insolvent. Each of these is a single point of failure you don't control. Self-custody removes them, but only if your own setup doesn't create new ones. A single seed phrase kept in one place is itself a single point of failure.

Sources: Binance, BBC, CoinDesk.

What the presentation covers

• Why Bitcoin belongs in self-custody, and the points of failure you take on when an exchange holds it for you.
• The trade-offs between self-custody setups, including a single-signature hardware wallet, multisig and collaborative custody, weighed on security, convenience, inheritance and single points of failure, so you can choose the right setup for you.
• How to design a setup with no single point of failure, and where multi-key (multisig), recovery and inheritance planning fit.

Your presenter

Presented by Tayne Perry, founder of Bitcoin Paradigm and author of The New Australian Dream.

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