Unlike a regular bank account, no one can freeze you out of your bitcoin or cryptocurrency account. No one can unilaterally take money from it. This is because bitcoin is decentralised, with the blockchain running on millions of computers globally, owned by everyone and no one. For years, the press and influencers have likened owning cryptocurrency to being ‘your own bank’. The downsides are when you store your tokens in a wallet that’s really not yours – for example, on a crypto exchange. If the exchange itself is hacked, you lose your tokens. This happened most famously in 2016 when … Continue reading With bitcoin, “you are your own bank” – but that has downsides