Vitalik Buterin Thinks Michael Saylor’s Recent Comments On Regulated Bitcoin Custody Are ‘Batshit Insane’

Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin has added his voice to the recent criticism over MicroStrategy co-founder Michael Saylor’s assertion that concern regarding the use of regulated institutions for Bitcoin custody was mostly from “paranoid crypto-anarchists.” Buterin went as far as calling Saylor’s statement “insane.”

Buterin Bashes Saylor’s Pro-Bank Bitcoin Custody Approach

During an Oct. 21 interview with markets reporter Madison Reidy, Saylor was asked whether leaving Bitcoin custody to large banks and third-party entities poses a centralization risk, with the potential for government confiscation of people’s crypto holdings. Saylor controversially suggested that Bitcoiners have nothing to lose by moving their Bitcoin holdings to institutions.

Anybody suggesting that a state-sanctioned Bitcoin seizure is possible is a “paranoid crypto-anarchist,” Saylor declared when asked whether the United States government might take away Bitcoin holders’ rights to self-custody like it made holding gold illegal in 1933.

The MicroStrategy founder claimed it would be better to rely on “too big to fail” banks” that are “engineered to be custodians of financial assets” instead of depending on hardware wallets.

Buterin disagreed in a subsequent post on X. “I’ll happily say that I think Saylor’s comments are batshit insane,” he noted, adding that Saylor appeared to be “explicitly arguing for a regulatory capture approach to protecting crypto.” The Canadian programmer behind Bitcoin’s main competitor further indicated that such an approach does not align with crypto’s core tenets.

Buterin was responding to Jameson Lopp, cypherpunk and co-founder of Bitcoin self-custody platform Casa HODL, who warned, “Bitcoin self-custody isn’t just about being a paranoid mountain man. There are many long-term negative ramifications to convincing people to trust third-party custodians.”

Saylor’s Apparent Reversal From Self-Custody

Saylor’s recent comments on Bitcoin custody mark a notable U-turn from his previous beliefs. Shortly after the implosion of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX in November 2022, Saylor argued that Bitcoin self-custody deterred powerful custodians from contaminating the Bitcoin ecosystem.

The Bitcoin billionaire emphasized that self-custody is vital in maintaining the security and integrity of blockchains since without it, there cannot be a decentralized network. 

Saylor even advised Bitcoin holders to memorize their 12-word seed phrase and to tell people to “f*** themselves” if they come for them.

Saylor’s software intelligence company MicroStrategy is currently the world’s largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, with a stockpile of 252,220 BTC valued at nearly $17 billion. 

Earlier this year, Saylor forecasted that Bitcoin would reach $13 million per coin by 2045.