"Not your keys, not your coins" gets repeated a lot. Here's what it actually means 🔑

Every wallet answers one question: who holds the private key?

Custodial. A company holds the key for you – most exchange accounts work this way. Easy to start, but your access depends on their permission. If they freeze withdrawals, get hacked, or go under, your coins are caught in it. You can see the balance and still not move it. FTX and Celsius were exactly that.

Non-custodial. You hold the key. No company between you and your funds, no one to freeze or lend them out. The trade: recovery is on you, so lose the seed phrase and there's no support line to call.

So it comes down to what you'd rather own: someone else's promise, or your own responsibility. For anything you actually want to hold, keys you control remove a whole category of risk that has nothing to do with the market.

It's the same principle we build on: swaps on SimpleSwap move wallet-to-wallet, so your keys stay with you start to finish.