Trezor Executive: Bitcoin “All Into ETFs” or the Worst Path—Threatening the Core Principle of Self-Custody

BlockBeats News, June 15 — A senior executive at hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor said that the market’s trend of fully pushing Bitcoin into ETFs may pose a long-term risk to the core tenets of the crypto industry.

According to comments by the company’s Chief Business Officer Danny Sanders during the BTC Prague event, the current global number of crypto users is about 600 million, but only around 10% of users choose to self-custody assets, and only about 12 million to 13 million users use hardware wallets.

Since the launch of US spot Bitcoin ETFs in 2024, which have accumulated inflows of over $53 billion, Bitcoin’s institutional allocation has increased significantly. However, Sanders noted that this trend may also weaken users’ behavior of directly holding private keys.

He believes that self-custody is one of the core attributes of the Bitcoin system, but there are still significant challenges in terms of user experience and security barriers. More users still tend to participate in the market through custody tools such as exchanges or ETFs.

Sanders emphasized that the industry should focus on improving the usability and security of self-custody, rather than simply accepting the path of “putting Bitcoin into ETFs.” He said that if the long-term evolution becomes a holding structure dominated by ETFs, it would weaken Bitcoin’s fundamental logic as a decentralized asset, which could be the industry’s “least desirable outcome.”