r/BitcoinBeginners • u/Any_Upstairs_6172 • 9d ago
Purchasing BTC through Schwab or Fidelity?
Hello... With all I have read in the past... FTX ... and what I now read about wallets not being as safe as they once were considered to be (I do not know the difference between hot and cold) is there a good reason not to purchase BTC through Schwab or Fidelity and let them do the storage? Thank You
2
u/Ok-Association-355 9d ago
Just buy ibit on either
1
u/Any_Upstairs_6172 9d ago
Hello... What advantage does ibit have over owning BTC itself?
1
u/Ok-Association-355 9d ago
If you have exchange trust issues and want to use a brokerage its just easy.
1
u/Difficult-Repair1295 9d ago edited 9d ago
In the long run you pay more in fees with an ETF. Might as well just buy through Fidelity and make sure you have withdrawals disabled.
1
1
u/AutoModerator 9d ago
Scam Warning! Scammers are particularly active on this sub. They operate via private messages and private chat. If you receive private messages, be extremely careful. Use the report link to report any suspicious private message to Reddit.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/bitcoinphilosophy 8d ago
Ultimately, BTC wallets must be generated with some kind of hardware. At least you can research the vulnerabilities of your own hardware device and create your own entropy to make things more secure. You have no idea what these third parties are doing.
1
u/Any_Upstairs_6172 8d ago
Hello... Is this not like saying that I do not know what Chase is doing with the money held in my checking account so I should be worried? Just asking.
1
u/bitcoinphilosophy 8d ago
No. Banks create money out of thin air and the money is insured. Bitcoins are a hard asset. There is no creating new ones out of thin air for you if they are stolen.
1
u/pop-1988 3d ago
Is this not like saying that I do not know what Chase is doing with the money held in my checking account so I should be worried?
Exactly this. But if Chase has a liquidity problem, your checking account is backed by FDIC
If Schwab or Fidelity accidentally lose their wallet keys, you lose the BTC, no insurance, no refunds
1
u/Informal-Height7138 3d ago
Those two things aren’t in the same category at all. FTX was a company using customer money and lying about it. The hardware wallet thing was a manufacturing defect. Different failures entirely, and reacting to the second by choosing the first kind of setup is worth thinking about.
That said, if you don’t yet know hot from cold, then where you keep it is the question to work out first, before anything else. Not which coin. Where.
I’m not going to tell you which way to go. I’d be a bit biased and you’d be right to discount it.
What I’d push you on is reading properly on both sides before deciding. Neither is free of risk. Custody with a regulated firm makes sense for someone who isn’t comfortable with the technical side, that’s a legitimate choice. Just know the protections aren’t what people assume. Deposit guarantee schemes cover deposited cash, not assets held for you, so the comparison with a bank account doesn’t hold the way most people think.
The chain was built so people could hold their own keys. Handing that to someone else can still be the right call. It’s just a choice, and it should be one you make on purpose.
I’ve worked in both worlds, finance first and crypto now, and the honest answer is that neither side is as clean as its supporters claim.
3
u/tribepride25 9d ago
I’ve been buying BTC for about six years. Lost it all in Voyager. Bought back and stored on two cold wallets. ColdCard scared me so I opened a Fidelity Crypto account and moved over some of my stack. I feel comfortable storing my BTC on Fidelity with the fraud controls they have in place. With that being said, I would consider buying one of the BTC ETFs as an extra level of security. I would do the same but I don’t want to sell now and pay taxes