Taking possession of your ETH

The big difference between buying a cryptocurrency like ETH and buying a "traditional" financial asset like a share in Apple is that with crypto-assets, you have the option to take custody of the asset yourself - and this has some important implications.

With traditional financial assets, there's always a middleman standing as a 'custodian' between you and the asset - and having that third party adds risk and cost. The risk comes from opaque accounting practices and the chance of bankruptcy. The cost comes from the overhead associated with holding your assets on your behalf. Beyond risk and cost, custodians also make it more difficult for you to use your assets exactly as you wish. For example, in the custodial model, while you may "own" a share of Apple, what you actually have is a claim or an IOU. You can't send it to your friend and, when you want to trade it, you're must ask the platform (broker) for permission to do so.

By contrast, crypto-assets are built to be 'non-custodial' and 'permissionless.' This means that you can take true possession of your assets and use them however you like. This is similar to the way you hold cash notes, but since crypto-assets exist in the digital realm, you can interact at a global scale and at the speed of the Internet.

Surprisingly, the reality is that, even though it's possible to take true possession of your crypto-assets, most people don't! The majority of crypto-assets continue to be held by custodians on centralized exchange platforms. This is likely due to the fact that, until recently, there weren't easy-to-use tools for taking possession of your crypto. Luckily, that's all changed.

Now there are simple but powerful 'digital wallets' like the Bitcoin.com Wallet that make it easy to take control of your crypto-assets.

With the Bitcoin.com Wallet, not only can you quickly buy and sell ETH (and a range of other select cryptocurrencies), you can also securely hold your crypto-assets. In other words, you - and only you - will have access to your assets, and you can use them exactly how you want. That means you're free to send them, receive them, and trade them - 24/7, no questions asked. Even if Bitcoin.com ceases to exist, you'll always have full control over your crypto-assets.

Read more: How to create an Ethereum Wallet and why you need one.