Bitcoin proponent equates cryptocurrency custodial services to modern-day bank robbery schemes

Andreas Antonopoulos, a well-known Bitcoin proponent and author of Mastering Bitcoin, gave his opinion on whether Bitcoin custodial wallets and banks are a threat to the hard money quality of Bitcoin, in his recent Q&A video on Youtube.

The Bitcoin proponent was questioned about whether he thought that the custodial wallet and Bitcoin banks could threaten the hard money quality of Bitcoin. This was followed after it was stated that the hard money aspect of Bitcoin has the potential to remove the government’s ability to steal their citizens through inflation with the motive of funding corruption and wars.

Antonopoulos stated that Bitcoin is completely undermined as it can be directly stolen if not through inflation. He went on to say:

“One way to do that is just to go in and seize all of that Bitcoin directly from the custodial accounts, which will start happening in different countries, right. So again, depending on how you look at it in modern societies, bank robberies nowadays happen in a very different way than they used to.”

The author claimed that the most successful bank robberies at present are carried out by people with a banking license. However, this is not classified as theft as the people stealing the money then legalize the stolen money, he added. This would result in no one being apprehended for the crime. This, according to him, is a “far better way” to rob a bank in comparison to the earlier days wherein thieves would use a machine gun. He added:

“Being a regulator in the banking industry, even better than having a banking license. If you want to rob a bank, being a central banker, say the European Union, allows you to rob an entire country. Like what happened to Greece and Cyprus and again far far better than using a gun because you just take 10 million people hostage.”

Antonopoulos further spoke about the risks in Bitcoin’s custodial system, which is a result of centralization and concentration of power. He stated that the risk would become “systemic risks”. He explained:

“when you have institutional custodial systems, like that the people who can rob them, are the people who have authority over them and they don’t need inflation to do that.”