Why I'd rather own Bitcoin than leave my money in the bank

Banks, at their core, I think are an extremely good thing.

Imagine a small village. You have money. You don't need it right away, so you put it in the bank. The bank takes part of that money and lends it to an entrepreneur in the village.

He has an idea: opening a huge Texas-style BBQ restaurant. He buys equipment. He hires people. He opens his restaurant. The village loves it.

People come to eat, have a good time, and the entrepreneur earns enough money to pay back his loan. The bank collects the interest on the credit. It passes part of it back to you for leaving your money with it.

The result: you made money without building the restaurant. The banker was paid for connecting savings with a project. The entrepreneur was able to create his business. Jobs were created. And the village now has an excellent BBQ.

Everyone gained something. That is probably one of the finest functions of a bank.

But what actually happens when you deposit your money?

In everyday language, we say: "I put my money in the bank." It gives the impression that the money is sitting in a safe with your name on it. That is generally not how it works.

When you put money into a bank account, what you mainly own is a claim against the bank. The bank owes you that amount.

Your app may display 10,000 CHF. But that does not mean that ten 1,000 franc notes are stored somewhere with a label bearing your name. You trust the bank to be able to give your money back when you ask for it.

And in an economy that works well, that can be perfectly logical. The bank uses those savings to finance the economy. In exchange, you get security, services and ideally a return. Fine.

But I started asking myself a simple question.

What if the deal became less interesting?

Now let's imagine another world. You deposit your money in the bank. You receive almost no interest. Sometimes you even pay various fees to keep your account and use the banking services.

Meanwhile, the small entrepreneur in your village struggles to find funding. Credit goes primarily to the projects considered the least risky, to large companies, to property or to other already well-established players. Our future BBQ restaurant may never see the light of day.

So you handed your money to an intermediary. You carry part of the risk. You receive little return. And you don't necessarily feel that your capital is directly financing the projects you would have liked to contribute to.

So a question comes up naturally: Why am I leaving my money there?

For security?

That is probably the first answer. A bank is practical. Payments work. Cards work. Transfers work. You can get your money back quickly. And in many countries, there are also deposit guarantee schemes.

So I am absolutely not claiming that banks are useless. I use banks myself. That is not the problem.

The problem appears when two things get confused: using a bank as a service and seeing a bank as the best possible place to keep all of your value. These are not the same thing.

With Bitcoin, the relationship changes

Bitcoin showed me another possibility. Owning a digital asset directly. Without having to hold a claim against a bank.

If I really own my private keys, I don't own a promise of bitcoin. I own bitcoin.

There is no company in the middle that has to pay me back later. No manager who has to approve my withdrawal. No internal account in a private database that I simply have to hope will still be there tomorrow.

The Bitcoin network verifies ownership and transactions according to its rules. And I can control the keys that allow my bitcoins to be spent. That is an enormous difference.

Obviously, that comes with responsibility

Self-custody is not magic. When you hold your own bitcoins, you take back control. But you also take back the responsibility that goes with it.

If you lose your keys, nobody has a "forgot password" button. If your recovery phrase gets stolen, there is not necessarily a customer service to cancel the transaction. If you don't understand what you are doing, you can make mistakes.

That is the price of direct ownership. And I find that distinction interesting precisely for that reason.

The bank says: "Trust us, we keep your money for you." Bitcoin says instead: "Here are the rules. It is up to you to decide whether you want to take the responsibility."

I am not anti-bank

I think banks are enormously useful. I want to be able to pay my bills. Receive money. Use a card. Make a transfer. Perhaps borrow one day to finance a project.

What Bitcoin changed in me is not a desire to get rid of banks. It is the way I see them. A bank is now, for me, a service. Not necessarily the place where I want to store all my savings for decades.

I can use the banking system without being forced to entrust it with all of my value. And that is where my perspective changed.

Before, I thought: "I have money, so I put it in the bank." Today, I ask myself: "Why am I putting it in the bank?"

Is it to make payments? To receive my salary? To benefit from a particular service? Fine.

But to keep part of my wealth over the long term? These days I prefer to own part of my value directly. And for that, I chose Bitcoin.

A new perspective

I have not stopped using banks. I simply use them for what they are: financial intermediaries.

And when I don't need an intermediary, I like knowing that another option exists. Owning. Not just holding a claim. Not just seeing a number in someone else's app. Actually owning the asset.

I am not trying to leave the banking system entirely. I am simply trying to stop depending on it for everything.

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