Now, I know the trouble with quoting Satoshi. Bitcoin is ultimately a social construct. It is what we decide that it is, but if Bitcoin is not held by the people who use it, if it succumbs to the failings of gold, then it holds no purpose whatsoever. Traditional accounting systems for gold would do just fine.

However, it is actually the EASIEST thing in the entire world to hold for yourself and that is the hope we've put into it for success. Evidence counter to that is evidence counter to our hope for Bitcoin itself.

It IS easy though. Liana wallet for example encourages multi-sig with many devices. It's idea is that if you lose a key, you have a backup somewhere else.

We have companies dedicated to teaching people how to hold it themselves too: https://www.thebitcoinway.com/ Liana, Unchained, and River all also have hand holding self-custody training.

Padawan Wallet is a testnet Bitcoin wallet designed to teach you how to use Bitcoin without risking any money.

While I will admit, that I wish for more tooling designed around this initial teaching phase, I counter myself by pointing out how much effort, how much focus is put on custodians rather than building out those tools. It seems everyone wants to hold onto your money for you. Everyone wants to tell you that its too hard and that you shouldn't bother to try. Only Bitcoiners who oftentimes lost money from counter-party risk themselves try to correct that problem.

"If You Don't Hold it, You Don't Own it" as the gold bugs say, but that's exactly the reason the gold bugs ran into trouble. Unlike Bitcoin, its too difficult to hold, verify against counterfeit, and exchange without a counter-party