Glossary
Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins
A crypto adage warning that funds held by an exchange or custodian are not truly yours — only assets in a self-custody wallet you control are yours unconditionally.
"Not your keys, not your coins" is the canonical crypto adage about custody risk. Cryptocurrency held on an exchange — Mt. Gox, QuadrigaCX, FTX, Celsius, BlockFi — is technically not yours. You hold an IOU; if the exchange fails, the funds may be lost or locked up in bankruptcy for years.
True ownership requires holding the private keys to the wallet that holds the assets. The phrase entered mainstream crypto vocabulary after Mt. Gox in 2014 and gained renewed weight after each subsequent exchange failure.