How to protect your crypto with cold wallets and metal vaults and plan your digital legacy, with Yosi Yomo and Inheritance
<h2>Financial sovereignty: crypto self-custody and digital inheritance</h2><h3>Overview</h3><p>Do you really control your money? This MERGE Madrid talk explores financial sovereignty with Bitcoin and P2P: how to regain control over your money and privacy, properly custody your crypto with cold wallets and metal vaults, and plan your digital legacy so your family is not left without access to your assets.</p><h3>What you'll learn</h3><ul><li><strong>What financial sovereignty is:</strong> having control of your funds, not necessarily being rich, in the face of account blocks or freezes</li><li><strong>Custody levels:</strong> from the bank and the exchange (delegated custody) to the hot wallet and the sovereign setup with a cold wallet</li><li><strong>The sovereign trinity:</strong> privacy, sovereignty and security of your assets</li><li><strong>Common self-custody mistakes:</strong> storing the seed phrase on paper, in Google Drive or in notes, and their risks</li><li><strong>Best practices:</strong> cold wallet, metal vaults, redundant copies in different locations and use of a passphrase</li><li><strong>Digital inheritance:</strong> how to add a digital layer to your will so assets are not lost upon death</li></ul><h3>Session summary</h3><p><strong>When everything works and when it doesn't:</strong> the speaker starts from the idea that we take control of our money for granted until it stops working, illustrating the risk with cases of accounts blocked or frozen across different countries and banks, traditional and digital.</p><p><strong>Sovereignty is not the same as financial freedom:</strong> he clarifies that financial sovereignty means having control of your funds —even just 100 euros— without anyone being able to block them arbitrarily, and that Bitcoin and blockchain return that control, with its advantages and also its responsibilities (you are your own bank).</p><p><strong>Custody levels:</strong> he describes a progression from level zero (everything at the bank) and the exchange, where you are not the custodian, to the hot wallet and, finally, a sovereign setup with a cold wallet, metal vaults and a legacy plan.</p><p><strong>The problem of poor custody:</strong> with real examples from his YouTube channel and well-known cases, he warns how easy it is to lose access by storing the seed phrase badly; paper does not withstand fire, water or time, and no one can recover a lost seed.</p><p><strong>Self-custody best practices:</strong> he recommends cold wallets disconnected from the internet, metal vaults with several copies in different locations (redundancy), periodic verification and the use of a passphrase as an extra layer of protection.</p><p><strong>Product and digital legacy:</strong> he presents Yosi Yomo (your seed, your money), a metal vault for the seed phrase awarded a Red Dot Award, and Inheritance, a service that adds a digital layer to the will with encrypted, scheduled messages to pass on assets and memories to the next generation.</p><h3>Watch the full talk</h3><p>Watch the full recording on MERGE's YouTube channel, on financial sovereignty, crypto self-custody and digital inheritance.</p><h3>FAQs</h3><p><strong>What is financial sovereignty?</strong><br>It is having real control of your own funds, without a third party being able to block or freeze them arbitrarily; it is not about being rich, but about having control even over small amounts.</p><p><strong>What are self-custody and the seed phrase?</strong><br>Self-custody is keeping your crypto-assets yourself without delegating to a third party; the seed phrase is the set of words that gives access to your wallet and allows you to recover it, so it should be well protected.</p><p><strong>Why use a cold wallet and metal vaults?</strong><br>A cold wallet is disconnected from the internet, which reduces risk; metal vaults protect the seed phrase against fire, water and time better than paper, especially with several copies.</p><p><strong>Why plan digital inheritance?</strong><br>Because if only you know your seed phrases, your family may not be able to access those assets upon death; adding a digital layer to the will helps pass on both wealth and memories.</p>
Date: 09/10/2025
14:40h. - 15:10h.
Place:
CAM Builders Stage
30min · Full recording from 09/10/2025 at CAM Builders Stage. Also available on YouTube.
Soberania Financeira: Autocustódia Cripto e Herança Digital
