If you want to understand just how difficult managing cryptographic material is for the technically illiterate, look no further than Xapo. It's not "Bitcoin" t

If you want to understand just how difficult managing cryptographic material is for the technically illiterate, look no further than Xapo. It's not "Bitcoin" that Xapo stores, but private keys. In underground bunkers. This no doubt gives some people a warm fuzzy. But Bitcoin's history is littered with the wreckage of companies that took it on themselves to store private keys on behalf of others. I don't know when Xapo will fail, but if history is any guide it's just a matter of time. The weakest link in their system is the people involved. Consider this tortured statement: If Xapo’s deep cold storage vaults were hacked, Xapo would cover the loss from its own reserve but the hack could be bigger than the reserve which would cause a net loss to our customers. https://blog.xapo.com/what-would-happen-if-xapo-got-hacked/ https://blog.xapo.com/what-would-happen-if-xapo-got-hacked/ In other words, a Xapo depositor would eat the loss in the event of a successful attack on the cold storage system. The funny thing about all of this is that private key management isn't difficult when you know how. Given the vast sums of money being stored, you might think that certain big fish would want to take the time to do it right.