Bitcoin is a gift of our time, and it belongs to no elite — not to geeks, whales or institutions. In the end Bitcoin has to reach ordinary people, in their millions. Over the past decade we have accumulated plenty of guides to Bitcoin self-custody, and the options are more than enough (paper wallets, wallet.dat, hardware wallets, multisig, Shamir backup (SLIP-39), and so on). But for most ordinary users, the more technical terms and the more choices there are, the easier it is to be put off.
Just as most products ship with a factory default, Bitcoin should have a self-custody “default plan” too — one that is safe enough, simple enough and cheap enough for people who know nothing about obscure information technology to build an unbreakable Bitcoin vault.
Maintaining one “default plan” for Bitcoin self-custody that suits most people — that is why this site exists.