The ownership of traditional assets is essentially a derivative of social contracts. Land relies on deeds, deeds rely on government registration; paper gold relies on custody certificates, certificates rely on the issuing institution's credit; even physical gold was subject to confiscation under U.S. Executive Order 6102 in 1933, where the legality of holding it was unilaterally revoked. The proof and exercise of ownership have always depended on recognition by some authoritative third party. Here’s a key distinction: the "proof" of ownership and the "exercise" of ownership are two different things. A deed can prove you own land, but you cannot exercise that ownership if the government doesn’t recognize it. You may physically hold gold, but the state can define the act of "holding" itself as illegal, not stripping you of possession but stripping you of the right to exercise ownership. BTC + self-custody is the first asset in human history where "proof and exercise" are unified. A private key is both the proof of ownership and the tool for exercising it. Value transfer does not rely on any third party's "recognition." Mathematics replaces social contracts. So, this is a question of property rights philosophy. When ownership becomes mathematically unseizable, a hardware wallet becomes your Swiss bank. To be precise, it’s a Swiss bank minus Switzerland. It removes the layer of sovereign risk.