Your exit is part of your ownership

Owning crypto is usually described as holding it. The balance is on the screen, the keys are yours, and that is meant to be the end of the story.

It isn't. A thing you can never get out is not much of a thing to own. There are three ways out of any crypto position, and each one can be closed.

If nobody can get it out, you own it in name only.

The first exit: selling it

This is the one essay No. 1 was about, and it is measured. In September 2026 we tested what selling $100,000 of each of 86 tokens returns on Base and Ethereum. The typical token lost 14.5%. One in four lost more than half.

Exchanges can do better, but the door has conditions. In our own words on every exchange figure: the sale needs an account there, and KYC, a permitted country, and the tokens already deposited. Someone who meets none of those is standing outside that market.

The second exit: recovering it

Self-custody means there is no password reset and no one to call. That is the point of it, and also its cost.

Some losses can be repaired: words in the wrong order, one word misread, a half-remembered passphrase. Others cannot. When there is no phrase, no backup and no fragments, the coins are not recoverable by anybody. A modern seed phrase cannot be guessed from nothing.

The third exit: handing it on

If nobody can find the keys or seed phrase to a self-custody wallet, nobody can move the coins, permanently. A will can name an heir. It cannot open a wallet.

A family can inherit a wallet and still own nothing.

What none of this looks like

None of these exits appears in a portfolio balance. A $100,000 position that sells for $85,000, a wallet whose phrase is in one person's head, and a wallet nobody in the family knows exists all show the same number on the screen.

That is why we measure the first exit every day, explain the second, and built a Continuity Plan for the third: a file that writes down where the crypto is and how each piece is recovered, for the people who will need it. It never holds a phrase, a key or a password, and refuses one if typed in.

Why this matters for the industry

"Your keys, your coins" is true, and it is half the sentence. The other half is that your exit is your responsibility too. An industry that wants families, banks and courts to treat crypto as property has to show that it can be sold, recovered and passed on, and say plainly when it can't.

What this is not

• Not advice. It describes what each exit costs or needs, not what anyone should do.
• Not a scare. Most exits work, most of the time. The point is to know which ones are open before you need them.

We will never ask for your seed phrase, private key or exchange password, on any page or any channel.

Sources

All Cryptominium: the Exit Index for September 2026 (final), self-custody and crypto inheritance in our library, the latter citing the SEC's investor bulletin on crypto asset custody, recovery, and how we measure.

Measurements, not advice. Cryptominium does not recommend buying, selling or holding anything.