Are you actually in Bitcoin,
or just exposed?
Owning an ETFExchange-Traded Fund (ETF)A basket of investments (stocks, bonds, or Bitcoin) that trades on a stock exchange like a single share. or an exchange balance is price exposure. Holding your own keys, backed up and inheritable, is Bitcoin. Eight questions score where you actually stand, from paper exposure to sovereign, and show your next move. Nothing is sent anywhere; it runs in your browser.
Answer the questions and hit See my result. You'll get a sovereignty tier, a score, and a specific list of what to fix next.
This is not a purity test. An ETF in a Roth is a legitimate choice, and most people should start on an exchange before they ever touch a hardware wallet. The point is to know the difference between owning Bitcoin and owning a claim on it, and to move deliberately, not to pretend a brokerage line item is self-custody.
How the score works
- Each answer scores points toward sovereignty, out of 19 total: custody model, key control, backup quality, recovery testing, node use, KYCKnow Your Customer (KYC)Identity verification requirements that financial institutions use to confirm who their customers are.Full definition/privacy, inheritance, and coin control.
- Tiers: under 30% is Paper, 30 to 55% Custodial, 55 to 80% Self-custody, 80%+ Sovereign.
- It is a rough self-assessment, not an audit. Answer honestly; the tool only helps if you do.
- Nothing you enter leaves your browser. There is no account, no tracking, no submission.
Questions people ask
Is a Bitcoin ETF the same as owning Bitcoin?
No. An ETF is a share that tracks Bitcoin's price; the fund holds the coins and you hold a claim. You cannot withdraw the Bitcoin, spend it, or self-custody it. It is exposure, with a fee. Details on ETF vs self-custody and the fee cost in the ETF fee calculator.
Do I need multisig to be "sovereign"?
Not to start, but it removes the single point of failure that is one seed phraseseed phraseThink of it as the combination to a bank vault that exists only in your head: 12 or 24 specific words in a specific order. Anyone who copies the combination opens the vault. The bank has no copy. There is no locksmith, no reset, no customer service. Lose the words, lose the Bitcoin.Full definition, and it makes inheritance work cleanly. Well-backed-up single-sig is a strong position; multisig is the top tier. See collaborative custody.
What is the single most important step?
Getting your coins off an exchange into a wallet whose keys you control and have backed up offline. Everything else is refinement on top of that one move.
Not financial advice. Educational self-assessment. Your answers stay in your browser.
Related
HOW THIS IS CALCULATED
This tool runs entirely in your browser — no data is sent to any server. All formulas use standard financial math. Verify the methodology or inspect the source code in your browser's dev tools.