ELLIPAL Wants Self-Custody to Feel Normal

John Antes, Growth Lead at ELLIPAL, did not come to Bitcoin through a marketing funnel or a whiteboard session. He came the same way many people did in 2017: a persistent friend, a bit of skepticism, and a decision to slow down and actually learn what Bitcoin was.

"My first contact with Bitcoin was back in 2017 during that first bubble," John said. "I remember I had this friend, a real tech guy, always one step ahead of every trend. Week after week he kept asking me, 'Do you know what Bitcoin is? Have you looked into Bitcoin yet?'"

When Bitcoin reached around $5,000, John finally bought in, but cautiously. "I decided to put a few hundred dollars on it. I'm cautious by nature. I'm not the guy who throws my life savings at something I don't understand."

So he did what many people skip. He went deep. "I started to dig in deeper, read the white paper, followed the technical discussions, dived into the blockchain architecture," he said.

Nearly eight years later, that same friend still reminds him who planted the seed. "Every time we get together, he tells me, 'Thanks to me you're in the industry now, you should buy me a drink.' He's not wrong."

For John, Bitcoin was never just about price. It was about what Bitcoin removes. "At its core, Bitcoin philosophy can be summed up with a single idea: be your own bank," he said. "Satoshi Nakamoto built a system where individuals no longer have to place trust in banks, governments, or third parties to hold or move their assets."

That idea runs straight into the reality most users face today. Self-custody is powerful, but it is unforgiving. "True sovereignty means giving people full control over their wealth without middlemen who can freeze accounts, inflate supply, or censor transactions," John said. "But that also means full responsibility."

There is no customer support line for Bitcoin. No undo button. No account recovery email. That reality is what pushed John toward hardware wallets, and eventually toward helping to build out ELLIPAL.

ELLIPAL's defining design choice is simple and strict: the signing device never touches the internet. "Air gap means fully isolated," John explained. "Your cold wallet is not connected to your phone, your laptop, or the internet. No Wi-Fi, no Bluetooth, no USB data transfer."

The reason is straightforward. "The moment you connect a device to the internet, even indirectly, you introduce a potential vector of attack," he said.

Every ELLIPAL wallet, from the Titan series to our newest X Card, follows that rule. Wallet creation, transaction signing, and security updates all happen offline. Communication with the phone app is handled through QR codes or, in newer products, NFC signing.

"This complete offline architecture ensures assets stay secure, easy to use, and truly self-custodial," John said. "It's fundamentally different from exchanges or banks where users trust intermediaries with their assets."

John is clear about something many Bitcoiners quietly acknowledge: self-custody has been too hard for too long. "When I first bought a cold wallet, it felt like assembling a puzzle," he said. "The technology was great, but the interface was confusing. I nearly gave up a couple of times, thinking, 'Is this really worth the hassle?'"

That friction is what ELLIPAL sees as the biggest obstacle to wider adoption. "To attract new users who have never used a cold wallet, we need to provide the easiest and most intuitive experience possible without compromising security," John said. "If I had to pinpoint where I see the greatest potential for innovation, it's the user experience."

ELLIPAL's product lineup reflects that thinking. The Titan series is designed for long-term storage. "It's a safe-at-home device," John said. "Perfect for holding assets long-term rather than frequent transactions."

Then came the X Card, which marked a shift in how ELLIPAL thinks about everyday use. "We wanted to bring self-custody closer to real-world behavior people already know," John said. "Think about how you pay for coffee. You take your bank card, tap it, and the transaction is done."

The X Card works the same way. Instead of scanning QR codes, users tap the card to their phone using NFC. "The phone reads the signed data instantly. Everything stays completely offline. The whole process takes about one second." That small change made a big difference. "There's no new ritual to learn," John said. "It feels natural."

Looking forward, John described ELLIPAL's roadmap as a progression. They started by helping users store assets securely with their titan series. Then they focused on making transactions easier with Xcard. The next step is enabling people to spend their assets in everyday life while staying aligned with Bitcoin's self-custody ethos with stablecoin payments and a POS terminal.

"We want people to hold crypto and also be able to use it," he said. "Spend in real life, but without giving up control."

By making spending as easy and familiar as tapping a card, while keeping everything completely air-gapped and under the user’s control, ELLIPAL is removing that last big hurdle. It brings users one step closer to real mass adoption, where holding and using Bitcoin becomes second nature for millions more people, without forcing them to give up their sovereignty.

ELLIPAL is working with Visa to enable crypto payment solutions. "Our partnership right now is more focused on this kind of spend-with-crypto solution," John said. The goal is to turn holding bitcoin into something users can actually spend while remaining fully decentralized and self-custodial.

John does not pretend there is a perfect path into Bitcoin. "Most people start on centralized exchanges. I did the same thing," he said. "If you search 'how to buy Bitcoin,' the first result is usually Coinbase."

The mistake is stopping there. "When you leave your bitcoin on an exchange, you recreate the same problem Bitcoin was designed to solve," he said. "You put your assets back into a centralized third party."

His advice is simple.

For someone looking to contribute to the Bitcoin ecosystem, particularly in hardware security, John recommends getting clear on the fundamentals. "My advice is to deeply understand the why behind decentralization first," he said.

"Why we need to be our own bank and how to achieve this through owning your private keys." He added that the best contributors in the space are not just technically skilled but also philosophically aligned with Bitcoin's core purpose.

If John could ask Satoshi Nakamoto one question, he admits the first one would be half-joking. "Why haven't you moved your coins in 17 years?" he laughed. "Did you forget your seed phrase? If you forgot your seed phrase, just tell me. I can offer you some ELLIPAL plates for storing your seed phrase."

But the deeper question matters more. "Did Satoshi leave self-custody complicated on purpose, thinking that the community would eventually make it super easy for everyone?" John asked. "Or if Satoshi saw us today, what advice would he give to teams trying to make it more simple?"

He wonders if those unmoved coins might be a quiet reminder. "Maybe those coins that never moved are kind of an answer," John said. "Maybe he tried to say, okay, real freedom comes with real responsibility. So even with the risk of losing it all forever, we need to accept that decentralization means we are fully responsible."

That responsibility is what ELLIPAL is trying to make more manageable. Not by removing it. Not by hiding it behind custodians. But by making self-custody feel normal.

If Bitcoin is going to reach the next wave of users, it will not be because people suddenly love private key management. It will be because tools like these let people hold value without permission, without intermediaries, and without needing to be engineers to do it safely.