Exclusive Interview: Why Tangem Believes Self-Custody Is Entering Its 'Active' Era

As crypto expands beyond trading into payments, stablecoins, tokenized assets and AI-powered applications, wallets are rapidly evolving. Tangem believes the next generation of users won't simply store crypto, they'll actively use it every day. CryptoDaily UK sat down with Tangem Co-founder, CTO and Head of Product, Andrey Lazutkin to discuss why self-custody is entering a new phase, what's holding mainstream adoption back, and why wallets are becoming the operating system for on-chain finance.

"Five years from now, people won't think about self-custody as a technical feature. They'll simply think of it as the natural way to own and manage their money."

Self-custody is becoming infrastructure, not just ideology

For years, self-custody was largely viewed as crypto's ideological cornerstone. But according to Andrey Lazutkin, that conversation has fundamentally changed.

"The industry has matured much faster than users' custody habits," he says.

Today, crypto has regulated stablecoins, tokenized treasuries and increasingly institutional participation, yet nearly 88% of users still keep their assets on centralized exchanges.

"A few years ago, self-custody was something people debated philosophically. Today it's becoming a critical infrastructure."

Modern wallets have evolved far beyond simple storage. Users can now stake, swap, earn yield and interact with decentralized protocols while maintaining ownership of their private keys, features once largely exclusive to centralized exchanges. For Lazutkin, that marks a fundamental shift in how users engage with crypto.

Why "Active Self-Custody" changes everything

Tangem's latest research introduces what it calls Active Self-Custody, a behavioural trend that challenges one of crypto's longest-held assumptions.

Rather than using hardware wallets purely for long-term storage, today's users are increasingly using them as their primary gateway into the on-chain economy.

"Cold wallet users are 1.83 times more likely to actively trade than simply hold compared with other groups."

That finding overturns the traditional perception of hardware wallets as products people purchase during a bull market before putting them away for years. Instead, Tangem sees today's self-custody users actively managing stablecoins, participating in DeFi, trading across multiple blockchains and making crypto part of their everyday financial activity.

"It's an inevitable evolution," Lazutkin explains, pointing to continued exchange failures, hacks and increasing regulatory restrictions that continue to remind users why controlling private keys matters.

The biggest barrier isn't technology anymore

Despite growing awareness around digital ownership, mainstream adoption of hardware wallets remains relatively low. The reason, Lazutkin argues, isn't complexity rather it's familiarity.

Tangem's research found that while almost every crypto user understands centralized exchanges, only around two-thirds are familiar with hardware wallets. Nearly half still believe they're designed exclusively for experienced users.

"The gap isn't impossible to close," he says. "As products become more affordable and education improves, we believe many more users will become comfortable taking control of their own assets."

Tangem has focused heavily on removing friction from onboarding. By eliminating seed phrase management and reducing setup to a simple tap-to-activate card experience that takes just a few minutes, the company hopes hardware wallets begin to feel less like specialist security devices and more like everyday consumer technology.

Wallets are becoming financial super apps

If the first generation of crypto wallets was designed for storage, Lazutkin believes the next generation will become complete financial operating systems.

"The wallet is evolving from somewhere you store assets into a universal financial interface."

Payments increasingly resemble global banking apps powered by stablecoins. Tokenized assets bring traditional investments into the same portfolio. Prediction markets, decentralized finance and AI-powered portfolio management are all converging inside the wallet experience.

Rather than opening multiple financial applications, users will increasingly manage payments, savings, investments, identity and on-chain activity through a single self-custodial platform.

Looking further ahead, Lazutkin expects wallets to carry users' digital identity, automate portfolio management, execute transactions through AI agents and verify credentials using zero-knowledge proofs.

Confidence will determine the next 100 million users

Perhaps the industry's biggest challenge is no longer technical innovation but user confidence. Many newcomers still worry about losing private keys or making irreversible mistakes. 

"The next wave of adoption won't come from adding more features," Lazutkin says. "It'll come from making the experience intuitive."

Tangem added that to onboard the next hundred million users, the industry must prioritize simplification, education, and risk reduction while building confidence through better UX and proven security. That philosophy has also shaped Tangem's educational initiatives, including Tangem Campus, which provides university students around the world with workshops and hardware wallets designed to introduce self-custody through hands-on learning.

For Lazutkin, the future isn't about convincing people to adopt self-custody. It's about making the experience so natural that users no longer think about it at all.

"There are two forces driving this," he explains. "The first is efficiency. Open financial networks are becoming faster, cheaper and more accessible than traditional systems."

"The second is ownership. Self-custody gives people something traditional finance fundamentally cannot control over their money, identity and financial lives."

As those trends converge, he believes wallets will become far more than places to hold crypto.

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.