Salt, Sand, and Self-Custody

Self-custody sounds clean until you live somewhere the air eats metal. Salt, humidity, and power cuts are not theoretical. They are Tuesday. If your setup only works in a climate-controlled apartment, it is not ready for a surf town.

Start with the boring layer: power. A small UPS next to the node buys you the ten minutes it takes for the neighborhood generator to kick in. Silica packs in the enclosure. A sealed plastic bin beats a pretty metal case that rusts by monsoon.

Then the keys. A hardware wallet in a dry bag is not a joke. Seed phrases do not belong in a notes app you open on cafe Wi-Fi. Write them. Store them like you store a spare leash — accessible to you, useless to a stranger who finds your van unlocked.

None of this is maximalism. It is the same instinct that makes you rinse your board. Salt wins if you let it. Design the setup for the climate you actually live in, not the one in the tutorial.