We tell ourselves Bitcoin is a bearer asset. The on-chain data says otherwise.

I looked at the plumbing of where Bitcoin actually lives right now. The market structure reveals a terrifying addiction to "Paper BTC."

Right now, there is ~$7.5 Billion (86,640 $BTC) wrapped on Ethereum. Compare that to the Native Lightning Network capacity: just ~$334 Million (~3,870 BTC).

That is a 22x discrepancy.

There is twenty-two times more Bitcoin trapped in Ethereum smart contracts (subject to bridge risk, custodian risk, and re-hypothecation) than there is moving on Bitcoin's own native scaling layer.

This is the definition of structural fragility. The market has overwhelmingly chosen convenience and yield (DeFi) over sovereignty.

When we talk about "not your keys, not your coins," we usually mean exchanges. But look at these numbers. The entire ecosystem is leveraged on wrapped IOUs.

If you aren't self-custodying native BTC, you aren't long Bitcoin. You're long a bridge audit.