Nobody truly owns any bitcoins..because the ownership is only established when you are able to apply a correct private key in a "send" tx (via hardware device or something else), albeit validation of the private key (at some other point in time) is possible. Before that, it is all allegedly. This is in principle, of course.
Nonsense. Of course you own your bitcoins as long as you and you alone possess the private keys to your Bitcoin addresses. Nothing
else is required.
No hardware devices are required other than mnemonic devices. It's the corollary to NYKNYC...
your keys, your coins. No one can take them away from you, no banks, no governments.
Contrast that to less finite asset ownership such as fiat currencies, "precious" metals, real estate, art, antiques, etc.
The only assets as valuable as Bitcoin are the relationships you establish with people.
Do you pretend to not understand this? It seems that you do.
Define possess...little pieces of printed paper, for example..house burns or is blown away by the hurricane, cleaning lady throws them away, wife/girlfriend doing a major cleanup, or somebody stealing them.
So many contingencies...it is a freaking
bearer asset and asserting ownership could theoretically become perilous (in some easy to imagine situations).
I was not saying that bitcoin is worse than other assets you mentioned, it's just your ownership of this asset is establish ONLY when you send it and you can't say "well, i had a private key, but i now i don't, but this bitcoin is still mine". In fact, I expect major lawsuits in the future dealing with this.