Bitcoin Forum

As the title asks, is it safe to store your coins in Bitstamp's online wallet?

I would say no, i keep about max of $5 change in there but anything more than that would be stupid unless you can afford to loose it.
History has shown us that the last place you want to store your bitcoins is on an exchange.
Im not saying Bitstamp will run off wih any customers coins but they may get hacked again and this time not be able to pay back everyone.

Best store them offline till needed.

I wouldn't recommend keeping your coins on any exchange. Bitstamp lost a big load of bitcoins recently too.
As far as exchanges go, they are pretty safe, but it's still better to have them stored locally.

With all the hacks happening around, I'd advise you not to. Just use it as an exchange, go their do the trade and get out. Don't use it as a wallet.

No online wallets are safe.

It is not safe to leave any amount of coins on an exchange. Hackers target them, owners and run off with the money, disaing withdraw unannounced... all sorts of unpredictable events. Complete your transaction and withdraw whenever possible.

If you really want to store some btc or usd at bitstamp, I suggest sending them to a Ripple wallet from your bitstamp account.  You may be holding btc or usd IOU's but they are easy to convert to XRP when bitstamp gets hacked and then sending the XRP to Cryptsy to convert them back to BTC.

Read a post on Reddit about a guy who had around 10 btc worth of bitstamp.btc IOU in Ripple during the hack.  He converted them to XRP then sent them to an exchange and traded them for real BTC.

In my honest opinion : no. You should never keep bitcoin or your altcoins on ant exchange (it is not safe, and you will lose them if an hacker will discover a "bug" in the platform).

Now let's start from beginning, do you know what is bitcoin and what is a bank?

never keep you coins to any exchange, they are not wallets
always use offiline or desktop wallets to store your coins,coins with exchanges are not safe

I also don't suggest you to keep 1 satoshi in any exchange, I always recommend to send the coin/s >> exchange them for FIAT (or viceversa) and withdraw it/them fastly (less then 10 minutes of work).
Have you heard about the various hack (firstly the mt.gox , the huge loss of 850'000 btc) and bitstamp, bter, etc ?

you dont need to withdraw it 10 minutes after you can keep it for a few days in my opinion as those problems dont happen too often

after the recent hack, i would say no, better to store them on your local computer or cold storage

never keep them on any exchange, at best a small amount for trading

Do not store any amount there for a long time you could get hurt

Exchanges are too insecure, lock them up in your private qt wallet it is worth the blockchain sync time and you never have to worry.

I would say it depends on amount of money/coins you want to keep in. I only keep money on online wallet for minimum amount of time to do the transactions. To much money lost in similar cases. Although Bitstamp is quite reputable and big at the moment, it is as well very highlighted target.

This question can be read as:
"Is it safe to store your coins in any online wallet?"

Bitstamp or not, trust no one.
Keep a small amount for trading or other purposes, but transfer your savings to a cold wallet.

Why take the risk by having someone else keep for you on your behalf. I'm not implying that they cannot be trusted but anything can still happen even though security measures have been implemented. Furthermore managing your own wallet and money is not that difficult if you know what you are doing

No.

if you are active trader and doing trade on Bitstamp then keep your bitcoin only for your trading hours and when you are done then take withdraw on daily basis that is more safe option to trade on any online bitcoin exchange. daily deposit for trading hours and daily withdraw.

I used to keep a lot of BTC on Bitstamp and lend them out for a small interest to other traders. I even wrote a bot that attempted to price my swap offers at what I thought was the optimal price based on the historical trend of the FRR. In the end I collected only a small amount in interest payments. I figured that it wasn't worth the risk and withdrew everything.

No, I don't trust any exchange to keep my bitcoin. Because an exchange is not a bank, wake up! Bitcoin is another thing, as a lot of users said : be your own bank. Don't be a stupid and don't keep never your coin on an exchange, it is not safe for (obviously) you and all the ecosystem.

Why would you keep your coins in an online wallet which can be hacked and if fact was already hacked once. Cold storage s the best option or a specialized wallet like trezor.

Move them to your own wallet, unless you're planning to trade them on Bitstamp very soon.

Make sure to install all security updates for applications on your computer before you install bitcoin-related software + update your anti-malware software and scan your system.

Keeping coins on an exchange has two main risks:  Theft by third parties, and problems with the exchange itself.

If you use 2FA, you are reasonably safe from hackers but I wouldn't keep large amounts there.

I would not trust Bitstamp, or any exchange for long term storage. The only way to trade is to deposit coins which makes it inevitable you have to store them on an exchange for short spells. After trading I would immediately withdraw them.

Well if you remembered the story of Mt.Gox or similar exchanges, that would give you an answer. If you store coins on a address of which you do not know the private keys, the money is not yours.
Remember the days of Inputs.io, and similar. It is not recommended that you keep bigger amounts of money in online wallets, exchanges or any service that is.

Maybe he plans this due to ability to set buy/sell triggers. Still I do not think this is a smart idea.

it is not advisable to save bitcoin in an exchanger, because the site is very prone to hackers compromised. Better save your bitcoin at offline wallet to make it secure

No, it's not safe. Over half of Bitcoin exchanges have failed, usually taking the coins with them.

It doesn't matter how good they seem to be. A lot of exchanges looked safe and reliable right up until you couldn't withdraw.

If you're planning storing them for long time don't leave them in any exchange.

The problem is, if you want to capture the sharp flash crash and buy lots of coins at a bargain price, you must have an order there with enough fiat money backing, so I usually leave some of my fiat money there, not too much bitcoins

keep it in electrum..and backup your seed/private key

That's exactly what I am thinking of doing but ever since that hack I'm VERY skeptical.

That's what I'm trying to do.

Tell me, in the event of a hack, is the fiat safe?  I would assume BTC isn't. And I don't see Bitstamp as a company that would just run off with the fiat.

It is not safe but i have kept over $100+ to use the chat on a more anonymous exchange for over a year and guess what i still have my coin and dollars so it can be safe but only leave on there what you are willing to right of as a loss don't hold all your coin on there because if the day comes it will be a terrible day indeed. No harm in transferring your coin at the end of the trading day is there really? Better safe than sorry for anything over a few hundred.

i don't have much myself currently but i keep them safe in my offline wallet.
which means i have full control of my funds. exchanges have proven to be not secure enough.

I would suggest using Bitcoin Armory and never keep BTC online.

On slightly different note. How much do you believe to blockchain wallet? I quite often keep my coins there to have access to them from other devices.

are you talking about bitstamp? i thought only bitfinex offered this..

it seems to be the safer one among the online wallets, but in any case it's always better to store them on a cold storage, or a desktop/laptop that is in a isolated envyroment

Thank you. I have the same feeling. If I have to keep some online I do use Blockchain. Otherwise Armory.

Nice suggestion by him. Moreover, did bitstamp refund the Bitcoins hacked recently?

Simple message to op:
If you don't care about liquidity but a lot about security, go for cold storage
If you care about liquidity, evaluate how much money you need regularly and maintain something like a hot wallet to satisfy needs.

As far as I know all the bitcoins were in the wallets of its users when server went back online. Overall it felt more like constructed panic so people would be very happy that bitstamp managed and they had the time to change the infrastructure with possible increase of reliability after. Its only my feeling tho..

Yes, Bitstamp refunded all the Bitcoins hacked. They were all in a hot wallet but Bitstamp paid to refund everyone out of its own pocket. At the time of the hack everyone was panicking that they had lost all their money on Bitstamp, but it worked out OK. People with coins on other hacked exchanges like Bitcoinicca and Mt Gox were not so lucky.

Nothing is absolutely safe.  And anything online , the more impossible.

not safety without doubt.   
same to any bitcoin wallets online