Bitcoin Forum

In recent years we have seen several Crypto currency exchanges being hacked. Do you trust these companies to secure your coins?

Do you feel that we need other alternative platforms to trade coins? < Not just decentralized exchanges >

A lot of people use exchanges as their Wallet and they store all their coins on these platforms. <24/7> This is definitely not the way to use Crypto currencies.

Some people will deposit some coins on the exchanges when they want to trade and then they will withdraw the coins or the fiat to reduce their loss, when these exchanges gets hacked. <This is highly recommended> Take Note, I said when these exchanges gets hacked, because it is always just a question of time, when it will happen and not if it will happen.  

So please, indicate where you stand on this and if there are a better solution to trade or exchange coins?

Do we need these services or should we keep to Person2Person trading?

to me trust is not an absolute thing. it has degrees and it differs on a case by case basis. so I cant say I trust or don't trust exchanges. at the end of the day even if these exchanges never get hacked and are the safest things on the planet you are still trusting a third party with your money....

I can also call it some sort of risk management. for example if I had 10BTC I would trust exchanges with 0.5BTC of it which happens to usually be in the ballpark of what I trade with although I would love to trade with higher amounts but I keep it lower because I can not trust them with more than this. and also that is the amount I am comfortable with losing in case something went bad... of course the numbers are arbitrary.

as for p2p trading and decentralized exchanges, it is favorable but unfortunately I have not found any user friendly and easy to use one which is offering the same thing as centralized ones.

Personally, i always try to speak up whenever a newbie (or worse: a longtime member) admits to using an exchange as their wallet... Like you already said: this is not a good idear.

When i use an exchange it's usually
Deposit => wait for minimum confirmations => trade => withdraw
Usually, my coins are on an exchange less than 2 hours before they're transferred out to a different wallet (hardware wallet if my ledger or trezor support the altcoin in question, a desktop wallet if they don't).

As for your question wether or not we need these services: i personally think they're a necessary evil. P2P trading isn't without risks either, and i personally think it's a lot more hassle to setup a P2P trade compared to doing a quick trade on an exchange with a good reputation.

Yes, 100%. As long as I with Coinbase, I never ever fall into any problem even the transaction here is very smooth and fast. Other important facilities are I can trade other major cryptocurrencies nicely...

I follow the exact same strategy, but it is cumbersome and you might miss some good trades whilst you wait for confirmations. < Last year, I missed a lot of good trades, because the confirmations took hours to confirm and in many instances these exchanges were overloaded and not accessible, when the price was at it's peak >

I just figured that there must be some better way to do this. Something with less risk and more user-friendly than these decentralized exchanges. < Let's Brainstorm a bit, there must be a better alternative >

I can't really think of any good alternatives, maybe that's because i don't trade often enough?

I'm still undecided wether or not i like the lightning network, but if exchanges would allow deposits over the lightning network, this could avoid confirmation times for bitcoin deposits... It doesn't change anything for altcoin deposits tough, so this idear isn't really helpfull i'm afraid.
IF you'd have a lightning channel with your exchange, you could easily deposit in a matter of seconds, withdraw in a matter of seconds, re-deposit,... everything with 0 fee and a lot less risk than keeping your funds in your exchange wallet... But like i said: at the moment it would only work for bitcoin, and it's not even 100% certain that the lightning network will take off.

Im not too confidance to hodling my funds on Centralize exchanger, but sometime i must trading there to trade with good price, i hope soon more DEX become famous so many trader trade at there

Till date I haven't experienced any negative effects from the exchanges. I've got accounts in different exchanges for the trading purpose, and particularly I don't engage into trading activities similar to a day trader. I believe, most cases of bitcoin loss from the exchanges takes place due to some mistakes from the respective user.

i think we should first clarify that there are two different things here that shouldn't be confused with each other:
1. using exchanges as your wallet or conversely to store your coins.
2. using exchanges to trade and being forced to leave some funds there in open orders

the first one is obviously wrong and there is no argument there. and even if you found the most trustworthy and safe exchange out there you still should use it as your wallet because you do not control the private keys so you have no control over your keys.

but the second one is as mentioned earlier a necessary evil and we all use them. and we are forced to leave our funds on exchanges if we want to trade like opening an order and waiting for it to be filled.

We cannot ignore the fact that there are people out there that are introduced to Bitcoin and Crypto currencies by people and the first thing they would tell them is to open an account on a Bitcoin exchange. <Like Coinbase>

Most of these users never take the next step to secure their coins and simply use the exchange as their wallet. So that is why I have mentioned that.

The ideal scenario will be for people to be provided with information to store their coins on more secure platforms, but the exchanges will not do that for them.  >:(

Hardware wallet providers should actually partner up with these exchanges and sell their devices at a discount, to allow people to control their own coins. <Private keys>

Until things like that happens, we should help educate these people in the "proper" storage of coins on platforms like this.

I'm not sure about exchanges at 100%. But I can trust them because I see the reviews of other real people who have already done the exchange there before. That's why I can trust them.

If you want to secure your cryptocurrencies, then keep them at home, do not trade on the exchange. Now there are no such services, so that you can secure your crypto-cash assets in the network by one hundred percent.

Storing coins on exchange to me is a risk. If it is not traded, I see no reason to leave coins there on the Exchange if the coin has its own private wallet. Or unless it is been tethered.

I have only minimal trust and use exchange only for the purpose they are made and that is trading.
Exchanges are not ment to be wallets, this is not their purpose and keeping coins permanently there represents a significant risk. They might get hacked or even be exposed to internal fraud.
So on exchanges always keep only amount of coins you want to trade in a limited period of time.

I believe with a bitcoin exchanger, but not with all exchangers. I just believe in a big or famous exchanger. why should believe, because want or not we have to use the services of exchangers to sell our bitcoin into real money. if not so, how else can we really make money from bitcoin.

Bitcoin exchanger are not guaranteed 100% hacked proof that's why i did't not put my tokens their for long, i place it their when it is really needed to exchange or trade and put back to my wallet for security measures.

Well...I will still say that the fact that people have used or succeeded in one exchange does not mean it will almost be succeeding. Take the instance of banks,  some collapse even when not expected. The point is being careful, hopeful and not to put all in pause. ;D

unless I trust them, why would I keep my coins there? well, I never keep many coins on my exchange, only the part I might need to change to fiat for my bills.

I have trust in some of them that i use. But still i don't keep all my stash in one place. so far using ca 6 different exchanges :)

I do trust my exchange as I've been using it for the past 4 years and so far nothing bad has ever happened to my balances nor any problems arose that's associated my account. It's a local exchange based on the Philippines, and even though I'm currently situated overseas due to my job, I can still use it for my daily transactions on the said country even though I'm far away. Pretty sure they don't have the intention to do something stupid knowing that the government already acknowledges their existence and help for the people there.

I have been using Lykke exchanger for about a year (by the way, at the very beginning, when it appeared, it was without a fee), as well as a bot in the telegram. All happy, everything is clear, the not yet seen.

Actually I trust the bitcoin exchange be cause first of all the exchanging the value into a fiat money is kinda changeable because every minute or hour would change unpredictably so that's you just need to adjust and make a estimation but the importance is you know what is the value of the Bitcoin to be exchange. So far everything will be smooth and fine.

I have not yet made the exchange of bitcoin. However, I have heard the exchange of bitcoin exchange. As bitcoin exchange is to make an online approach.That's why I can not believe 100 percent in exchange for bitcoin. But I have a lot of confidence in them and they will be there in the future.

Do we have any other option.? We all know how decentralized exchanges are and their capabilities of free trading. I just dont keep the tokens which I want to hold for a long time on exchanges. I guess thats how it should be.

one of the serious problems with exchanges is that they are all good and trusted for a while then they someday scam you and run away. for example a couple of years ago we were all happily using Cryptsy and we never had any problems. the fees were good, the rates and volume and everything. they someday they scammed us and ran away just like that.

I have complete confidence in myself, and have confidence in this market, of course I have a lot of knowledge I can do so.

Well, some of the bitcoin exchanger can be trusted .
I have been using one particular exchanger for a while now and no issues yet.
That's not saying that all the existing exchangers are good though.

I do trust the bitcoin exchange that I've been using because I do not experience bad situations from it like scam and I feel safe to put my coins on it, I never wish to be scammed though. I believe that as long as I am only who knows the password and authenticators are working good to keep the coins safe there, I will keep trusting on it.

i read that there were some recent hacks on some exchanges. we should probably not store our coins in the exchange.as what an early comment said, just deposit, trade then withdraw.

If you are trading in a good exchange then there is no problem in trusting it. I have traded in Bittrex for some time which was very good but have developed some issues lately. Now i am trading in Binance which is very good too and i trust it.

I do trade only through exchange offices. In exchange, i always leave a small part of my assets and most of my capital is in a wallet client or sending a fiat to my account. So far, i had no problems with my preferred currency exchange, everything was fast and to my satisfaction. My favorite exchange is Kraken, the total trust.

Honestly, I 100% Believe in Bitcoin exchanger. But we'll see which Exchanger we'll use, and make sure that the exchanger is completely safe and reliable. We better read the background of the exchanger to be more confident and believe. There may be some exchangers that like you say are easily hacked by someone. But not all exchangers easy to retas. There are some exchangers that I use to Trade both bitcoin and altcoins. That's one of my tips. Perhaps you guys have anything to add?

Bitcoin is easy to exchange any country currency. But you know the process for exchange. It good future saving. It any time to increase the price. So people will be exchange.   If exchange the bitcoin before check the price list. Then sell it. It price will be increas then sell it. It good future save. It help to people growth and people will be lean more information.

I do not trust the exchange because the money is involved here. So if I have a large amount of bitcoin or other crypto currency I immediately release it and store it in a more secure wallet. I have also learned that members are also here in the forum that is losing balance in exchange for unexplained reasons.

Bitcoin exchange is enough for me. Although its price falls drastically that makes everyone afraid and leave them panicking, its overall exchange to any currency is still worth a trust.

I do realize that when it comes to storing our Bitcoin in various exchanges in the long run, it is not a good idea. You know why? It is because there's no such thing as a safe exchange for Bitcoin, not even Binance (who recently got hacked $45M worth of BTC). You can do day trading there, but not ideal if you want to hold Bitcoin for the long term.

I do not trust any centralized exchange. I use them only because of the huge volume. The transaction fees on some exchanges are ridiculous and usually there are problem with website performance. Many exchanges had to disable registrations because of large amount of new people. I will try to use decentralized exchanges but there are not many people who know about them.

i think everyone's first concern is always security and trust. but since there are no alternatives we have to accept the existing exchanges and the risks that come with the.
you may think decentralized exchanges but they are not good enough either. there has been hacks that happen for users of these exchanges and also they are not as fast and good as one hopes them to be. so you will eventually end up using the same old centralized ones.

Person to person trading is the safest because you may know who you are dealing with directing without talking to any support in case of mistake. But person to person trading may be unrealistic because you may not see an individual that need the coin or token you want to sell at the moment. Person to person trading is not possible if you want to involve in   short term trading in order to make gain at interval. So exchangers is the best option.

No exchange is safer as any exchange can get hacked so the users should be safe side and dont keep coins in exchange. Only use the coins in exchange when you want to trade if not better withdraw and keep them in your wallet safely. Person to Person trading through exchange is also safe like trading in localbitcoins.com site is very safe as their escrow system is very good. One more safety is that what coins you are buying or selling will be dealing directly with the users and transfer direct from person to person in which exchange information is not their so the trades wont give you any legal problem as you can show any way of transaction you want.

I think I believe in some Exchangers, Not all I can trust just like that. Because as we know there are some Exchangers that look very suspicious. As long as I save my password and backup my password or authenticator. I do not feel the negative effects of the exchanger.

Not 100% only several exchanges has a very good services.
Many of them oftenly hacked or something bad happened.
That's why i'm more trust to decetralized exchange

I don't trust anything that requires me to hold coins on their platform, but I choose to do occasionally because I am using it for trading purposes.

I however always cash out all my coins once I'm done with my trading acitivities. The only value that always remains on-exchange is fiat, but I'm not too worried about that. I accept all potential negative outcomes and that's the most important thing. Unlike other people, I know what risks I expose myself to and accept them. Bitstamp has been my main exchange for years and I'm still loving it. The most stable and neutral BTC/USD exchange in today's crypto world.

I don't really see any point in creating new exchanges, the volume is one of the most important factors for an exchange to succeed. Probably, you know a service called ShapeShift which allows for direct exchanges between limited number of cryptocurrencies.  Face-to-face transactions are great for cashing out without worrying about the tax office, I have never traded crypto-to-crypto with another person. I am going to test Bisq (decentralized exchange) in the near future but the low volume discourages me a bit.

I use the Poloniex exchange. I think that it's quite reliable. Commissions are not too high, which makes it attractive for the user. It's relatively well-run and there have been no major complaints about it. The only thing that can discourage the future user is the fact that the stock exchange required verification of the ID document. However, I can honestly recommend it to all of you because it is really good compared to others.

I didn't trust exchanges before, but I decided to put force behind my words and to ditch them completely. I currently use a local exchange service that works perfectly fine. I can pay through internet banking and have the coins be sent to my wallet near instantly. The only downside is that trading as we do it through exchanges isn't possible, and the fees are a bit steeper, but it's all fine with me. I'm not into day trading anyway, so it won't hurt me that much since slow trading work perfectly fine. Best thing is that the support offered by local services is extremely fast, which can't be said about most of today's exchanges. I'm good. :)

Wow, I am amazed at the current result of the poll, so far. 30 Voters and 40% of them trust exchanges 100%.  :o :o :o

This explains why so many people lose, so much money when these exchanges gets hacked. We are conditioned by the "trust" relationship that we have with centralized fiat systems like Banks and we expect that these exchanges will have the same level of "trust".

How many people have actually met any employee working at these exchanges? How do you know that these people are trustworthy? I had several meetings with my Bank manager and Bank consultants, so I know who to slap around when they fail me. ^joke^ < I cannot say that I have such a relationship with my local Bitcoin exchange employees >

We should seriously educate people more about the dangers of these exchanges.  ::)

Even shocked too that the result of the poll people do trust 100% on exchangers? Are they kidding me? I assume those people are just newbie ones which doesnt know too much on exchangers and doesnt able to know or experience on what do usually happen with these platforms.
No exchange is 100% which anyone do exist do have the risk on getting hacked or do experienced problems. Nothing on this market is unhackable therefore if you dont like to suffer possible loss then dont make an exchange wallet to be your main and dont store up too big amounts.

My point exactly. If these are "newbies" who are trusting exchanges like this, then we have our work cut out for us to educate them. A lot of old traders are saying that you have to trust them, because of the way that the buy/sell orders work, so this is also a problem. <Coins/Cash cannot be withdrawn, if you have open Buy/Sell orders>

Back in the days of MtGox both "newbies" and "old-timers" lost money and we see that with all the exchanges that gets hacked.

There must be a better way or strategy to reduce the risk for people to lose large amounts of money, when these exchanges gets hacked.  ???

What about advising people that they should withdraw their funds if they are not going to trade in the next few days? I have noticed that many signature campaign participants used exchanges because of high transactions fees back then. Currently, exchanges have extremely high withdrawal fees. Was it the only reason? Aren't some people just too lazy to do a research and choose a proper wallet?

Also, recommending splitting the investment among a few different exchanges at the same time might be a good idea but not everyone will follow this advice due to lack of funds.

Well, what you consider to be a small amount can be big for others. In the end everyone is equal to each other in the way that when you lose everything you have on an exchange, all other users lose everything as well.

The only thing I don't like is how people nowadays just assume that an exchange wil reimburse them in case there is a hack or other forms of coin loss. It's almost seen as a form of insurance.

The last few exchanges that were hacked are planning to do the same as far as I know, and that comforts people too much. It's great that exchanges do this and it's the only right way, but it's not guaranteed to happen.

Unfortunately, if you don't believe them, who else can you trust? Believe in etherdelta? The only place we can complete the transaction quickly is the exchange, and now these exchanges are unregulated. The only option is to go to some well-known exchanges, at least they have the ability to compensate for your losses.

You said it! It's one of the reasons why some people are using exchanges in a laid back attitude, like nothing can go wrong. This is not hacking but coinsmarkets.com run away with their user's money, apparently despite being new (registered in 2017-03-09) people still deposited huge amounts of money. Risk assessment/precautionary measures shouldn't be optional but obligatory.


Others have already suggested some of it which is surprisingly what I do too but I believe the most crucial part of these is picking an exchange, it starts with that.
Before we assume the hacking, let's first assess the odds of it happening first. Pick an exchange where there's a low chance; competent.

Then again these measures isn't something that guarantees your fund's safety, it will only alleviate risks.

It isn't really hard to choose up an exchange yet we can easily make a research about exchangers and we would able to spot out which one is on the top and we can already presume that they are really good when it comes to security but as being said its not a guarantee but you will able to build confidence. Risk management should always be followed.
I agree that people do trust out because of that "reimburse" thing but those are just applicable for exchange on top which they will definitely do because they do need to protect their ranking and they know they can able to break even when people do still use up their service.

Before I give my opinion, can you clarify something first? What do you mean by the word "top" in both of your statements? Is it in terms of volume or what?

Decentralised exchanges are obviously way better, but I don't see at the moment any that would work on a large scale.

I wouldn't say that the exchanges I use (Binance mainly, shapeshift etc.) are untrustworthy at all. But if you deposit money, you are essentially handing over control of your coins, and there are many factors outside of even the exchange when it comes to securing your funds such as government regulations, hacks, etc.

For that reason, I personally only use an exchange to exchange funds, not store funds for long periods of time. But still, a lot of people don't take that advice and still continue to do that.

I think that instant exchanges such as shapeshift currently are probably the best to use, if you're not able to get verified. A lot of the times, your funds are actually at risk due to extensive compliance procedures instead of hacks.

Every exchange is different, but my exchange charge "withdrawal" fees with every withdrawal you make, be it fiat or bitcoins and some even charge deposit fees. <This might be to discourage people to withdraw frequently> So you have to keep that in mind.

Using several different exchanges makes you even more vulnerable. The chance of you getting hacked, increase if you distribute your money onto a lot of different exchanges, but it reduces the amount of money that you might lose.

Trust it but not 100%, maybe 80% as everything always going smoothly all the time, in fact, I have stored 85% of my btc in the local exchange. I consider it's different between exchange and trading platform which the exchange mostly serve only for bitcoin to fiat money and vice versa or listed some famous altcoins.
We always heard: exchanges isn't an ideal place to store your bitcoin for a long time due to the risk of being hacked.
However, many people do the same thing all over the exchanges, but don't trust the trading platform to store coins, just get in and cash out immediately.

When it comes to security P2P wont guaranty safety anytime and theres always a risk behind on it thats why we do deal up with centralized exchanges inspite of the risk.Im well aware and all of us on whats the possible risk. Some do neglect it or not paying attention since they do trust up their exchange that being used or just gambling it out to store his holdings inside it. Depositing in and withdrawing out is safe but when you do actively trade this would really be a hassle thing thats why some choose up not to do such habit and embrace up the risk.

Your password means nothing, if the gatekeepers <exchanges> have full access to the private keys of your coins. The key thing is the private keys and who has "administration" rights to the software/database that are run on these exchanges. These centralized organizations have several weak links and "bad" employees are just one of them.

If the developers of the software that are used on these exchanges are "corrupt" or the code being used is "weak", then your bitcoin is very vulnerable. You will never know if it is, because most of the software is not Opensource or people do not have the IT knowledge to know if it is good or bad.  ::)