Bitcoin Forum

Not your keys - not your coins, that's 100% true but for some people, I would say: Even your keys - not your coins.

Okay, woud love to hear opinion about this from the community members.

As we know and from every logic, we shouldn't trust web wallets and also exchanges. There were a lot of accidents when exchanges were hacked and people lost their coins. Some may say - don't keep your coins at exchanges for a long time but I would say that everything happens in seconds, maybe you had access on your coins at exchanges while you were replying to this thread but once you submitted the post, exchange got hacked and coins were lost, everything happens in seconds, otherwise loss wouldn't occur.

So, how do you trade in these cases? Only p2p exchanges? But it's not flexible and you may miss a good time frames where you could profit 1-2% of your balance.

The advice on keeping coin only on private wallet had declined although exchanges are not the safest but the exchanges had give traders confidence with recent hack that protect traders fund while exchanges cater for the damages. The recent development in trade on DEX through token swap (UNISWAP etc.) had been efficient with wallet security except the traders are careless with their private keys. 

Atomic swaps are becoming more popular and we may see greater volume soon on these exchanges with all the crypto regulations forced on centralized exchanges.

You can check https://www.xlitewallet.com/ It supports BTC, DASH, LTC, DOGE, SYS, BLOCK, and PIVX. It claims to have no centralized servers and secured by decentralized service nodes. The design also looks fine based on the images from the site.

Separate your funds into multiple baskets, one of them for trading. Be prepared to lost everything. Deposit to "reputable" exchanges, make your trades, withdraw your profit regularly. If the exchange starts to be a pain in the ass, move to another platform.

If you're not a trader and just want to exchange Bitcoin for fiat, use P2P. If there's a local exchange in your country and it is somewhat decent, use them but don't store your Bitcoin. Only deposit if you want to exchange. That's how I do it at least, and so far fortunately there's no problem.

I never really trust an exchange. You don't know if they're going to crash and lose your money, you don't know if they're going to go out of business, or if they have a sudden inexplicable bug in their system. P2P trading with other people is the safest way to trade, imho.

It's not that you shouldn't be using exchanges per se, it's just that you shouldn't leave your entire holdings on exchanges(which surprisingly a lot of people still do). If you trade with like 5% of your total holdings, then only leave that 5% on exchanges. And just withdraw the funds when you plan on stopping trading for a while and such.

These lines are only applicable when people stores funds to exchanges and custodial wallets.

When day trading, trader should accept those risks, and even use multiple exchange to diversify and reduce these risks. Only use trusted platform with insurance or I guess some regulatory function as well.

Use exchange for trading not for storing that is the actual content of not your keys, not your cryptos. But if we are going to stop the centralized exchanges then you will lose profits as a trader so you have to accept such risk that exchanges can be hacked at any time. So just move funds to your wallet if you are not going to trade in the near future.

For example, you are trading at Binance and the exchanges got hacked where you had few thousands worth of cryptos but the exchange itself claim that all the users funds were protected by SAFU which means the exchange will take the responsibility for the hack and they will pay the users from their pockets.

No one knows when exchange will be hacked, even if you risk and leave funds on exchange for some hours, there is a chance that it will be hacked and your funds will be stolen. And if you deposit/withdraw money on each trade, I hugely doubt you'll get any profit because nowadays there are a huge fees on transaction and everytime I opened my Electrum wallet, it was always warning me that fee was very high. Paying 5% of your initial capital in bitcoin transaction fees can't bring you a profit in trading. That's why I asked what to do and if you trade with 5% of your total holdings, even if you have high capital, it will be just a waste of time and playing for nothing.

I mean, obviously. It's a risk you need to take if you actually want to take advantage of the liquidity of centralized exchanges. If you don't want to risk it, pretty simple- don't trade.

Never said you had to withdraw after literally every trade. I said "just withdraw the funds when you plan on stopping trading for a while and such".

If you only trade with a $50 trading allocation, then sure.

Lol not really. It's only a waste of time if you don't make enough money trading to pay for the transaction fees.

This is the reason why we should choose a good and reliable exchange to trade, if you're deciding to trade, you must know those consequences waiting ahead and risk is a part of it.  Upon choosing to exchange and deposit your fund as capital, it means you already trusted them for any cost, for better and for worst. :D 

How many exchanges offer this service? (SAFU) Secure Asset Fund for Users , I think this will have a guarantee to traders to have a safe fund, but it doesn't mean, leave your fund and let sleep on the exchange.  After trading, don't leave your fund on an exchange platform that you have used, if you will see net profit was there and already covered by the withdrawal fees, you can withdraw them all.

So basically, we shouldn't leave fund on CEXs and custodial wallet, the line that you've used, Not your key, Not your coin is a great warning to all newbies who wanted to join the crypto space.

I've also had the same question as you. I've been hearing not to hold coins (Or even Fiat balance) in exchanges, for safety concerns, I don't see how you can actually do that. Not only that, but I find it a waste of time and money to have both your balance and your coins transferred all the time.

I've always used online wallets in the past (BitGo and Blockchain) and never had any issues. Currently, I have some money on an exchange and some Bitcoin, I keep investing/trading both, back and forth throughout the week, I don't see how I could actually keep them "offline". I think, that if you are using reputable sites, don't sign up on any stupid phising or scam sites, use 2FA, you'll be good to go. I might be wrong though, that's just my 2 cents.

Web wallets are a big No for me, not your keys not your coins , it's as simple as that, the reason why people could warn you not to trust exchanges is never to leave your assets on them, hacks isn't going to warn you when coming, it can happen at anything so they are right, trade on top exchanges and move your funds back into your wallet

Wanted to transfer 0.7 Bitcoin and electrum wallet was warning me that the recommended fee would be higher than 5.7% of the initial amount. I guess 5% of 0.7 bitcoin isn't small and it's a pretty good profit in USD if we consider the amount. I think it's illogical to pay that much fees and some exchanges somehow don't accept SegWit transfers (that's another embarrassment). The idea of this thread is not to push people to leave their funds on exchanges. I just want to find the "Golden Ratio" (sweet spot).

Yogee
Atomic swap sounds well, I'll have a look at it, thanks.

But that's a bit of a hassle if you'd ask me since moving from exchange to your cold storage will require some fee and especially this time when the transaction fees are quite high. I might want the idea of not putting everything on a single exchange, meaning you put something on an exchange for trading purposes only and if done, send the profit to your cold storage then repeat what's left on the exchange you are trading. How would you handle yours?

You can use exchanges for trading but don't trust them for holding and keeping all your coins, and if you want to accept that risk than don't complain later.
There are some decentralized exchanges allowing you to have your own keys and still trade so you have some compromise, more security and lower volume.
I am sure there will be some better and groundbreaking dex solutions in future but we can use what we have for now.
 

It has to depend on the coin pairs. BTC has the most expensive transaction fee from the coins supported by xlitewallet. The fees for the other coins are cheaper and should be manageable for any trader.

You're welcome. Do give us a feedback.

P2P is the other option if you don't want to trade on exchanges but it's not always you'll have that convenient trade through that type of trading. We can use exchanges and basically you will have to if you want to trade bitcoin and convert it to another crypto that you may want to hold. But just as everyone is saying, it's just about not keeping all of them there.

You have to understand the risk that it has upon using a centralized exchange but if you have plans of trading, there's always that huge liquidity on those exchanges that you have to choose. But if it's just holding, I agree that don't use them until you plan to sell.

It is an often reminder to all of newbie and even onto intermediate/expert traders that you must only trade and/or engage in trading if the money or capital you would spend in it would not be all of your money or the money that you cannot afford to lose. Every time that someone asks me where to trade, how to trade, etc., I often tell them that they should only trade if they could take the risk of losing their money. With that being said, there's no real fine line that one must trust any wallets nor any exchanges at all. Even I myself still holds money on some exchanges, not to the fact that I trust those exchanges and their system, but for a reason that I already set myself and my mindset that whatever happens, it would be fine to lose those money.

Hence, whatever your trust issues with wallets and exchanges are, always keep in mind that engaging/trading with crypto remains to be a huge risk to take. Yet, it would always depend on how much risk you can take and if you are willing to take a leap of faith.

Indeed, that is true, there may a few exchange who still clean from hacked event. But, that is not a guarantee that the exchange has a high security until the hacker tire to hack it. They still have a chance to be hacked, maybe that is the matter of time.

But, I'm a trader it means I need to put my money in the exchange, it is impossible to pull my money in the exchange frequently. I only withdraw all of my fund once a week when I get a profit from my day trade at least it will make me comfortable. More than that, I use binance exchange which is trusted until now, they will be responsible to change my fund when something bad happen.

As long as we don't worry too much, I'm sure all the big exchanges will definitely bear everything if something bad happens to the exchange, I also didn't put money in the exchange for too long but when conditions like this mean the market is busy then of course I will put it in it took months but there were also many transactions in and out just to attract profits and capital if needed.

In the internet, no matter how strong the security is, there must be loopholes but we don't need to doubt that I think Binance is the best and safest exchange to date so we can still save more funds but for sure if the worries persist then use a hardware wallet much more safe or Hardware.

When people said don't trust exchanges, they didn't mean that you shouldn't use them. They meant that you shouldn't store your coins for long term in any exchange. Do your exchange/trading and then when you are done trading, move your coins as soon as possible. Don't use those exchange wallet as long term storage wallet. Bad idea. Exchanges might get hacked or your account might get compromised and you will end up losing everything.
As for webwallet, just avoid those at all cost. These are the least secured wallet where you can store your coins.

if you keep trading every day, you are bound to just let your coins stay on the exchange for as long as you want to trade. its cost if you send back and forth the coins to your wallet to exchange wallet every time. but limit something like $2000 only on the exchange, from there you can keep trading and you won't be crying for mercy when the hacker got your money.

an alternative solution is to just use the hybrid wallets that you can use to connect to exchanges and trade from there. you got your coins on your wallet where yo own the private keys and then you can also trade safely/.

Massive hacks in exchanges aren't the most common thing (not an isolated incident though), especially the most known ones, such as Kraken or Bitstamp, and many more. I understand that it is a worrisome event, if it ever happens. Many incidents have also happened due to compromised accounts from database leaks in various sites, setting up a 2FA and different passwords is considered vital.

Here's an article about the most major Cryptocurrency Exchanges' hacks. Let's hope that they've learned from their mistakes and these kind of incidents don't happen again.

https://selfkey.org/list-of-cryptocurrency-exchange-hacks/

To those who are purely hodling, they may entirely avoid web wallets and exchanges. They can do it. But to those who are actively trading or at least still interested to take the opportunity to trade once in a while when there are huge swings in the market, spikes in prices, and so on, they cannot really avoid exchanges.

So they need to manage risks and know better than having their funds sleep in exchanges. The downside of this is that things may happen very quickly with the prices, and moving funds from your cold wallet, for example, to your exchange wallet may take some time and you might miss your price target.

Because a lot of us can't avoid to use exchanges, better use exchanges with insurance like Binance. This exchange, I am pretty confident to store coins in few days while waiting for the right timing to trade. Sometimes, we need to store for a bit of time our coins in exchanges because of waiting the right time to trade your coins. And for me, if you will keep your coins a lil bit longer, better do it in trusted ones like binance. So even if they are hacked during those time period, you are insured and you know, you can get back your coins.

But the fees are entirely different from directing to the exchanges where you want to trade. That wallet has a cut if it's integrated into an exchange that they're partnered with. Yes, it is convenient as you don't have to move from your wallet to exchanges.

But, there's one disadvantage that you need to accept and take and that is the fees and rates are different from the usual exchange that we use. They're much higher. I guess you have to accept any of those disadvantages, either pay the network fees which are also high, or just accept the fact that rates are different and there are adjustments for your convenience.

What's the long term in this case? What if I just deposited bitcoins and plan to store it for two days but tomorrow exchange got hacked and my funds are stolen? Once your bitcoins are gone, they are lost. Crypto isn't a bank's payment service where funds are under their control and if hack happens, they are easily able to get the money back, that's why exchanges need the highest security standards and well-written codes.

So, from the moment you send your cryptos to exchange, there is a risk that you may lose it.

But I have a question, why the f do I have to worry about that? If exchange got hacked, it's their fault, not mine and they should pay for any financial loses. That's why I think that PayPal and other top companies will come over current exchanges.

You don't have to necessarily use the "recommended" fees by whatever wallets. In the first place, wallets are mostly notorious for recommending unnecessarily high fees. You can pay as much as a few cents worth of transaction fees if you don't need the funds ASAP.

The trick is to minimize the time of parking your funds on exchanges. Not planning on using it yet? Then don't deposit it yet.

And again, trading in itself is subjective. So if you don't like the risk of leaving a small amount of your funds on exchanges, then don't risk it. On the other hand, some people are totally fine with it as long as they can make as much money and withdraw the profits as much as possible.

Because when exchanges are totally cleaned out, even if they wanted to cover the lost funds of their users, they wouldn't be able to afford to do so.

As for PayPal, yea, assuming they're holding real BTC(and not CFDs) then there's also the possibility of them losing the bitcoin of their users. It might just be the case that they have A LOT more money to cover losses compared to other far smaller exchanges.

There are literally no restrictions in trading in reputed exchanges and if you think you trust the exchange then you carry on with your usual business. The only advice anyone sensible would give is not to use web wallets or exchanges to hold the coins for the long term as there are many who does the simple mistake of holding the coins for the long term in exchanges for the ease of trade because of the network congestion.

I've used Xapo at one point (2015-16) and BitGo, which until recently had the majority of my coins. I had no issues with BitGo, I was also provided with the private keys on sign-up. Furthermore, I never had any issues with the support or the wallet itself. It's one of the online ones I would totally recommend. It also supports Litecoin and Bitcoin Gold or Cash, don't remember which of the two.

Xapo on the other hand, is lacking support. I haven't used it for years, but when I tried to recover my account, their support was unhelpful. It's been over 10 days and still haven't managed to recover it.

I am yet to explore BitGo but i used Xapo and Coinbase in the past when there were literally no transaction charges and i used to enjoy sending coins for free but once they came out with variable fees i just stopped using them altogether but i do use Coinbase as it is convenient now to purchase the coins.

Xapo has the worst support team and it will take a long time to get any response from them and their mobile app is crap as well.

You have to accept a certain extent of risk as a fact of life.

There is no absolutely risk-free or trustless way of trading, unless you are using a completely decentralised finance platform (i.e., a DEX).

Even with P2P/OTC trading platforms, the period of time when you have your coins deposited on the platform carries risks. LBC could freeze your account, go bust, who knows.

But what you can do is control the stuff that is in your control, namely minimising the amount of time that your coins stays on exchanges. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using a centralised exchange as long as you *manage* these risks properly.

I trust exchanges more than web wallets because exchanges can sti be hold responsible if anything bad happens but web wallet will vanish without any traces, though exchanges are of different types, I'm not talking about exchanges that don't care about reputation, I'm talking about binance, kucoin, huobi etc