Bitcoin Forum

Just recently browse this screen capture of Kraken CEO Jesse Powell in response to a concern tweet about freezing of account without consent of owner. The CEO is 100% sure about the possibility of this event so if you guys are concern for freezing your account, You should withdraw now all your coins on all CEX and never store on it if you are still doing this kind things.

Source: https://twitter.com/jespow/status/1494462097161220104?t=ONLgfLVc_TlJsX9tQ9ZvDA&s=19

Yeah the recommendation has always been to move funds away from exchanges if you can and it's nice to see someone from an exchange actually agreeing with that notion.

Every financial institution are bound by similar laws so it's hard to escape the account freezing normally, but with bitcoin the p2p and decentralised nature does make it doable.

Sad to say that this has been happening in centralized crypto platforms for a long time now. It's one of those stories you will regularly see in cryptocurrency communities... Users gets their funds frozen with no clear reason. Some gets the chance to appeal their case typically in exchange for more KYC info, but some gets completely shunned by the support team. A number of them may have an edge legally but attorneys and all that are a luxury not everyone can afford.

That is old advice that is effective and is voiced everywhere. Even without regulatory involvement, centralized services can also freeze customer funds with internal rules as they please. Unfortunately people are too dependent on centralized platform because of their habit with conventional financial system and also not enough knowledge to manage cryptocurrency independently.

Not your keys Not your coins.
I really think every APP and wallet should start with that. Let people know that yes you can keep your BTC anyplace they want. But, if it's not local to them then it's not theirs.
I just bought some BTC to trade, and I left it on the exchange. I know the risks. How many people do not? :(

-Dave

At least he do tell the truth to the public which most of us do definitely know on what are the circumstances that we might faced specially if a certain platform would really be ending up on high

or tight/strict regulation which they would need to comply on something for them to operate continuously or staying up on the business even if via means on affecting other users.
If they wouldn't tend to agree with the terms then its neither closure or something like that but most of platforms will surely agree on such changes
and users would need to follow if they do wish to stay but its actually a good suggestion.

 Its really not that much of a shock though. I mean what did people expected, for Kraken to say no to cops and judges? Obviously they are going to end up saying yes to whatever law says and the moment there is an order for a persons assets to be frozen, it will be frozen. Kraken never really told people that they would protect your funds no matter what happens, that would be insane to do, they would be shutdown within the day and would never work anywhere in the USA ever again. People who use Kraken already know this or at least should have known this. If you were now aware of it, now you are. Use it with this caution but doesn't mean that you can't use it neither, just do not do anything illegal that makes a court judge to go out and freeze your assets, and you will be fine.

It's been said for so many times that when you're going to store for long term, use a hardware wallet.

He's right and on point about keeping it on exchanges, even him, he knows the risk of letting the exchange hold your fund.

Just don't put all your money in the exchanges.

That's a good point and that's good to know that even the CEO of the exchange advises their users to use a noncustodial wallet for the safety of their assets.  Everything can be hacked and centralized exchange is vulnerable or prone to that hack.

He's right and even the CEO of the exchange is aware of possible hacks and if you don't have trust in the exchange you can pull out anytime your assets and store them in a safe place.  Still, the golden rule was there "Not Your Key, Not Your Coin".

Kraken exchange is good for trading not storing your assets and I don't even trust in P2P exchange.

Even without that kind of announcement, it should be a usual approach not to "store" coins on a third-party service.

Not saying you shouldn't use those services but only if it's really needed to or you are running out of alternatives.

I appreciate though the awareness of the CEO of one of the popular exchanges in the crypto-world. That's a good reference at those new players lurking right now in between several centralized exchanges.

That is the risk faced if we entrust our funds on the central platform there will be people who have the power to do anything for legal reasons and everything, always consider all the possibilities that occur if we choose to put large funds in CEX and if not for trade transactions it would be better to withdraw it and store it in the wallet that we have access to PK.

As you posted this on Trading section, many people still hold their coins on exchanges because it will minimize the fee when you want to send/receive from your own wallet. Daily trader doesn't have any choice with this matter, maybe they can only put few% for their daily trading and rest of them still on their wallet. If many people prefer to use P2P rather than CEX, there's will be high liquidity there and there's no reason we need to use CEX.

I'm very glad that they are transparent and telling this in public which for me is very correct and must. Glad to see people on centralized platforms telling this, not being hypocritical, and being greedy even they lose customers.

This is also another thing that most of the people in crypto will know especially before signing up or doing deposits on their centralized exchange accounts.

First, not your keys not your coins. CEX means they mostly only give you custodial wallets that mean you don't have any key.

• https://notyourkeys.org/

Second, CEX means centralized and are regulated by governments so whenever governments bring serious pressure and ask those exchanges to do KYC on all customers, they will do it. Then you might get trouble with KYC procedure and in worst case, your coins will stuck on those exchanges.
Lastly, CEX means if their exchanges get hacked and unable to compensate for customers, you will lose your money. In addition, they can use hacks as reasons for their scam exits.

It must be related to Binance.US probe investigation of SEC with thier trading affiliates. The investigation could lead to accusing CZ of conspiring suspicious activity with partners inside the trading platform. Jesse Powell is just sending the possibility that SEC will also try to get him through such an investigation and warn everyone now to cautiously use the exchange and leave money inside that you can afford to lose.

Would this mean Jesse is hiding something?  :D

I have never stored my assets on a centralized exchange. Not your keys, not your coins. I only use CEXs for day trading or just simply buying or selling coins and tokens and quickly transfer them to a cold or non-custodial wallet. No disrespect to CEXs, but this is the reality nowadays.

Well this is one of the best example that no matter what, not your keys not your coins.
Yes, I know its about the CEX, but on the other hand just think about the tweet from CEO of exchanger itself. They know very well, if they are forced to freeze the assets then they wont be able to give it to the clients account. It would be their own liability if they loose it. So clear message, even if they are multi millionaire exchanger they can't help you whenever there is situation like this or even the hacking. You will always get suffered with this. I kinda started to think that Peer 2 Peer option is far better these days rather than keeping the assets on exchangers.
At the least they gave the notice to their followers, hope so everyone gets the lesson of not your keys!

It's not always SAFU but if the CEO himself has warned the users then best to do it and besides it's always been the narrative to keep your coins privately. Looks like Kraken will just be the focal point for now but likely to happen to other exchanges as well.

Nothing news, we have many experiences like this. And thanks to Kraken CEO for telling the truth. If we don't like to freeze our assets then have to move into a non-custodial wallet or deal it p2p. But we are not hearing that and there is not much we can do as well. We are forced to use centralized exchange due to Liquidity and pair. But need to make sure the amount isn't big there and not hold for a long time. Otherwise, at any time fund would freeze.

I would guess that Kraken have to say this as well, I mean not like they could deny it, then FBI would be all over them. Plus they got a banking right as well, don't know if they actually started the bank or not but I know that they had that right. Which is a big proof enough to show you that they are quite legal and out there. They do not have stocks trading on the market like Coinbase does as far as I know, but they are still a huge company.

I believe that they will be more and more inside the law over time and that requires them to give up on some of the freedom that crypto brings. If you are worried about your money, just get a ledger nano and you would be able to protect it very carefully.

We dont really have any option because there are no liquidity and volume if we do tend to look on the other side plus this is the only place where you could really make out exchanges in between fiat to crypto
or crypto to fiat which people could really be having no choice but to deal with the risk.Of course it was never been suggested to store up huge amounts yet these platforms could anytime
make out some sudden change of decision and terms which you wouldnt be having no choice whether to comply on whats been asked or would totally be losing those funds.

Much bad factor are circulating for crypto. Canadian government Seizing wallet of centralized exchanges and its very bad for crypto. The Ukraine and Russia war also big issue And SEC pressure in the US and European banks fighting to get rid of it. Lots and lots of fud.

Isn't this obvious? Everyone knows that CEX is not safe for holding your assets as whenever the authorities would want they can screw up your holdings by freezing the assets. Even though it won't be for a very long term at least for major exchanges. But anyways it still is a great risk. Not your keys, not your cryptos is the saying that is used by a lot of people on forums these days and this is the reason behind that saying. If the CEO of such a major exchange is agreeing with this I don't know what else people want to listen before they stop using CEX for storing their currency for a longer term.

We've long time know about this very basic risks on dealing with centralized platforms and its not a new thing aside from those newbies or who doesnt mind about the risk then this advise does really

suit them.These platforms could anytime be following government rules and regulations which means that sudden changes could really be experienced. If your funds gets locked then
thats the time you do only mind off about this problem or trying to avoid it but it should really be done earlier then you might have able to avoid problems and hassle.

some are still storing their coins in CEXs because of convenience reasons. however, if you will not trade for few days, better get your funds out and send it to secured wallet. even exchange officials are advising their clients not to store their coins in CEXs. and yet, some still failed to do so.
people need to learn their lesson in hard way before they totally get the scenario. governments can freeze anytime your account if you are in a centralised exchange. so before it happens, make sure you do your part.

I think unless you donated funds or received funds for the truckers convoy then you shouldn’t worry. There was some Bitcoin addresses where they were accepting donations. I think one guy donated like 5BTC and the address was public and everything. They got tainted and now flagged.

So if it’s sent to an exchange like Kraken they can freeze the person who received it. In Canada they are not treating this as a protest but instead terrorism. It’s gotten pretty bad lately. Even news crews don’t feel safe.

This isn't the first thing that come to my mind but maybe because I didn't know that issue about binance and sec but what comes to my mind after reading the post is the issue on Canada about the truck drivers because that also shows how centralized entity control their funds and they then switch to decentralize currencies, the same thing can be applied here in the op's post, CEX has the full control of your funds and they can do whatever want to but this things are actually not new and I think majority of us already know this but how can you say that the CEO of kraken hides something from their users? He only replies to the guy in the tweet. Do not give it a new meaning.

Yes agreed but if CEO of a centralized exchange is himself reiterating the statement in Public, it really is a big thing, so far it's just speculation but if he is saying governments might already be coming for your assets and I think exchanges where you haven't done your KYC are even more prone to such a thing as governments would want to catch the money that is anonymous.
This isn't necessary. If you have not done KYC, the government can easily flag your account by saying you are a truckers convoy supporter, how will you be able to differentiate yourself without KYC, later even if you do this, how long the process would last moreover if you are in some other country and US/ Canada holds your money, process becomes even more lengthy.

Yeah, you may be right, but I think mainly what the op is trying to point out here is the risk of making use of CEX. You know that CEX are controlled by the government. So in the future, if any such event should take place, which would require the government to seize crypto assets that belongs to citizens that are involved in such activity, then you know their target is definitely through CEX and not p2p exchanges as they wouldn’t be able to have access to seizing coins through p2p.

So, it’s best to make use of p2p than using CEX, if you want to make sure that you’re fully in control of your money and your address can’t be freezes in case of anything in the future.

An account freeze was something I've experienced in 2021 on the Kraken exchange, maybe back then it wasn't as serious as it is now. So at that time, Kraken froze my account because the deposit and withdrawal processes had too different time intervals. Like on Binance, you may know the process can take 15 to 30 minutes to keep funds from freezing because the process is considered suspicious activity.

As for 2021, I don't use Kraken anymore until now. So I don't know much about the worries that followed.

That's true and he got some balls to admit that even if being the CEO of an centralized exchange but he was talking about freezing particular account if regulatory body claims that the account involved some illegal activities so not everyone have to worry about freezing an account unless they aren't doing anything against the government and ToS of exchanges.

There would be some lock up of funds but it would be temporary and its true that as long the platform would really abide out the law or regulation then they would just simply make out some changes

and once they would integrate it then users do need to follow it which means that you wouldnt be having be no choice but to deal with it.Locked up funds would be temporary
unless if we do talk about hacking incident.We havent seen government intervention which do involves locked up funds without any recovery or having access into it.

It was something that everyone should have already known. Even if you have joined an exchange that doesn't require you to pass KYC to trade, they can freeze your assets if they are told to do so. They will have to comply no matter what. That's why it is better not to store your funds in an exchange. Done with your trading? Take them out and store them somewhere safe. Store them in wallets where only YOU have the control of the private keys. At least Kraken is being honest about it. No other CEX would like to admit about this issue.

It's for every exchange and every trader, it's a general talk that all of us should be careful with centralized exchanges. He's not just a CEO but he's also a user like us that knows the risk that it bears when letting our funds sleep into cexes.

Even if an exchange showed strong SAFU policy, don't rely on it most of the time as they all have limited funds. Once a big hack happens and they've got no enough fund to cover the loss, everyone's at loss.

That's pretty good of them to have that advisory because they know that if they don't do it, they're the ones that's going to get the flak when the freeze finally happens and I think that people should start doing so because it's only a matter of time before CEX are going to be under the thumb of the government to do their bidding.

Hacking incidents may dry up the hot wallets of exchanges completely but its completely different from the context of this tweet. This is all about freezing someone's account at any time if the government wants to is possible so whoever wants to hold their funds never choose any exchange for that purpose.

Well, one reason to avoid custodialexchanges/wallet. I have already been avoiding them for a quite a long time now. I have usually had this feeling that if the government wants to take any action at all, it would be through these custodial wallets and exchanges, since they are being regulated by the government. So, anyone who doesn’t want to get into such troubles is best off avoiding them entirely.

For over a year now I have been making use of p2p, and I would also like to point out that p2p has benefited me more than making use of CEX, as I get to set my own terms and make good profit from selling my assets. Some people tend to avoid p2p because it’s usually difficult at first to understand, but when you try it out a few times, you will get to understand.

got "freeze" is quite a serious threat to those who store their crypto assets on CEX...

but I also can't deny, that I keep some of my assets for trading on CEX, I know the risks too but I still believe Binance and kucoin will be responsible for the assets which I put on their exchange.

I think if you are someone who is in it for the long run, then it’s better to hold on to your coins with your hardware wallet or something. Because you can never have control with your coins if it is in a centralized exchange, I think it’s not just CEX But also just centralized exchanges in general.

You wouldn’t have to worry too much if you are not doing anything wrong it’s just that it is a good practice to hold onto your coins for yourself.

But dont expect that in times of possible hack then dont anticipate that you would be given out some refund or compensation of your funds at least.
The hassle thing about pulling in and putting in funds on CEX is understandable on which this isnt surprising on why people do really take the risk
on storing up their assets on a centralize platform despite of that common problem.Its up to save up some fees plus having the easy access whenever
you do make buying or selling decisions.

This is good habit to have but tbh I never used it. I don't have much money but I keep it on binance. I know isn't smartes way but I didn't have any problem.

It's still regardless. To be honest, it's not something that anyone could do but it's a great practice to do. Even if you don't have a lot of money invested in crypto, you wouldn't want it to go to waste, right? Like no matter what you could do it's still a good practice to have it stored in a safe location and you won't regret it either way.

Yeah, and it's too late when it becomes a problem. It's like leaving your wallet out on the streets. As long as no one takes it, it's not a problem. By the time someone does, it's not possible to fix it.

And I totally disagree about not anyone being able to keep coins in their own wallet. It's actually so much easier to keep crypto in your own wallet and have a watchlist to keep an eye on it. No need logging in, 2fa, etc on an exchange to see if it's still there (and worse, even if it's still there you can't take it unless you request a withdraw).

Would really be just common sense but as a trader then its normal that our funds would be put up on a platform for better access and execution of your trading positions and if you do have those funds anytime on your

own non custodial wallet then you would surely be having that time consuming deposits of funds plus would be having that expense in speaking of fees on which this is the main reason on why they much prefer

on parking out their coins into platforms.We are all aware of possible hacks or incidents like this to happen which isnt surprising.

It isn't really a smart move.

Exchanges should be used as an exchange and not a place to store your crypto. Even the exchange is binance and other reputable exchanges, that's not enough reason why you should keep it there.

You're at risk because you hold no funds upon doing that.

Always remember the famous quote line:

Well of COURSE if you're trading then you should be having your funds on the platform! But I think we're talking about very different things here. I mean of COURSE if you're trading, your funds are on exchange. If you're escrowing or gambling, your funds are with escrow or with casino. That's the risk you take when using your BTC for a service.

I'm sure we're all talking about keeping as in storing, right?

Trading is a different situation, if you are about to trade and all then of course it makes sense, nobody would argue against that. However, let's not forget all those people how use exchanges as a wallet. I personally do that and know it is wrong and yet I still do that.

Binance is literally my wallet, no idea why I am doing that but I should probably stop doing it for sure. At the end of the day, life is not that easy and not all of us could afford a hardware wallet, and having it on our PC means one bad virus and it is all gone. Sometimes we may fail to find a proper way to defend it, but it is out there and we need to look and search for it for sure.

Is hardwallet that really expensive? Not that much yet its just 100 bucks i would say and comparing into the amount where are dealing or trading on then i dont believe that you are trading below than that

which means that we are really just not serious on keeping our assets on a safe place.We dont really act out if we dont experience problems with our finances but if the time comes then you would
surely regret that you havent done it earlier or before.

If you can't afford to buy hardware wallet, why not use other free wallets like electrum as it only requires small space in your computer. Because bitcoincore is not practical as it is too heavy for the computer. Though I can understand if some people are using CEX like binance as their wallet, because they are confident about this exchange. Which for me, is also good if you are a regular trader. But if you will not use the exchange for long time, better transfer it to your noncustodial wallet.

Which is why we do not apply the people who are trading to this advice of keeping your coins off exchanges. Obviously Kraken boss and everyone else with a sense of Bitcoin and crypto will always say, don't use an exchange to keep your coins. There are no exceptions (trading is not an exception as you're using it as capital not keeping it as savings or holdings).

You're the perfect example, why use Binance as wallet? There's literally no advantage:
- fees are higher
- you can't use it rightaway

No need hardware wallet if you can't afford. Download Electrum or any other free open-source wallet. Bad virus won't necessarily make your wallet gone if you store your private keys or seed safely (offline).

I would also wonder what did people really expected? I mean trader or not, if you are dealing with a company that is registered in the USA and they are following all the laws they have to so that they wouldn't be closed or punished or sued, then what did you really expected?

Are there any people out there who thinks that government will come knocking on Krakens door, tell them to give over the crypto of some people, you think Kraken would have gone "no, we are decentralized!!" and not share it? Obviously they would, this is not a news, he didn't say something we didn't already know. Some people are acting like "how could they!!!" but this was the case the moment their exchange was up.

At least he do make out some warning but only applicable or relevant into those newbies who dont know on how this market works but for those who do have experience then this is a casual stuff
that we do already know about yet this had been always part of the risk when you are dealing with centralized and licensed platforms which it is understandable that they are under on certain laws
and if those laws would tend to make out some stirring then no surprise that they would really be having these kind of lock ups or change of requirements.

The reply is very rude but again, he just spoke what they do best, you know very well that they are centralized exchanges like banks, they have their policy and terms you accepted in the course of registration, no one should feel bitter for his response.
I used centralized exchanges when there is a need for normal p2p it's and strictly fiat to crypto and as soon as I get credited, my balance remains zero. Don't dare exchange to keep your assets, it's dangerous. Always remember not your keys not your authorization to spend the way you may want.