Bitcoin Forum

“Principles of BTC — You do not trust a CEO. You do not trust a company. You do not trust a custodian. You do not trust a bank. You hold your own keys. You run your own node. The #bitcoin network will run for the next 1,000 years”, explains @saylor

https://i.imgur.com/d1lBb7a.png

source (https://twitter.com/DocumentingBTC/status/1590751484303794177)

Anytime incidents like that of FTX occur you will remember why btc remains at the top and will always reign supreme. Another lesson for those who think exchanges are the best option to secure their funds. Not Your Keys, Not Your Money. Do Not Forget.

As I already said in my previous post on this subject, the role that exchanges play has been vastly overstated by the media and the business community, who would have you believe that a companies like Binance, Coinbase or FTX "holds" all our bitcoins. That is simply not true if you own your private keys (which is what true ownership entails). The vast majority of users had never heard of Alameda Research or FTX Ventures before they started hearing news of the latter's insolvency. This is why I keep repeating this mantra: do not use an exchange if you want to truly control your BTC! And, as we have seen in this example, local wallets are indeed the safest option.

There were some threads who were claiming that exchangers are far better and safer as compared to the wallets because they could recover your losses by compensating to you. I am sure this news might have hit them very hard on their face. ROFL.
I might be sounding little rude but I am really saying this in the most fun and smile way as I could!

That man Satoshi, he literally saw the vision of market a decade ago and still there are people who "THINK" having custody of our funds to someone's hand is best way to safeguard it. For example, banks. I hope we have not forgotten the Russian incidence were cash were so short that they halted the ATM and also restricted cash withdrawals.

Then in crypto XRP, LUNA, then binance hack, KuKoin hack and now FTX falling, but all you need is BTC to stay in your own control.

If it does not get values then that's not a problem, we will keep BTC = BTC and trade in that language/fashion only.

#NYKNYM

Personally, I recommend to people that keep bitcoin in an exchange to read and search about cold card. Probably another good self custody/cold wallets out there, but once someone recommended me this one and I am enjoying to use it. I am also using Electrum.

Since I store my sats and I started my self custody journey, I am a lot more motivated to learn about the bitcoin network, and to buy and store my sats properly. Bitcoin really empowers people.

Of course, devices like the cold card have a learning curve, at the beginning, it will seem difficult, but after you learn about it, you will realize that is simple. What I did it was make very small transactions, withdraw very small amounts from exchange until I felt comfortable to withdraw all my sats from the exchange.

Not your keys, not your coins.

I think people relearned the lesson again.  There is so many incidents like this before the FTX but people never learned and they still keep their cryptocurrency on exchanges.   I hope this FTX incident will awaken people who get used to leaving their cryptocurrency in third-party services.



But is it really possible to not use and exchange?  How can you convert your Bitcoin to cash then?  Or how can you buy Bitcoin with your cash if you do not use an exchange?  Isn't it too much to advise people to not use an exchange and isn't it much better to advise them to not leave their cryptocurrency in an exchange nor use it as a wallet in keeping our cryptocurrency?


Whoever claims that a custodial wallet is far better than owned wallet has little understanding of how cryptocurrency works, the privacy, and the accessibility of a cryptocurrency.  Anyway, we don't need to argue with them because the current incident had already refuted them.

That's the unfortunate part. They learn this lesson but unlearn it very quickly too when a couple of weeks go by. In fact we already see people who claim that for example an exchange like Binance is safe because they don't remember seeing a hack there!

You can use fiat currencies on decentralized exchanges too. For example you should check out https://bisq.network/

As pooya87 pointed out. When advices like this come up, there is a silent 'centralized' before the term exchanges, so it becomes, do not keep your bitcoins in a centralized exchange, cause with them, you do not own the private keys and give up custody to the exchange platform and are subject to their terms and conditions.

P2P platforms on the other hand, have an open and decentralized model to mediate between transactions, without the user needing to give up custody.

Hopefully many people can learn the lessons behind what happened to the FTX exchange. Security issues are the main thing that novice investors who store Bitcoins on centralized exchanges should take heed of.
Bitcoin security only we users take good care of it.

Regarding this incident, the rest we just follow and I personally do not fully believe the problem that is befalling FTX.

It means using exchanges to control the ownership of assets without any limits, exchanges still has some terms of use that are against the principle. It's not always wrong to use exchanges, traders have even stronger reasons than long-term holders. Selling bitcoins for cash means that you'll release your bitcoins from control afterward, so this is a different use case.

I understand what you're saying, and I partially agree with you. DEXs aside, it is impossible to get in or out of crypto without using an exchange. But, you know that some people leave their cryptocurrency in exchanges? They probably do so because they want to save on some transaction fees or they are too lazy to go through the process of withdrawing their funds. It's like going to the store to get groceries, but instead of taking them home you leave your bags at the cash register. It's a big risk. Exchanges could be hacked or they could go bankrupt, and you are exposing yourself to a lot of risks that could result in loss of funds.

If you want to hold your Bitcoins and use it as a store of value, then the best advice is to avoid using exchanges as much as possible.

Next time drop the link of a source that seems you're copy-pasting from this article (https://bitcoin.design/guide/getting-started/principles/).

We should thanks to those recent dramas on exchange and people now learned and are awake for using them.
The true principle not only in Bitcoin but instead in the entire crypto, you must have control over your key which those mentioned above don't have.  I don't know if there's data that shows how many users leave on centralized exchanges as of now like Binance or Coinbase.  As we can see it has an impact on Bitcoin prices that struggles to resist because people transferred their crypto assets.

These theories had always be there, a few occurances as to what could be when things go wrong but, it was mainly due to hacks but in the FTX exchange situation, it was just an ambitious CEO, trying to take so much advantage of centralisation to benefit himself and crew but, it back fired. Destroyed his exchange, reputation and is deep in debt.
Centralization has not been the idea of bitcoin. That's so fiat and having it otherwise sort of removes what we might treasure about bitcoin or cryptocurrencies. A lot of lessons is sure to have been learned from this but still, I don't expect everyone to play it safe.

The issue here is because t here are a lot of people out there who treat centralized exchanges as personal bitcoin wallets or non-custodial bitcoin wallets which is a red flag.
That's why there are lot of people who encouraging these people to not do it, like , withdraw all bitcoins to the exchanges and store it to non-custodial bitcoin wallets so you can guaranteed your bitcoins are safe 100%.

Trust other people or other third party services, do it with risk and well awareness about scam, black swan event, hack ...

With Bitcoin, only you can lose your Bitcoin if you store your coins in your non-custodial wallet.

How would you lose your coins in a non-custodial wallets?
- Your device is broken, can not be recovered and you don't have that wallet backup for recovery
- You lose your keys, your seeds, wallet password to others
- You sell your coins at cheap price and lose part of it when you buy back at higher price

How to not lose your coins ?
- Use a non-custodial wallet, back it up for recovery, use strong password for your wallet file, store your backup safely, offline
- Hold, don't trade

For quite some time now in cryptocurrency, the bankruptcy of the centralized exchange FTX and then its hacking has created a state of confusion in the public mind.  Especially those who have kept or thought of keeping cryptocurrencies in online wallets or centralized exchange wallets are basically thinking of transferring them from centralized exchanges to cryptocurrency hardware wallets or cold wallets.
Hardware wallets basically have security measures completely restricted to the user.  The private key of all these wallets and Perphase remain with the user.  So all these wallets are not likely to be hacked.

Hardware/Non Custodial wallet main characteristics.....

"Your wallet, your private key, your Money"

I bet people will quickly forget all that FTX has caused because FTX was neither the first exchange to crash nor the last. People will quickly forget those losses when they see profits, centralized exchanges will undoubtedly find ways to attract users by creating attractive investment forms.


Those who are constantly propagating to stop using exchanges are the ones who are still using them quietly.  It is not possible to completely stop using exchanges, as long as fiat remains the main currency, we cannot stop using exchanges, that is a harsh reality.

principles of bitcoin (the 10 commandments)

1. once confirmed,.. its confirmed
2. not your key not your bitcoin
3. immutable not editable
4. world view, personal storage
5. PoW gives non-zero bottom value
6. no ID, no worries
7. no central point, no central target
8. no refund, no chargeback
9. no double spend, no counterfeit
10. majority rules, minority falls

translating some of the less clear
4. world view, personal storage
    spend around the world but they cant take from you

5. PoW gives non-zero bottom value
    below the market is a place efficient miners acquire coins.
    if no one on the planet can get coin for less than this.
    nor wants to sell below acquisition cost.
    then the price cant fall to zero
    (unless something drastic kills hashrate long term(6month+))

discussing trust Holding your keys is simply the best option when it comes to cryptocurrencies, security of your funds should be the number one thing you consider, and people have always warned against trusting an exchange. I don't think, I wonder why people will so much put their trust in exchanges, not only CEO but also individuals, anything centralized I don't like, talking about banks I wish I was a legislator banks are just too annoying the way they operate is just too selfish, and holding your keys is simply the best option. keeping it safe matters a lot.

There are differents instances concerning risk if an investor would be storing assets on exchanges such as other people being able to easily access yiur device and transferring funds. Another one is if you are trading without stop loss (perhaps you forgot to do so) wherein other money in the bag could be lost with it once liquiation has been reached (I've experienced such thing in Binance Futures, but that's my fault). Well these are only practical scenarios and just pointing out exchangers are not storage of wealth.
I'd agree with not your key not your Bitcoin even if it would be seen on your transaction. Once things are transferred it qould be hard to get it back because no one would regulate it unlike with centralized online wallets. You'd only be able to know which destination your assets came.

The principle of bitcoin is quite simple in the use of investment and in trade, Bitcoin has a much more perfect system without any control centered by any securities, so there are no restrictions on its journey other than the owner with those who want to transact. Bitcoin is unique because the decentralization was developed with several combinations of technical methods that are quite relevant and in line with thinking concerning freedom of investment.

Therefore, this is an important lesson for all of us, that the exchange is not a safe place to store any assets, because we do not have complete security access there. Awareness of asset security must be a special consideration for everyone, before and after making a decision where to store assets.

While this might be true for some, I know that is not true in my case. As long as I can make payments directly with Bitcoin, I do not need exchanges. In this way, I can avoid all the risks associated with dealing with exchanges.

Unless you live in El Salvador, you can use bitcoin as your daily payment method; otherwise, you cannot do it if you live in a country where bitcoin is banned or restricted. Currently, bitcoin is not legal or not recognized as a popular means of payment in many parts of the world, so I don't think you're going to stop using fiat. And if you are here to use bitcoin as a currency, then that is true for you, but you are here for profit. You are no exception because most people are trying to accumulate, no one wants to sell or use bitcoins.

I agree with you that indeed security and freedom are of the utmost importance here including the anonymity. But I am not too naive with centralized exchanges, because they advertise everywhere - openly and widely, and of course make it easy for new people to enter the exchange. after they have experienced disappointment with any centralized exchange, what I see is like what happened to FTX, the impact of the flow of funds from centralized exchanges to decentralized exchanges has increased significantly. it means that new people/customers need time to learn Bitcoin and Dex until they are like you now.

The collapse of the FTX has indeed taught us all a valuable lesson. As soon as you invest in an asset for a company, it becomes the company's money. As long as you don't hold your keys, a platform is free to use them as it wishes. You control your keys, you control your money. Furthermore, the money that you keep in your possession. We can withdraw money without worrying about the system collapsing while a company runs. As we know what happened with FTX, we'll probably see a change in mindset.

Even if you have access to your key to the altcoin ownership but it still does not guarantee security because the developer can just abandon the project so that the altcoin becomes worthless unlike bitcoin when you have the key then you really own the bitcoin with its value while for the price it is a different thing, so bitcoin is more than all altcoins in terms of security and for me not key not your coin fully applies to bitcoin not altcoins that are controlled by a company or developer.

This is exactly why Satoshi Nakamoto created bitcoins because the lack of security from the banks and their policies are always choking their users and investors. That's why we need to do exactly what has been the reason for the bitcoins to be created and that is we need to own our personal wallet and keep it as our own private assets so that no one can take it from us and we are the one who has the full control for it. If we put it on some exchanges, then we expect that we won't be 100% sure that we will gonna get it back tomorrow because of how fast events can occur in the crypto market.

I think the "you do not trust" format of discussing the benefits of Bitcoin doesn't feel right. I'd prefer "you don't need to trust", as otherwise it sounds as if people who use Bitcoin just have big trust issues.
There is a place for centralized services, and they will find their customers. But keeping in mind the risks of using them is always a good idea. Unfortunately, people tend to recall it only when bad things have already happened, and then forget over time when things seem to be going alright.

Before now people actually stored their money in exchange platform which probably not been control by them. Many centralized  company have fallen and it's all served as a lesson to new and potential people in the crypto world.
Me myself during this bearish season was able purchase some little amount of crypto in binance and I  was planning on leaving it there so anytime i want it i can go and exchange it but all of a sudden news about how FTX sudden crashed came flying all round the air and this platform is holding the money of so many people that have made investments in or just kept their coins there.
From the all the warning, i had to move my coins from an exchange platform to a more secure and safer way ,a wallet in which I have my own keys meaning i control my own money.

So all this sudden crash should serve as lesson that no centralized platform is actually worthy of your coins

Saylor is a big maximalist and he knows what he's saying, the best place to store your bitcoins is obviously your private keys.  Want to be even safer?  Then don't trust it and put entropy in the construction of your seed.  Still not enough for you?  Then turn on a node in your home and connect your wallet.  Do you really want to be in an armored safe?  Then you need to buy a hardware wallet.

If you had done at least half of these steps now you would not have lost even 1 satoshi and ftx would never have existed.

That's a different thing about keeping your wallet/coins safe from being abandoned by the devs. But that's a serious thing when you've been a fan of a project and you've supported them with all your might and then you see the news that it's being abandoned, that's more than a heart break.

Despite Michael Saylor being one of the whales and bullish about bitcoin, he's not promoting to keep bitcoins into exchanges opposite to those promoters and celebrities that could be hired by exchanges like FTX, crypto.com, binance and other known exchanges.