Bitcoin Forum

"Not your keys, not your coins" (https://cryptosec.info/nyknyc/). I don't know since when the saying was born but it has been repeatedly mentioned in cryptocurrency communities.

It's bad idea to put your coins on centralized exchanges with custodial wallets (you don't have access key to that wallet).
It's bad idea to send your coins to centralized lending platforms (like Celcius, 3 Arrows Capital ie.). You don't own key and they can disable withdrawal, apply for bankruptcy anytime.

With this bear market and some disasters recently from Terra to Celcius, 3 Arrows Capital, it is very good time to learn this lesson and act accordingly. It is time to practice this lesson and protect your capital.

"Not your keys, not your coins". Practice it, before it is too late to save your capital.

Security checklist (https://cryptosec.info/checklist)
Exchange hack timeline (https://cryptosec.info/exchange-hacks/). Not all of them are real hacks. Some are scam exits.

Most especially these days when even the largest exchanges like Coinbase and Crypto.com are going through hard times, it is really more urgent to not leave funds on exchanges. The risk has gone a lot higher. Even Binance itself had to halt Bitcoin withdrawals due to a large volume of transactions that are stuck. There's an exchange run happening. Things don't look good, now more than ever. Not your keys, not your coins is most relevant today.

To be honest there are already a lot users always repeating this slogan when it's discussing about security and I'm sure many users already read this. But most of users especially newbies doesn't care anything since they're greedy to earn more satoshi by lend their Bitcoin into centralized exchanges. The word "staking" is also confuse many users since Bitcoin isn't a Proof of Stake, but a Proof of Work where there's no staking features on the pools. Some people leave their coins on exchanges because they're a trader, but they should only leave few % for their trading activity, not all coins.

Advice isn't enough for them, until they will learn a lesson where their coins can't be withdraw anymore due to bankrupt.

Thats actually a good thing to remind everybody what is the real truth out there. Its not a redundancy but a thing we must reiterate to the public for their awareness.

I think 3arrow capital is a VC group and not a lending platform but surely they are a big guy on crypto investment. Their downfall could lead to another messy chaos on crypto.

This is actually true. Experience lead you to a more sensitive type of guy once its happened to you. The realization is real when you are one of those that the funds had been held or restricted.

Completely sucks. We can not trust any centralized exchanges with our money. Mt. Gox lesson should be reminded in this relevant time.

Exchange run, a creative term which is very relevant for crypto market. Fortunately and unfortunately, with blockchain, runs can happen very fast (if exchanges don't disable withdrawals and chains are not halted) so the Cascade effect from crypto-run is very terrible.

Some exchanges like Binance are naturally shady and the problems they face are more real than others since they may not even have enough bitcoins to pay everyone which could be the reason why they stopped letting people withdraw bitcoin but they still allow withdrawal of shitcoins on alternative chains (like BTC on Binance chain which is not really BTC).
Other exchanges like Coinbase are facing smaller problems since their shadiness is far less than the first group but the problems they face is mainly because these days a large number of people are buying bitcoin and transferring it to their cold storages taking advantage of the current discount.

Your post immediately reminds me about one more thing

If people want to cash out their cryptocurrency, they have two options: fiat and stable coin.

What should be their option?
It's fiat, not stablecoin. Stable coin is like Wrapped BTC that is more convenient in eyes of newbies but that stable coins are not actually fiat currencies. Their values are not actually equal to fiats.

LUNA UST is a lesson for stable coin and Wrapped BTC hodlers

USDC is (supposedly) actually backed 1:1 with the US Dollar. The only reason to not use it if you're skeptical that the company behind it(Circle) is doing something shady or is insolvent.

I was surprised that some people want to move their coins from Binance to another exchange to sell, which means they think Binance is a wallet, I just do not know the reason behind that. But Iam wondering how who wanted to make urgent bitcoin payment will feel when Binance suspended bitcoin withdrawal.

But on centralized exchanges, you can lend, not only staking you can make active income from.

Some people may also be confused bitcoin for altcoins. I am not certain about this, but bitcoin pegged coins like wrappedBTC and renBTC which are altcoins are still PoS coins and people should be able to stake such coins which are on PoS coin network.

If using centralized exchange such as Binance. They have producy of earn savings which your btc can be stake/unstake flexibly with 5% apy, (just checked now) before its only 1% or 2%.

But obviously this isnt an on chain btc since we all knew that btc doesnt have staking but only a program initiated by binance for their users.

Even bitcoin is better for people who don't believe in cryptocurrencies because it is more acceptable than stablecoins even in some non-crypto shops or services like people experience (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5401052.msg60271756#msg60271756). A suitable reason to use a stable coin is to secure the value of the asset in a short time (temporary) say 3 days max.

People don't realize that the fact of sending their bitcoins to a centralized service represents a risk. If we make a deposit on an exchange or a casino, at that moment the coins don't belong to us anymore. And if the service decides to lock your balance and keep the money they can do it without problems.

On the technical side, it would be easy for the exchanges to provide a deposit address and give to the customer the private keys, but if they do this then they would lose control of the coins, and we know they don't want that.

If interest rates increase, it is natural that liquidity does not flow to these platforms or lending companies.

 it is wise not to leave your money with them for nothing but that you will get additional money from leaving your money in safer hands such as banks and others.

An idea that is not your keys, not your coins, is not a luxury, but rather the basis and principle of the work of bitcoin, where ownership is transferred from one person to a network. No one can control it and you can only spend your coins if you have a private key.

This is if we ignore all the current risks, which are considered real threats, such as hyperinflation and stagflation.

Yes and no.  Would be easy to provide a deposit address together with a private key but this means all transactions have to happen on chain.  This implies a lot of fluctuating costs exchange customers will not afford to cover when fees are high.  Also, time is key when trading and if transactions happen on chain, you will have to wait a lot of time before your transaction actually goes through.  Then there are a lot of other issues popping up.  Let us be honest, if Binance offers no on-chain trading fee and another exchange asks you to pay for every buy or sell of yours, you will tend to use the former.

It is all revolving around a world of comfort clients rather choose.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

Decentralized casinos remains the best, secured with full privacy retention. Centralized exchanges are like the usual banking institutions that can decide the fate of your fiat currency and as a law abiding citizen you play by their rules. As a Bitcoin owner my private key is of great importance to me. I value my keys just the same way i value my coin and threat both equally

If exchanges give their customers their private key they too have a copy so in that case both parties own the Bitcoin and still have control over the funds. but can centralized exchanges be avoided completely?

If I wanted to have dollars, I'd get a bank account at a reputable bank. There's no need to add an additional third party in between.

"not your keys, not your coins"
is not just about depositing funds into someone elses public address.

its also locking up funds into a multisig of multiple people whereby you DO NEED their authorisation to get funds out to a destination you want and have control of

meany altnets, sub chains and sidechains rely on locks which then require other parties authorisation.

they pretend to be nothing like custodial wallets by saying you have some % control of signing by you being a second party in a 2 of 2 or a 2 or 3 multisig.

but if they refuse to sign.. then a 1of 2 or 1 of 3 is meaningless you cant get your coins if they dont sign.

be very weary of the 2 of (more the 2) where you only have 1 of the keys and other people have more then 1 of the keys. as they can move funds without your agreement at all

Without reaching such extremes as hypochondria, understand that it is a simile with a very serious disease, my apologies if anyone suffers from it, but every bitcoin user should suffer from "Not your keys, not your coins" and its consequent good use, that is, to have control of that phrase and to know how it can be extended in an orderly planning of funds.

That's you, and not approximately 90%(just a guess, don't quote me on this) of people outside the US without access to (or with great difficulty accessing) the US dollar.

There has been emphasis put on protecting your assets and it's been preached at least for the last 10 years, but it's a double edged sword. It also brings a certain level of distrust in the comunity and that seems to be an issue where it's one or the other, but we can't have both...and if we can't trust the people involved, than what good is all of this?

But, they don't access the US dollar; they access a centralized currency that's supposedly pegged to the US dollar. And my question is: Why would someone outside the US want to access the US dollar? If they want to pay a US merchant online, it's better to have an intermediary to convert their EUR, GPB etc., to USD automatically, like PayPal. And that's because fiat currency is centralized by design; such intermediary is required.

On the other hand, with a stable coin, you need A) an intermediary who'll convert USDC to USD and B) an intermediary whose word has to be unquestionably taken that USDC isn't backed by thin air.

Though it's backed — USDC might not technically be 'real' USD, but it works. It can be used as a currency and for payments just as how BTC can be used; and a good number of people do not actually convert their USDC to their local currency unless needed because they can use it online. Also the fact that some people feel more comfortable having USD exposure through USDC rather than holding their local currency.

^Not saying that people should or should not trust USDC, but a good number of people do.

Can you prove it?

I'm not familiar with that term, even in quotation marks. What's a "real" USD after all? Is it cash? Is it credit? Debt? Credit on the credit? Credit on the debt? Bond? An unlicensed IOU, which is essentially a "stable" coin?

Alas if it couldn't; it's supposed to be a currency.

Definitely, but that doesn't make it any different than just having a central database (AKA, spreadsheet) wherein the users' transactions are saved. It's less useful than PayPal, with extra steps.

Honestly, the BTC on Binance chain something is crazy. I don't know how CZ and his team arrived at such a crazy innovation. For whatsoever reason, I don't even go near that. I haven't transacted using such pseudo BTC. Anything that's not the original BTC chain raises my suspicion and that's what happens with me and what Binance is offering in that.

Aptly captured. It's discount indeed. This is the type only veterans will understand because newcomers will be scared to go in at a time like this.

Not only are they scared, but they also don't have the money left to buy bitcoin at the current discounted price.
Those new players are busy looking at the chart every day and then choosing Cutloss, because the price of Bitcoin is getting lower.
They are not ready to lose their money. I believe
the veterans will benefit greatly this time.

Most especially these days when even the largest exchanges like Coinbase and Crypto.com are going through hard times, it is really more urgent to not leave funds on exchanges. The risk has gone a lot higher. Even Binance itself had to halt Bitcoin withdrawals due to a large volume of transactions that are stuck. There's an exchange run happening. Things don't look good, now more than ever. Not your keys, not your coins is most relevant today.

Nope. Hence why I said in my previous post that it's 'supposedly' backed. Just like the money in your PayPal account. In both cases we're hugely trusting a US-based company.

Yes. But that's besides the topic. It's pretty much the crypto-version of PayPal. But in the end — my main point is that people find it useful, so people that doesn't have access to USD through banks use it. Sure people could use PayPal, but the likeliness of getting de-platformed is far higher with PayPal than being address-locked with USDC (at least for now).

Obviously it's a good practice to have it always and forever people having their own keys while holding Cryptos are much more safer compared to those having stored their coins on exchange but eventually I sometimes feel if the project is a scam in itself there isn't a lot of things that anyone can do about it. Luna for example no matter where you had it stored it's still going to go to zero. I feel it's equally important to keep money in good projects and also diversify the same into different projects in order to be safe at all times.

If you have huge amount of assets in crypto, never store it on centralized exchanges or lending platforms. Your assets are in danger on those platforms if you plan to hold them for long term. Only put there are the amount that you will use on a daily basis.

Sometimes using a decentralized wallet isn't enough if your holdings are like 6 digits or above so using a hardware wallet is also a good option to help secure your cryptocurrencies.

The thing is.... people are so used to the convenience of centralized services, because they used centralized services in the Fiat system (Banks) and they trust these services, because it is backed by governments. (Governments give bailouts when they fail)

They think large (regulated) Crypto exchanges give them the same security that Banks and other regulated financial institutions give them, but they are wrong. These centralized services are the main focus point for hackers and also for corrupt governments... and they can lose access to their coins at any given moment.  ::)

That's sadly true; at least for those who've been doing the DCA thing since Bitcoin started dipping till now.

You know, I've tried to rationalize how someone who lives on trading won't get to rely or keep their cryptos on centralized exchange(s) and still trade comfortably. Decentralized exchanges don't hodl enough cryptos to enable traders alternate easily and do their trades. I might understand the warning of people not leaving their coins on centralized exchanges if they only intend to hodl them but for a trader I don't think that's feasible.

This is not the actual reason why many people use the crypto exchange. Personally, I use crypto exchange and prefer to hold my coins to exchange when the amount is below 500 USD.

I know 500 USD is huge for newcomers but I'm telling you about my personal matter. When I know I may need to sell that coins at any time and the amount is really affordable I prefer to hold that in an exchange account thus I can sell them instantly.

But, at the time I invested a decent amount of money to buy Bitcoin for long-term holding I never take the risk to hold it on an exchange account, I always prefer to gather all my coins in a hardware wallet to secure that for the long term.

So, we need to use both of them in our daily life, and yes it is risky and they can lock your funds at any time without giving any reason that's why you should have to avoid exchanges if you plane for long term holding.

^I think staking your assets also considering at risk too, how you can entrust your fund on the platform that we dont know what will happen in the future. We should always remember this rule, not your keys, not your coins.
Even though gambling platform will considering on centralized exchange, dont store on their wallet if you want to have a full control on it. Always pull out your fund after sessions will end.

But for those who don't do DCA, of course it will be a regret not being able to buy cheap.
Of course they have to sell some other assets such as their spare vehicle or property, if they want to join this bitcoin deep euphoria. But the risk of loss is their own responsibility.

Centralized exchange is only a temporary trading place and cannot be used as a main asset repository, it is indeed more risky, because there is no complete control. Some risks such as hacking and asset freezing will become a problem that will suddenly occur.

True ...

But there is another problem beside all of those reasons above , the complexity to have our own keys make the most of crypto userr especially a newcomer and non tech savvy will sure prefer to choose the centralized exchange over the decentralized wallet like trezor to store our own crypto.
As time goes by things gonna be alright and just become a usual thing to have a hardware wallet but for now people still thinks it's complicated .. just like the otherday where website & internet being underestimated plus complicated but now look at us , internet become the primary need everywhere

People who want security and want to exit cryptocurrencies should use fiat, no matter what fiat it is instead of centralized shitcoins that could disappear at any moment or freeze their accounts (like USDT, USDC, etc.) and people outside US use their own fiat currencies, they don't need a US bank account.

I disagree. Investing your coins is not bad if you understand the risks.

You are basically saying that everyone should keep all of their money under their mattresses and never invest in anything. That is bad advice.

The basis for "not your keys, not your coins" is that you gain very little by letting somebody else hold your coins. The tradeoff is not positive. On the other hand, if you invest your money, the tradeoff is positive as long as the return makes up for any risks.

Always take out your funds from exchanges when Bitcoin drops below 30%. Then is the time when Exchanges starts acting weird and may disable your withdrawals on some non-sense reasons.
I prefer to buy a Ledger or Trezor and keep your funds SAFU in that.

Some people knows this already but they still insist to use centralized exchanges like binance and centralized gambling sites (there are lots of them right now) I think that is because they are on the mainstream.

There are decentralized platforms but they are usually not popular as the centralized ones, I think this can be the reason why many people are discouraged on using them because they think it wasn't trusted or there are not enough feedback from those platforms. In my opinion, it is not bad to use a centralized platform as long as you are not storing your money on them for a long period of time and you're not deposing bigger amounts.

Your assets do not have to be 6 digits or more, you need to think of a hardware wallet to store it. For me, investing in crypto is a long term investment whether you own 10 bitcoins or you only own 0.1bitcoins it is still our property. To be on the safe side, let's protect it with a hardware wallet now. Right now, 0.1 bitcoin is worth $2k, but if you hold it long enough, it may be worth $20k, $200k in the future. Who knows? As a crypto investor, we should invest in a hardware wallet to safeguard our assets.

But I think a lot of people are storing Assets in an exchange. It's even possible that almost half of traders do that, except for traders who have a lot of assets. Indeed, all have the impact that the owner has to be a little busy to move assets into a personal wallet after trading activities. Indeed, by far what I consider the safest is to store assets in hard press, such as Trezor, Ledger. I have that and indeed I keep some assets there. Although all have disadvantages, it seems that Terezor and Ledger as long as they are not exposed to viruses and connected to the internet will be safer.

Agreed. But apart from your reason given, I believe that there are other reasons why people might want to continually leave their crypto assets on centralized exchanges. Of cause, they know this is risky but maybe the opportunity to easily trade-off these assets when needed I believe might be a reason. Also, I think most of the people that do have their assets on CEXs might not have enough to store on a hardware wallet in terms of cost Analysis however, for those that have the number of crypto assets and don't think of storing them outside the CEX must have a good reason and are willing to take the risk.

IMO this should be even more widely spread around crypto communities. Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are meant to empower the individual and he needs to be aware of the risks he is exposing to when keeping coins in custody of a third party.

My recommendation is to invest the time to learn about the mechanics of crypto wallets and their security features. It is not rocket science. I'd say that anybody who has a basic understanding and experience with computers can do it. In other words if you are able to create an account on an exchange, deposit, withdraw and manage your account than there is no reason why wouldn't you be able to understand and apply the best self-custody practices.

Of course that if you are actively trading you should keep a certain amount on the exchange, but be aware of the risks. The human psychic tends to avoid responsibility. That's why many prefer to keep their coins on exchanges - comfort and if something happens with their coins they can blame the exchange aka "the system".

It is possible in centralised exchange to recover your account by reset your password by email. But it is not possible to recover your account if you hold your coin on any decentralized all it like trustwallet or metamask etc. Because decentralized all it provide a security phase for import the wallet but centralised exchange  have email and password for login . So I think centralised exchange is safe for holding but decentralized exchange also a great opportunity for decentralized because decentralized wallet have a security key and it can easily access any wallet if you have that key. And it is not possible to hack in any way. But centralised exchange have  apossibility for hacking

I don't get why people are staking their BTC on these platforms when they could be wrapping them and using BTC in DeFi on chains like Polygon and the internet computer.

I don't get why people are staking their BTC on these platforms when they could be wrapping them and using BTC in DeFi on chains like Polygon and the internet computer.
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The answer is very easy. People have not yet been able to get rid of the control of the banking system on their minds because the global banking system has become a culture and not just a means to achieve certain goals.
Banks give users security that their savings are kept in safe places without them being aware of the return they pay for that service, whether in the form of fees or their personal data, which is often more important than the money they save.
For these reasons, these platforms succeed in bringing users who want to use cryptocurrencies in the same way as the banking system.

Maybe, if you want to hold some coin in centralized exchange, don't leave it too long. Because the possibility of hacking and other attacks are always there. Even if we say the exchange is a top exchange, they are still vulnerable to any kind of attack because hacker tools are getting sophisticated. When it comes to decentralized wallets, what you need to make sure is the security of your keys. Don't forget where you hide it once you need it. And don't download any software application that you are not familiar of because there maybe malwares inside that can steal your vital data.

With the hack which we have all witnessed, I think most of us should now know that keeping coin in exchange is really a bad idea, if you want to hold a coin after buying from exchange we should always send it to our non custodial wallet address which we have the private key, nobody should trust and exchange because anything can happen at any moment and your funds are at risk, the exchange can be hacked also the exchange can freeze your account which you cant do anything to it because they are in control of your money. If your fund is in non custodial wallet address nobody can freeze your account because you control it. Also I notice most people that always keep their coin on exchange are newbies, so should try and enlighten them about the disadvantages of leaving coin in exchange.

the one thing i noticed in staking in a platform is that, when someone give good acknowledge of platform other people will like to queue to know the operation of the platform if it's beneficiary to other community. I will encourage you and who whenever wants to stake to verify first before investing for a particular platform. Because some platforms has used a trick to follow people so all these is what people supposed to verify before investing or staking

This is the golden rule when navigating your way through crypto land. If you don't have access to private keys or seeds, you'd risk yourself getting all of your coins lost or stolen in the long run. Most people rely on centralized exchanges and wallet providers because it's more convenient for them. If only they knew that without the keys or seeds they don't control their funds, they would've used switched to non-custodial or decentralized solutions already. We need to educate the masses in order to reduce attack surfaces as much as possible. As long as the majority has access to keys/seeds, the number of hacks will be reduced by a large margin.

At least, crypto/Blockchain tech's popularity is rising. Who knows if people become more aware about securing their funds in the crypto/Blockchain space? Just my opinion :)

When you don't own key of your coin, you must trust a third party with their honest, fairness and seamless operation for your transaction request. You don't control anything. What you see is a credit number in your account and whether your order for trading, withdrawal request is approved by third party or not, it is unknown and uncertain.

Nightmare might appear anytime if you don't own your keys.

I am sure that with two simultaneously trends: growth of Bitcoin (in value) and Bitcoin educational efforts, people will become more knowledgeable about Bitcoin and related things (how to store it, backup, recover, etc.) and less people will lose their big amount of Bitcoin because of unknowledgeable.

However, a second part is important. Being knowledgeable does not naturally and automatically cause good practice. It's a different side of a coin.  :D

I think it is quite ironic that despite the governments flimsy attempts at regulation aka scaring people into obeying their arbitrary rules on how money should work, whenever one of these exchanges that are supposedly bound by the regulation laws goes belly up, there can be almost certainly nothing done to bring your money back to you. And if it someday is returned to you, you will have missed out on the rise in value because you get compensated in fiat.

People need to take NYKNYC more seriously and withdraw from exchanges.

Before they understand it and truly practice it, they must read enough and think deeply enough. Maybe many of them don't care to read. Many of them don't care to practice, until a day they lose money because of exchange hack, scam, exit, government seize, etc.

• Why KYC is extremely dangerous – and useless (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5221497.0)

Some of these people actually read and know what "Not your keys, not your coins" means but the desire to earn from the platform is too persuading. Just when the platform announce they are not allowing withdrawals, its when they realized its true meaning.

"Not your keys, not your coins"

The statement comes up all the time but most specifically when there are scams like Defi platforms not allowing you to withdraw like the Celsius and Blockfi issue just recently.  3AC and Luna are just as the same as the a bankrun. If these platforms won't give them back, you can't do anything even if you have lawyers. The more you will spend for lawyers fee.

I agree with you but you're only seeing part of the picture, centralized exchanges provide a wide range of benefits and services. As an example, you can exchange your assets with the most popular coins on the market, with low transaction fees. This is an issue that decentralized exchanges have yet to solve.
We prefer centralized exchanges to decentralized exchanges because they are easier to use, switching tokens between blockchains isn't hard, and humans are simple and fast.

Most traders do not have too much of a choice, those which day trade with a small amount of capital cannot really afford to send their coins out of the exchange and then back to it after each day of work as this will increase substantially the fees they have to pay, so they have to leave their coins at the exchange and assume all the risks that come from leaving their coins at the exchange, so while holding our coins in an address which is exclusively under our control is the optimal solution there are circumstances which do not allow it.

That is true. But with atomic swaps and hybrid exchanges (decentralized/centralized) this no longer becomes an issue. Traders can still get access to their keys/seeds and enjoy high-performance order execution + low fees like they do with any ordinary centralized exchange. A good example of this is the hybrid exchange called Waves which has the performance of a traditional centralized exchange, but the decentralization of Blockchain tech (giving you access to private keys/seeds). It's the best of both worlds, if you ask me.

People just need to be thoroughly educated in order to prevent them from storing all of their crypto assets in a centralized exchange that doesn't give them control of their own keys. As long as most people have access to their keys, the number of hacks/scams/theft will be reduced to a minimum. Just my opinion :)

They own their private key/ mnemonic seed and it's better for them to store their money on centralized exchanges and custodial wallets. However, an important point to remember is you must approve access to your wallet when you are using DEX. Risk comes from here and some 'naively' people lose money because they give access after receiving airdrop from unverified, scam tokens.

https://app.unrekt.net/. You can use this site to revoke access for spending your tokens in your wallet.