Bitcoin Forum

« Not your Keys, Not your Coins  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnC5mFaIW3Q)». « Don’t keep your Bitcoin on exchanges »

These advices are excellent, and no rational person with a genuine interest for Bitcoin should ignore them. There's no need to explain why, when you consider the number of scandals (https://bitcoinist.com/binance-scandal-escalates-secret-doj-indictment/), scams (https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/feature/FTX-scam-explained-Everything-you-need-to-know), exit scams and accounts frozen / seized by the different CEX; because, let's not forget, CEXs work hand in hand with governments.
All the people advising this are therefore informed that CEXs are not reliable, do not work in our personal interest, and rightly so.

However, every time I read this on the internet, people stop at the Bitcoin storage step. That's not enough. There's another important step: exchanging Bitcoin.

So why not just advise and tell people to stop using CEX entirely? Bitcoin is by nature decentralized (https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf), why make it centralized? Why should a CEX that doesn't deserve to store our financial funds, our cryptos, deserve to be left with our banking and personal information?
Is it really that important to take the risk of having your funds frozen, losing your personal data, and enriching these useless people? Who wants to contribute to CZ's wealth (https://www.forbes.com/profile/changpeng-zhao/), or encourage Coinbase in their disgusting (https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/news/coinbase-admits-its-former-data-provider-sold-client-data/) practices?

Some will reply that CEX users choose "convenience ". Even that's not true! How is passing your KYC to Binance and using their UI easier than installing/using the Peachbitcoin (for example) app? It’s not! The only reason CEXs are in this position is because they benefit from substantial advertising resources.

We have effecient, fast, simple, user-friendly and totally P2P solutions at our disposal. For example :

-Bisq (https://bisq.network/), a great P2P exchange, focused on privacy
-PeachBitcoin (https://peachbitcoin.com/), their motto is #KYCfree
-Robosats (http://robosats6tkf3eva7x2voqso3a5wcorsnw34jveyxfqi2fu7oyheasid.onion/), simple and efficient for those using Lightning network
-Majestic Bank (https://majesticbank.at/), where you can swap BTC and XMR in a privacy-friendly way
-LocalMonero (https://localmonero.co/), another P2P exchange platform ; privacy focused

There are plenty of others, which you can easily find on kycnot.me (https://kycnot.me/)

So why not advise people to use these services, in addition to advising them to use a non-custodial wallet?
Why shouldn't we be as enthusiastic about advising people not to use and register on CEX as we are about not storing their BTC there?

Not your keys, not your coins. No CEX at all.


P.S. : In this topic I'm not interested in altcoins and launchpad / launchpool type products, I'm only talking about Bitcoin exchange and storage. Personally, I don't think any launchpad justify a KYC procedure, but it's up to each individual to determine his or her priorities.

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For those who want to read more on this subject, I highly recommend this topic (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5310500.0) from GazetaBitcoin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1285797)

It is more easily you don't trade and only invest. You can choose non KYC exchanges to buy Bitcoin and some altcoins, then hold them in your wallets.

The most challenging problem for many people is: they are not investors, but they are traders. They trade a lot, with many coins and tokens so they end up to use centralized exchanges. It is a biggest issue to maintain non KYC practice. They only can achieve non KYC if they are not trading many altcoins to get rich.

I read your note.

You should add this topic  Reminder: Do not store your coins in online accounts. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421039.0)

CEX basically means Centralized exchange. So any service for exchanging cryptos that goes through a single point of failure such a website is technically also centralized. Including every website you have listed except for Bisq (that's how Bettercallraul were able to exit scam everyone).

I think you should be going after custodial CEX (that is, using your CEX as a wallet). Because if I make an exchange service without trading features, that only allows you to send crypto to the service which then goes to the bank or wherever the exit is, then there is no liquidity that can be trashcanned for the service to go bust.

Of course, the risk of scams remain as Bettercallraul have already demonstrated - I could simply design a service that collects the deposits without sending it to where it's supposed to go. But that risk is omnipresent for every website you use that accepts payments of some form.

If you want privacy and anonymity, you can use decentralized exchange like Bisq.

But if you are a trader, you may have no option than to use central exchanges. We traders can only prefer to use no-KYC centralized exchange but this is shrinking as more centralized exchanges that are no-KYC continue to start to mandate KYC. We do not have that privacy, but we should not leave our coins on exchanges, that is very important. All coins should be stored on noncustodial wallet.

kycnot.me list Kucoin, but with low trust score of 4 because it is a centralized exchange. It is the first no-KYC exchange that we recognized, but no more because they will start mandating KYC starting from July 15th, which is just not more than two weeks from now.

If you say no CEX at all, that is not possible, traders rely on CEX to trade. If you want privacy, do not scalp and day trade but focus only on buying and selling bitcoin using decentralized exchanges like Bisq or the use of this forum.

Some centralized exchanges create their Decentralized exchanges. Do people trust that those centralized-exchange-owned decentralized exchanges are actually decentralized and don't have back doors, keep logs like Chip Mixer?

Personally I don't use such DEX. If I care about privacy, I use a completely DEX, non KYC, anonymous team.

Like you can trade with higher trading volume on a CEX and why do you have to use their DEX with many questions about back doors and during trading, you will have worse trading volume.

One of biggest problem with DEX/P2P is lack of local currency. If you don't use USD or EUR, the option would be severally limited and sometimes with unfavorable exchange rate.

Although this is a beautiful speech and theory, it lacks practical use.

How can you sell/buy your bitcoin to/from usd or any other local currency  without a cex?

You will basically depend on p2p, which lacks security and is based on trust. Where is the trustless here?


Additionally,  how would you feel safer to sell 1 btc or more? In binance/coinbase or a p2p plataform.?
Binance will not exit scam you for  1 btc... but a p2p guy might.

Your concern is a good one and I had thought of it many times, it's the same answer that keeps ringing in my head.

You are judging by the relevance of Bitcoin today, but neglecting the impact of CEX in helping it to have a deeper root. CEX builds businesses and eases around Bitcoin. And I would continue to say that it wouldn't have achieved this popularity and adoption so fast without CEX. CEX is the one that builds the trust of people more on Bitcoin due to the ease of accessibility of their coins and the ability to use them fast and interchangeably within the system. It offers the added advantages that DEX can't offer, which include higher liquidity, zero exchange fee and much more.

DEX would have done it if it has the power. Aside from keeping Bitcoin private and preserving ownership, CEX offer more benefits that people will turn a deaf hear to what you have to say about DEX.

Nobody should limit other people's choices because they have various interests, professions, backgrounds or whatever. The important thing is to keep telling them that every decision has its own consequence.
Bitcoin with its unique characteristics may not help in all aspects, on the other hand CEX has advantages at some points even in the judgment of someone with a typical skeptic of anything regulated. Some gangs will even say, "fuck privacy, I know what I'm doing more than you think".

Because most think like this
- you need to find a trader that matches your offer, which is not so easy
- it's more costly as with a CEX they survive on the trade fees, with a P2P the guy that is always there to handle your exchange is doing this for money also, so the rates will be lower, and also you're going to pay the transfer fees
https://talkimg.com/images/2023/07/03/SpSfC.png
- are you uncomfortable with CEX knowing your name and face? Then are you happy with a total stranger on the internet knowing your full name and bank account when you do a so-called P2P exchange?
- with a CEX you always think you have support, you send some coins, you exchange them, and that's it, there is no third party with which you have to dispute sanctions, there is no fear of somebody doing a chargeback, there is no fear that you might have just bought coins from somebody who is going to be raided tomorrow and he has your contact as last person called in his list


I have to install an app, meh! Is it open source? Nope!
I'm giving my name and my bank details for a SEPA transfer, I am!
So, what's the difference?

Don't get me wrong, I completely hate CEX, I hate the charade that is called bitcoin cards with a visa logo, and I hate Binance and CZ probably the most on this entire forum, but let's not ignore facts, CEX are more convenient, that's why they are used because I don't have to contact some stranger, I don't have to log in my bank accounts and make a payment to exactly Quassam Bon Loden of exactly 1446.6 Euros to this account AD1400080001001234567890 and not one wrong letter and number.

Let's not even go into daily trading as that's impossible in P2P.

Peach Bitcoin ask their users to install their software in order to use their service, I don't feel safe and trust them. If their service is a web based, I would explore their site and compare the fee with the other sites.

What do you think the solution for those people who want to use DEX/P2P but their country aren't accept USD or EUR? is there such digital bank that accept every currency and the fees is worth to use?

Not only traders but even investors who are from countries where adoption of bitcoin and cryptocurrency at large isn’t big and their currencies are hardly available on these decentralized exchanges. Converting them to the available ones would still require you to swap them to your currency. My only advice when dealing with these exchanges I.e centralized one’s is that do not treat them as wallet but rather as a marketplace where you buy and take off your funds.

As for traders use two or more of them so that when one eats the dust you down you have another to turn, considering you never leave off large amounts on any of them.


And I think if one gets scammed on this P2P while using centralized exchanges they do try to return one’s fund although little amount hardly gets the exchange attention and but something like 1btc sure does although it also takes time. The P2P scammer are easily gotten by the KYC they submitted. Sadly this is the advantage of it

Bisq as a p2p platform is trustless and very secure, the trading funds and security deposits are locked up in a multi-sig wallet, and the wallet key holders is only the trading parties involved, this is perfectly trustless and secure in my honest opinion.

I agree that Centralized exchanges are more convenient and have better liquidity, but true p2p platforms like Bisq are trustless, more secure and perfect for privacy. Needless to say that there are a lot of fake decentralized exchanges that are indeed centralized and not secure, and they should be totally avoided and not mistaken for true p2p platforms.

Yes, but that's the kind of message I'm trying to get across too, I think that if more people used P2P / DEX services, the supply would automatically be greater, and that would solve the currencies' problem.

Personally, I never buy BTC (my BTC comes from mining + signature campaigns and my salaries paid directly in BTC), but I do sell some dusts on a regular basis. I regularly receive offers for currencies other than USD or EUR, which I accept. Depending on the country and the bank, conversion fees below certain amounts are not a problem (at least for me). I give preference to the less common fiat currencies when I sell, precisely because the point you raise is true, some users have difficulty using their local FIAT in P2P.


I must confess that I don't look too closely at the value of BTC in FIAT. I sell some BTC to pay for certain things, and like everyone else, I'm not against the idea of BTC having a high fiat value. But I would have said the same thing with BTC at 3,000 usd, which is basically the same to me. I'm not denying that CEX has helped push up BTC's popularity and therefore its price. However, I don't deny either that they are contributing to denature BTC from its original purpose.


Fair enough.  I tend to forget that people use BTC for trading, it's not my personal conception of its use but you make a very good point.


Bitcoin ATMs are a good solution for example. Some own excessive high fees, some not, it depends of your geographical situation of course.


Bisq is fine regarding this concern IMO. Peachbitcoin and the system of escrow too, but you have to trust them indeed.


Fair enough. I have contacted them myself (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5448464.msg62469605#msg62469605) on the forum to ask if they are planning to stay on their « mobile app only » policy only or not, the lack of website UI is a problem for me too (but still less than giving my KYC to Coinbase or others bandits).

Agree in principal, but I actually might advise the regular user, if choosing to liquidate, to go for a CEX -- depending on where they're from and which CEX we're talking about. US or UK? Go for Coinbase, for example, and benefit from some state protections if things go wrong with the exchange.

And most regular people might also need to account for tax and insurance on their post-crypto wealth. A CEX might make that life easier.

It's hard enough to get people to safeguard their coins with sole custody. Getting them to then use P2P with low liquidity and multiple steps for errors without protection is a next step farther down the line.

As a lot of users already mention, we're trying to understand that people want ease and assurance. Bisq, etc. tend to scare people away (if suggested too soon).

If you're interested in choosing an exchange for use then learn to know and understand the difference between a centralized exchange and a decentralized exchange, understand the reason why you should use one and avoid any, if you're still avoiding banks and yet still uses a centralized exchange makes nothing different, you must know how to have your bitcoin within your control and how you could maintain a security measure with handling your keys in a safety manners, not your keys not your coins.

CEX portray to be useful mainly for trading purpose which is a feature deficient of DEX. Another pretty reason why people still go on using CEX despite the stories surrounding it is in the area of local currency p2p exchange almost all the DEX op made example of are basically on USD and Euro so many traders for the sake of the local currency p2p  system made available by these Cex like binance it's just so impossible to avoid making use of them.

There's a saying in our local parlance," that you can't throw away the bad water with the baby". A remedy  to prevent careless losses of our coins is to making sure not to leave our coins under their custody after doing business or trading, do well to send your coins to your non-custodial wallet or to any Dex you are using. Only make use of Cex when you have the need to.

Looking back, the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world Obviously, the exchange has too much power; they control almost everything. The price is soaring, but the money in your wallet is really still on the exchange. The exchange became like a big crowdfunding guy, making his own sales; you put your money in. After you have put your money in, will the exchange keep the necessary amount for you to withdraw?

So the question is, Who is monitoring? Brothers who borrow money at the bank certainly understand that this is extremely fragile. Why? The bank is supervised by the state bank, which regulates the amount of money that must be kept at the bank. If you go to mobilize 10, you can only lend out 8. The amount of money withheld must absolutely comply with the amount prescribed by the state bank. The total loan amount is also regulated (in the world called room); when the room runs out, the money in the bank must also be left alone, not just 10 he himself went to lend 15.

So with cryptocurrencies, who is in control? Public and privates, if the exchange is known, it's okay, there is no organization or government to control that amount of money.

Exchange peer-to-peer BTC <-> Revolut USD/EUR, and convert the fiat to your national currency. It must support literally every national currency (https://www.revolut.com/en-GR/currency-converter/). They say they don't charge anything for the conversion.

We're going to agree on liquidity, but Bisq is much more convenient to use than, say, Binance. It's much easier to have Bisq installed, running, and having a trade completed, in comparison with Binance, in which you'll have to submit a ton of stuff, solve a bunch of captchas, verify your email address / phone number etc., and wait for an undefined time to have your account approved.

Well, OP, for trading only CEX makes sense. DEX makes no sense for regular trading.

And the Bitcoin DEXes don't have a lot of volume and so charge well over the current price, so their is a fee issue with them. Also you can only buy in certain amounts - the amounts that people are selling on the DEX. Over time hopefully Bitcoin DEXes will get much higher volume and so they will get close to the exchange rate of Bitcoin and will have lots of different amounts to buy and sell which will make them useful for more people.



But yeah I agree with your general idea, that DEXes are better because we can keep our bitcoin anonymous. It's a bit of a chicken and egg probably currently, because they need much more volume to be more useful but more people won't use them until they many more users to provide that volume.


Bisq for example only does about 1200 trades per week, doing about 40 - 100 bitcoin in volume per week. That's nothing. And the prices range thousands of dollars away from the actual price of Bitcoin, so that to buy more than a couple tenths of a bitcoin you need to $1000 or more above the current price.

Life is not private but centralized because we are all citizens of one country or the other. We have being given out our information ever since we were given birth to starting from the hospital that your mom put to bed. Presently,we still have forms that we fill to enable us have access to some rights and benefits in our country. So why are we scared of using a centralized exchange that needs KYC for transactions to be successful. DEX is the best no doubt because of its privacy but it lacks giving its users access to the currency of their choice and other crpytocurrency. Traders need to use exchange for their daily business which makes a lot of people to use CEX than DEX.

The problem we need to realize is that there is no clear control over these company. With blockchain, everyone in the network has the power to monitor the money going in and out. But the exchange is somehow still withdrawing or transferring money to a subsidiary company.

The lack of control is clearly the fatal weakness of cryptocurrencies. Founder Luna can immediately take off and fly away, carrying huge amounts of money. A coin is created that is accepted by everyone, but there is no one to guarantee that the coin will circulate.

The balancing problem of keeping the community under control with the trust of money has never been easy. To put it bluntly, the future could be the fatal weakness of cryptocurrencies.

Non-exhaustive list:

-Risk of exit scams
-Risk of resale of personal data = possible identity theft
-Risk of hacking the platform and stealing your banking and personal data, as mentioned above.
-Risk of your funds being seized
-Risk of your funds being frozen and of having to provide documents you don't even have to recover them
-The CEX can become bankrupt
-CEX work hand in hand with the tax authorities, which doesn't help everyone
-They regularly block buying and selling when the price of BTC fluctuates sharply, which is annoying.
-They centralize BTC, which was created to be totally decentralized.

Mt Gox, FTX, and all the other examples mentioned in my first message + those present in the link I put to Gazeta's topic are enough to illustrate all this.

iwantmyhomepaidwithbtc2, there is always a risk for anything that seems fine right now, including decentralized exchanges. We should just encourage everyone to change their minds about centralized exchanges, but maybe not force them to have the same mindset we want. In the end it is up to the individual trader and investor, but this thread can send the message that every bitcoin user will be exposed to risks regardless of whether they use a centralized or decentralized exchange.

So far I'm not a bitcoin maximalist who really cares about privacy. I still use banks, I still use centralized exchanges, and it's all because of my needs as a trader and investor. For me it's simple, we all have different desires in using bitcoin and we will also differ in our risk tolerance. We are all supporters of bitcoin, helping it grow and making it more useful as a currency and valued asset, even if we are not one of those who are strictly privacy advocates.

You just explained a nice point. And I also believe that in near future CEX exchanges will be avoided and users will only trust and use DEX exchanges. Already people are too much afraid of these CEX exchanges and about it's security and that's why DEX exchanges are having now higher volumes day by day. Many users are victim of CEX exchanges like MT Gox , FTX, IDAX and many more so people have fear about CEXs but they don't have another perfect option. But days changed and people are being much aware about their security.

Most of the traders choose CEX exchanges Because:

1. Interface and Features: It has user-friendly interface and trading features. CEX has a wide range of trading pairs, higher liquidity and but DEX has lower liquidity because they rely on the users to provide liquidity.

2. Transection time: In terms of transection times in many cases DEXs are lower than CEXs exchanges. But in terms of Security and anonymity undoubtedly DEX should be preferred.

3. Leverage Trading: CEX offers almost 200× leverage trading that is a very prominent feature of CEXs. Many market Analysts are making huge money by using high leverage so traders oftenly like high leverage option though it's much risky for everyone specially for beginners.

So in conclusion DEX exchanges should have more features added and should be a perfect trading platform so that traders can trade with full security. Because Bitcoin isn't only a cryptocurrency but also an asset. And I believe it will be implemented soon and DEXs will be more upgraded for the Traders. That time the era of CEXs will be ended.

Yes this has been the Tag line ever since now and would love to follow it always after having few bad experiences with the exchanger. The first incidence was during the Zerodha collapse in India when I had most of the funds on zerodha. The problem started when Zerodha grew very big in very short period of time. They had this charm of attracting peeps on their platform with easy to use exchange facility, cheap rates of fees, faster transaction etc. However it was deceiving factor to get into it. That’s how I lost the touch with wallets which are non custodial. But after it collapsed most of the funds were ceased and were locked for very long time until banks unlocked them for us. Since then I’m not trusting any exchanger at all.

You have made a great post dear op, your suggestions of Dexs have convinced me to try them as I was not very fond of Dexs due to many reasons. So, now I will try to at least try them because you are also a ranked member of this platform and I think this is enough for me to trust your suggestions.

Thanks for it and I totally agreed with your point but many used to say the same statement "Not your keys, not your wallet" which I think is wrong, but to some extent only, and I have had some discussion on this issue here before a few days ago and I came to a point that, whatever you do, best practice is to remain as much self custodial as possible because in crypto we should not trust anyone with our valuable assets.

And you mentioned the reason of why most people trust CEXS over DEXs due to UI. What i think is they trust CEXs due to their traditional mindset of depending on others so that they could blame someone for a mistake they do not want to accept. And this nature will also change once the total decentralization of BTC will be adopted by adopting the usage of DEXs. well amid of these DEXs you have mentioned there are many other options available to use CEXs without KYC which i think is also a cool alternative way to make people at least think about it.

There are centralized exchanges that kyc isn't mandatory, but they will make it mandatory someday just as KuCoin has recently done, so if you want to use no-kyc centralized exchanges to avoid kyc, you should know that soon you'll be mandated to provide it.

Take note that if you use centralized exchanges and make a mistake that costs you your funds, the exchange is not going to refund them to you, there are people who use centralized exchages because they wrongly think their money is 'insured' in them, if you or the exchange is hacked, the money you stored in there is lost.

You seem to be expressing frustration with the repetition of certain information. It is indeed unnecessary to mention centralized exchanges separately when discussing the importance of holding your own keys and funds. Since centralized exchanges do not provide you with control over your private keys, it is implied that they fall under the same category as custodial wallets.

In summary, if you are not in possession of your private keys, it is advisable not to store your funds in that particular service, be it a centralized exchange or a custodial wallet. It is worth noting to add with this sentence about hardware wallet that forum users commonly recommend the use it, as this practice is widely recognized and established.

This is one of the craziest threads I've ever read. We do not compile KYC exactly for the reason that the nature of Bitcoin is totally opposed to an identity verification.  Even if the blockchain is transparent, it remains difficult to identify an identity with an address, at least one that does not do an excellent job of chain analysis.  Bitcoin is born to make our financial life free and not persecuted by the governments.  Even if your request is always valid and there is no change of opinion, it's because you're looking Bitcoin at it from the wrong side.

I guess some of us are hypocritical users - I mean they talk about privacy but they still use centralized exchanges. Of course -  it's good when they really believe they can protect their financial privacy properly without getting involved in anything on a centralized exchange or any centralized platform.

But each of us is a citizen who is basically still subject to the laws and rules of the government. We can protect our privacy - but are you forever evading taxes on your assets or wealth? Of course - this is a question I'm always thinking about when we actually prevent the government from knowing how much wealth we have on bitcoin.

Yes, it is good for every Bitcoin enthusiast to be more concerned about their privacy but it's not yet the time that people will stop using the CEX because I don't think there yet a big DEX that provides cryptocurrency trading into all local currencies (or does the Bisq exchange do that?) and this is the reason why someone like myself still uses CEX if there a DEX that does this in a secure manner we can then blame people that make use of CEX.

That's why I wrote :


I am not talking about the fact of storing your BTC only, I am more talking about the place where you exchange it

While I agree with you, and truth be told I support with all my heart and soul the novel advocacy that bitcoin drives thanks to its decentralized nature, there's a method to the madness that these people who support and use CEXs are under.

For some, it's the convenience that it brings, "don't worry about the KYC process as they say, it's the one that's got 5 stars in the App Store, it got good reviews on Google Play, and a lot of people around me are using it, so why shouldn't I?" is some of their argument, which is a strong one at that too cause for me, there's little that could compete with convenience and efficiency, two things that CEX are able to do so with finesse. The paradigm is slowly changing however, as more and more people see how flawed the CEX world is, so in the future, it's pretty possible that more people use decentralized no KYC platforms in stead of the ones that we use right now.

I think if you say "not your keys, not your coins" consider that you don't have to use CEX. Because what I have observed in the market is that when terms to this kind of exchanges you don't own the private key. You ask why people choose CEX, in my opinion, it's because of CEX is fast and you can easily transfer funds to Funding, Spot Wallet, and Futures Account without any fees. In fact, people mostly uses this exchange for businesses. So since "not your keys, not your coins", it's better to stay away your funds to CEX when you're just holding it for a long time.

I think in terms of trading, CEX got more advantage than DEX as CEX have a good platform and base for traders to ply their trading. No fees and easy access to funds instead of paying fees to transfer or swap continuously but at that, your funds are still not safe. Your details with them are not secured at some point, they are likely going to leak your information to third parties in exchange for whatever they deem fit to get. So the idea of "not your keys, not your coin" is not bad but a piece of advice in advance to take caution while dealing with CEX as they can not be trusted to handle funds and data safely.

Many people trade on CEX because of the flexibility of the exchange. We all know that CEX is controlled and followed by governments, but because of the features and flexibility it offers people are likely to trade here. If DEX has no limitations people would not trade on CEX ever.

I think the only main problem its most of the people still doesnt use the correct tools, its like i put an screw with a plier instead of a screwdriver.
Well this its the same thing, the exchange like his name says its for exchange and make movements, not to save your coins, but most of the people use them like a wallet, so from that comes the troubles.

Its easy as that. Use the things correctly and you are not gonna have any issue.

It sounds very simple to do that, but we have a problem with many people being used to what is on offer from the Fiat financial system. People do not just use centralized services for the convenience, but rather for the "trust" and "security" that it offers.

The products that you listed are anonymous, but it is unregulated and inherently more risky. People are not used to that, so they look at products that are more in line with what they are used to.

I think most people do not know what the difference is between centralized and decentralized services and they simply do not care.  ::)

Your analysis is sharp and powerful. You want Bitcoin's decentralization back. In Bitcoin, "Not your keys, not your coins" emphasizes personal responsibility and control. We should apply this to Bitcoin exchangers too. You're right that secure Bitcoin storage is discussed more than secure, decentralized exchanges. Decentralized peer-to-peer exchanges show increased hostility to centralized exchanges and its concerns, such as privacy breaches, suspended accounts, and governmental interference.

I agree that we should advocate for Bisq, PeachBitcoin, Robosats, Majestic Bank, and LocalMonero as much as we do against centralized exchanges. Enhance decentralization, privacy, and individual control. The community should passionately support this cause. Celebrate our trustworthy, efficient, and truly P2P options. Let's promote these services. Bitcoin is about decentralization. Lets honor that fully.

The fact that centralized exchanges cooperate with government, isn't necessarily a bad thing. Obviously it's bad for privacy, but it makes bank transactions look less shady. At least my bank knows I'm dealing with a legit company, even better if it's registered in my country.

This is exactly what would set off all kinds of red AML flags at the bank.

Binance will just take your money (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5370726.msg58754769#msg58754769) when they made a mistake.

Likewise, the cooperation of centralized exchanges with governments is not always good. This works in favor of people only if they live in a state of law. Trust me, there are countries on Earth where you don't want your bank to know too much about you and who you are dealing with. And even more so, you will not like it if the exchange you use is registered in your country.

Not everything is so clear and local features should be taken into account.

I do wish more people saw it that way.  Imagine you are satoshi.  You've just designed a revolutionary new peer-to-peer protocol, where Person A can send funds to Person B without any intermediaries blocking the transaction, freezing funds, harvesting user data, etc.  And then the first thing people do with it is introduce middlemen who do all of those terrible things and more.  Wouldn't you be disappointed/annoyed/saddened by that?

I get that convenience is important to some people (or seemingly most people).  But isn't it missing the point somewhat when the whole idea was to remove the need for trusting intermediaries?  I guess there are always going to be too many daytraders to make my idealism anything other than pure naivité.

Nowadays I avoid centralised exchanges wherever possible.  It helps that all the ones that used to be tolerable are either gone or introduced KYC.  Plus I'm not much of a gambler, which I suspect is a considerable part of the appeal for some (I sometimes wonder how many people who call themselves 'traders' are merely people with a gambling addiction).  The cons of CEX massively outweigh the pros, so there's little incentive for me to be sucked in to all of it.

says the guy that loves transactions getting dropped because he wants everyone to pay more fees, farm beyond a days labour of the unbanked..  just so he can offer a option to offramp users to a different network not made by satoshi that does have middle men that can block transactions.. decide not to pay out when its time to settle

yep if only doomad could see his own agenda goes against what he says today

and he wonders why im disappointed/annoyed/saddened by doomads agenda

In theory it might be better to use P2P to exchange Bitcoins, but for trading of course it is not good and even very impractical to use a P2P system. Indeed, at first Bitcoin was traded with a P2P system, but with the increasingly massive adoption of Bitcoin it is certainly impractical to use a system like this. The presence of the CEX platform is the answer to make it easier for users and traders who want to exchange or trade their Bitcoins more quickly and easily.
Maybe for those of you who use USD and only want to invest in Bitcoin, the P2P method might be more secure, but for some people who use local currency and want to trade quickly, using CEX is much more practical. So I personally think it's up to the user whether to use P2P or CEX, because each has its advantages and disadvantages, neither is much better nor worse.

I use Binance so to share my point of view as to why I still continue to use it even though I already have Peach in my other phone is that I have my crypto in Earn in Binance and since I plan to hodl until 100k, I don't mind putting my bitcoins there so I can earn some satoshi everyday until it hits my target price, I tried to think of any other reason why I still use CEX but no, that's all the reason why, I guess some people use CEX the same reason as mine. I wouldn't say your idealism is naive, it's noble because you are helping carry the torch that Satoshi left behind which is advocating absolute freedom in financial matters.

I've said it a few times, if Satoshi is dead he for sure had died a few more times from rolling in his grave.

That aside, there is a tiny difference here, Satoshi would be probably mad if you would use an intermediary to pay with Bitcoins, such a coinbase or Binance account, but if we talk strictly about buying and selling bitcoins for $ there is little alternative to a third party. Oh, you don't use Binance you sue Bisq, but you still get your fiat in a bank account, via WU, via Swish or any other payment method.
So if you're not going to use cash, you're still definitely going to use a 3rd party that for sure going to do all the above things you mentioned.

But again, despite what OP is claiming, people do this because! it's convenient and unless you find a way to do that p2p just as easily as pressing buy in an app where Gpay is autocompleting your cc details nothing is going to change, hundreds of innovations and companies have failed exactly because of this, we're in an age where everyone wants a tap and that's it, two taps maximum, once you ask them for a few extra steps it's bye bye.


Bitcoin has always been decentralized and will never be centralized.
If people want to use it like that they are free to do so, and not just you as I'm right now replying to more on this topic, you should not forget there are two things that are true at the same time:
"Not your keys, not your coins" but also "My coins, my decision"

Of course, it's not the outcome we would want, it's not making much sense but at the same time, but nothing is broken and the whole environment works just as planned, where everyone is making his moves as he wishes.

This is insane mindset. So you're literally going to hold your coins in Binance for an undefined time, and with arbitrary reasoning (i.e., why until 100k, and not 90k?). I suggest you switch to self-custody the soonest possible.

Individuals like yourself tend to make utterly unreasonable assumptions that their exchange is too big to fail, and they do so with unwavering confidence. I wonder, how many centralized exchanges need to go bankrupt or experience hacking incidents before you come to your senses?

doomads post history for years is his preference that people use middlemen(channel+routing partner) for payments. heck he even celebrates services that middleman the $->altnet token IOU's but he hates people using the same service to $->legacy bitcoin.
if he can persuade people to use their fiat via a middleman to buy his altnet IOU inbound balance of an altnet he is all for it. even at a cost of making bitcoin have more barriers of entry to just hoard bitcoin as bitcoin on the bitcoin network

he wants to ruin bitcoins exchange rate and ability so that people adopt his prefered altnet iou token which people are locked into a partnership with for months

i agree with other people CEX place is for exchanging(and withdrawing same day) and should not be used for custodianising/banking. but the way the games are being played by some. they are making barriers of entry for those that want to own the private keys and self hoard, by getting people to lock value up in other systems and networks pretending it offers more 'decentralisation' when reality if far different

The classic frankandbeans FUD. Plenty of disinformation for newbies to absorb, no?

 8)

There's no middleman in the Lightning Network, those are actually peers. Bitcoin Lightning Network is technically more a peer to peer network than Bitcoin's base layer.

There are no IOUs issued in the Lightning Network. Bitcoins locked in LN channels are signed transactions. They can be broadcasted to the Bitcoin network and be included in the blockchain.

bitcoin peers just relay, they dont mess around co-signing payments nor take commissions/fee's per peer.. unlike LN

but i see how now you want to make an altnet pretend to be more bitcoiny than bitcoin.. nice try but your mentor has been selling you the bad information.. ask him for a refund
i do laugh when i see the same few people come to each others PR campaign defense

if you cant just take a private key from the wallet holding the coins to another wallet and just spend openly however you want. its not a true "your key, your coin" situation..
LN locks value up in a key and messes with silly units of measure(msat) that bitcoin does not recognise.
and no you cant just take a privkey out of LN and spend the funds openly elsewhere using any other true bitcoin wallet. your locked into a co-signed agreement with someone else. aka co-custodian

also
LN uses channel routing where middle men decide to use their value as a pass-the-parcel game of borrowing their balances to pas a payment, where they can refuse too. and they also charge a fee for agreeing..
and thats a fee per middleman not per payment.
 totally not the same as bitcoins peer relay system

LEARN SOMETHING

as for the second IOU status
many many LN wallets open channels and give inbound balance without a confirmed bitcoin transaction peg..
so yea..
and that onion payment promising to owe something to someone when they later settle.. those onion payment iou agreements are not even in a bitcoin tx format..

stop pretending LN is more like bitcoin than actual bitcoin. becasue LN is nothing like it on make levels

LEARN SOMETHING

even the LN devs know of its flaws hence why their solution is now to open custodian "factory" "federation" "hubs" "watchtowers" to manage users balance

and i do laugh when you say "just broadcast"
time you learn un-cooperative broadcasts

and one last lesson. this one will be the tough one
becasue bitcoin peers do not take a commission not have signing management of payments they are not classed as payment facilitators
however LN routers by have payment signing ability and take a fee. so yes routers are payment facilitators and you will soon learn by reading many countries regulations that they are going to come after LN routers and treating them as such, meaning they will require PF/MSB licences.
goodluck with your education. dont waste another 3 years on your mentors lies and empty promises and fantasies

We all are being hacked by the centralized exchanges and yet we still use those exchanges. We all know that the coins we put on those exchanges aren't ours anymore, and still we let our money there. I'm also among the people who withdraw his earnings to a centralized exchange's wallet because that's the only valid option for me, and that's why I can't avoid it even though I know the risks. I'm putting a lot of money on the exchanges for trading purpose, and currently trusting  decentralized exchanges is more risker than the centralized ones.

I'm quite sure that I would never put my holdings on those exchanges, but I'm still forced to let my trading funds on the exchanges otherwise it would cost me way more to deposit and withdraw many times from the exchange's wallet to my personal wallet and from my personal wallet to exchange's wallet. I'm quite sure that there are many such users who are basically traders and they have to let their funds on those exchange's wallets because they have no other option available.

"We" are not being hacked by centralized exchanges. They are hacked, lost their treasuries and as their users, we lose our money when they reject to compensate users or no longer have enough money for compensation. Exchanges can scam us too and run away with our money, not hack us.

Not we, not all of us store our coins on exchanges. If it is you, it is your choice.

Do you really trade day by day, very often?

Only store a little capital of all you have on exchanges to trade. If you store all capital on exchange account, hopefully you won't pay high cost if one exchange goes away like FTX within a week.

Even they are not 100% decentralized, you can use them more safely for your capital than with centralized exchanges. You must use one wallet for trading on DEX and never use your main wallet for DEX trading.

There is really no point into trying to put him some sense. We must have had this conversation for like at least 20 times. He is a delusional freak who dislikes the fact that people can use bitcoin in manners he disapprove of, and spreads mountains of fud to accomplish it.

I mean, check this shit:

He's trying to portray lightning as a bad protocol, because some don't use good software. That's as sane as portraying bitcoin as a bad protocol, because there's Binance in which you'll have to forfeit custody to use it, or calling bitcoin closed-source because there's Exodus wallet which isn't open-source.

We have literally debunked this shit already, and it has got quite boring now more.

By the same reasoning, miners (which are Bitcoin peers by the way) do get commission, so bad analogy once more.

Although this approach is indeed profitable (earning some btc while binance keep your coins), it is at the same time dangerous for innumerous reasons.

• Exchange hacks...
• regulation problems may ban binance from your country and you might be unable to reach your coins.
• KYC compliance may force them to ask for documentation with proofs where did that btc come from. And they may just reject your sig campaign/mixed coins, keeping your funds hostage
• financial problems with binance (which can happen, even gigant banks can collapse)
• and list goes on

I think centralized exchanges do insure their customer's money like I have seen many users of FTX exchange has gotten their funds back after a long ban. Which indicates centralized exchanges concede about their customers and examples like these urge other traditional minded people who just step into crypto to use their centralized exchanges instead of DEXs.

Because they have not seen any refund case in DEXs. Well I also had not seen any if you have seen any case in which dexs has returned their user's assets after they were banned. Then please increase my knowledge by sharing it.

And you said, money lost by our own mistake on CEXs will not be refunded by them. I say it will also not be funded by DEXs too so this factor is not of big importance here.

Well, if these non kyc exchanges will ask for KYC in future then I hope other new exchanges will replace them with the same non kyc feature. So market is huge new players are keep coming the only thing changed is number of scammers.

I am not favoring centralized exchanges. I am just sharing my thoughts according to my understanding.

Ah, brother it was my way to show out stupidity. We are hacked by centralized exchanges means we have built up beliefs that's making us to deposit our money on those exchanges. It means that our brains are totally hacked by those exchanges and we can't avoid using those exchanges. I assure you that most people who are crypto-traders are using those exchanges and they are also storing their money on those exchanges. I know that hackers can hack money out of those exchanges, and that thing can happen more easily with decentralized exchanges. The security measures of the centralized exchanges are way advanced than the decentralized ones.

I will still favor my beliefs that decentralized exchanges are more risky, and once example of such exchange was BetterCallRaul, they just rug-pulled users money, and created fake screenshots to prove that they were seized by authorities. That event happened on this forum because they were running their campaign on the forum, and after they were done with their rug-pull scheme they didn't even paid the remaining money of the participants of the signature campaign. That's why I think that it's more risky to trust decentralized exchanges because they can shutdown their operations anytime.

I would also clarify that I'm not in favor of centralized exchanges, but right now they are still more trustworthy than decentralized exchanges for conversion of Bitcoin into fiat or any other stable-coin for trading purpose. I wont say that all decentralized platforms are like those, but it would be unfair to say that those all decentralized exchanges can be trusted.

Using CEX in some situations is not an option, but THE only way to acquire Bitcoin. I am from Bangladesh and Bitcoin is banned here. So using any online payment method that holds my personal data will be foolish. We can not buy or sell using some of the websites you provided in the OP. Face-to-face transactions are not a good option either. Law enforcement could be hiding in the bush after setting a trap for us. Online banking? Not possible either. But with CEX, even if we are using it only for P2P transactions does not seem a bad idea in this kind of situation.

Again, I am not saying that we should use CEXs so mindlessly. Decentralization is the key and the reason for Bitcoin's existence. It is also a very important thing to consider in our life. We should protect our privacy at any cost. But if those are not available, then using those which will provide at least decent results would be the last resort. It has become a necessary evil for us. Can't eat it, and can't spit it out either. So gotta do what we can do.

There is one problem with this quote. This quote assumes that everybody that uses bitcoin understands its underlying tech. In fact, some people don't care about it at all. Some people just use crypto as a way to get rich quick. For them, it doesn't matter what they are trading. BTC, ETH, LTC, XMR, DOGE, SHIB... These are all the same for these people. For them BTC is just another casino token. We can't expect them to think that much even though it is in their interest to think about these stuff. Some people will fail anyway.

You said "Not your keys, Not your coins" is not enough... and I say, "Not your keys, Not your coins" is more than enough. (for these people anyway)

No matter the level of evangelism, you do about telling people the danger involved in dealing with centralized exchanges, there is always going to be this set of people who will not heed the advice. I'm a big supporter of Not your keys, not your crypto self custody of a thing. Despite all measures, the reality is that you can't have everyone do the same thing because you don't control what the other person wants to do with his/her cryptos' investment, in terms of storage and all sort of things that makes them use these centralized exchanges.

The industry is still in its development stage and things may take full effect in the future.

We don't care about groups rejecting our advice because they support long term depositing of funds on centralized exchanges but I hope they don't persuade others without explaining the security guarantees of assets held on centralized exchanges. I have guided every trader/investor to recommend keeping funds in their wallet because “not your keys, not your coins/assets”, but I am not forcing anyone to take my advice, they have choices to manage their assets, they just need to know there is big risk if they have trusted the deposit of assets on any exchange.

That's right, I agree with a lot of what you wrote;  people trade and they don't know what they are doing, they don't have a clue what bitcoin or ethereum or monero is.  They don't know the underlying technology or the differences, they don't know why Bitcoin does this and why it does it better than others, they don't know how to keep it in their own private keys, in fact they don't know they really know that it can be moved to a safe place, because they been told to use an exchange and maybe they registered through a referral from a trusted friend.  There is still a long way to go.

I don't understand how you can use a CEX in a country where BTC is banned but not Bisq for example ? How can using a CEX be safer than a P2P solution without KYC ?

LocalMonero or Bisq for example protect way more your privacy than any CEX.

Could please provide more details about it ? Very curious about your answer

Exactly. We cannot control other people to get rid from CEX since they are also benefiting from it. As long as they do it with caution, then they will never create a problem from trusting CEX. However, if you trusted CEX that much that you decide to put all your coins into it, then I would say you are doing a very wrong move. CEX will never be trustworthy forever. Time will come that they’ll be insolvent due to personal reasons and certainly all your coins will be put at risk. The reason why it’s still early, learn to limit your storage in CEX and just use it when it’s necessary.

I'll have to disappoint the OP even more: even projects like Bisq are still prone to hacker attacks, phishing, malicious actions by the owners/developers etc. CEX or DEX doesn't matter - you can still lose your funds.

My point is :

-Your CEX is hacked : risk for your funds + risk for your personal data
-Your non-KYC service is hacked : risk for your funds

A CEX is more risky from my point of view

And about Bisq, apart if the user downloads a fake software of Bisq, I don't really see what could go wrong ? its way of functioning is very protective of user funds

Let’s face it,

Centralized exchanges isn’t completely a do without. Your sure to have some dealing with centralized exchanges due to the challenges of decentralized exchanges such as navigation and possibly fees.

Many are aware of the existence of such a thing like decentralized exchanges but, the fact that they aren’t popular haven’t given many crypto users the opportunity they need to use or experiment on the decentralized exchanges out there.

In all that, it is worth knowing that there is a more proper and efficient way to use centralized exchanges and that has got nothing to do with having to save or store your coins on them.

Sometimes it's not as if one doesn't want to totally ignore the use of centralized exchanges, but most times that's just the option and choice left with a lot of people out there. Most people are not as exposed as a lot of us are opportuned to be here, so the only option they are left with is to make use of the centralized exchanges when it comes to exchanging their coins with other pairs.
 
As we all know, the dex out there always has a limited number of pairs compared to what the CEX has to offer, so in situations like that, if the person really needs to either buy such coins or have such coins to trade, they will be left with no option but to use the CEX in making their trade, but at the end of the day, they will have to take back control of their funds by withdrawing them back to their self-custodial wallet.
 
And that of the P2P option too, when it comes to exchanging to one's local currency, there are always limited kinds of local currency traders that we can find around there. Most times, when you see your local currency buyer, their rates are so low that one will not use them out of privacy and sell off their coins at a cheaper rate, which is nothing to be compared to that of the real market.

It's an insane mindset for you because you and people who think like you are tied to material things like money, I only have a couple thousands of USD worth of btc there so it's not big of a deal if there's a hack or some shit like that, I want to follow your advice and I know it's reasonable and you're concerned enough to care but I can't care enough what happens to those bitcoins, I'm learning to detach myself from material things, might sound like I'm condescending but that's the truth.
You're making an assumption too that I believe in that exchange and that I'm a bootlicker, no I'm not and I just laugh it off whenever something bad happens to the exchange. To answer your wonder, I don't care how many exchanges will go bankrupt before I change my mind because it won't.

imagine if bitcoin was popular enough so that people didn't need to first sell their bitcoin for fiat in order to buy things. imagine if bitcoin was useful enough and popular enough that everyone accepted it. but maybe that's impossible to happen without causing higher transaction fees. or having some layer 2 solution which you don't believe works for bitcoin. would you say that using LN is better than trusting some CEX or having to use something like Western Union to pay for bitcoin with some stranger?

you can't have everything. if you want one thing you might have to compromise in another thing. simple as that.

No one is debating that LN is more "bitcoiny" than the base layer. I'm merely making it known that you are spreading disinformation and that everyone should read your trust rating. You are NOT to be trusted.


Point which centralized entity issued an IOU. You use confusing descriptions and complex nonesense to make it look to the plebs that you know, but what you're truly doing is just misinforming the newbies.

Remember when you said that BCash is "also Bitcoin" because the network "bilaterally split into two"? Yes franknbeans, we remember.

funny point 1.
your cult(doomad lead) are the ones giving the bad trust rating because you hate that i call out your BS
you even cried to Gmax that i called out on your BS
you hate that i ruin your agenda of trying to offramp people to other networks that use middlemen..
sorry but your altnet middleman proposition is a load of crap with many flaws. accept that and move on


funny point 2
"bilateral split" is not even my buzzword.. funny part is that its a word your cult used first and when your cults narative could not admit(at the time) to the mandated fork(blackmailed vote) for anyone not supporting segwit should f**k off(though you said it many times..they should)  your cult leaders came up with that buzzword saying it was a mutual fork of 2 sides agreeing to split.
so you lot called it a bilateral split to hide that it was a mandated fork made by core
you lot hating that i did not use your buzzword so when i started using it just to engage your idiot army in conversation, you now years later want to pretend i came up with it.. ok now you are completely proven to be an idiot that has failed to do his research

i never said that bch was bitcoin. and you are a complete idiot for not knowing what actually happened. your mentor has lied to you yet again

just accept that your sub network uses middlemen(routers) who take a fee(commission) thus are payment facilitators which regulators have already noticed and are doing something about it.

then learn your subnetwork is a failure because other bridge networks and subnets have more liquidity locked up(with actual locks used) compared to your favoured subnetwork. because people have used your subnetwork. seen its dysfunctional and moved on

I guess this will answer your question.
https://i.postimg.cc/TPHT1MmZ/screenshot-253.png
https://i.postimg.cc/P5XHMrQg/screenshot-254.png

LocalMonero includes some of the payment methods which are either centralized or banned in Bangladesh. So using any of them could be troublesome. And if you look at the payment methods for Bisq, there aren't any options to choose from for Bangladesh. When it comes to CEX, there are some local online payment methods that are included in some CEXs. Like Binance and Kucoin. It is not the best solution, but if used with some caution, we can protect some privacy from the government. The fear of getting hacked and data leaks is still there for CEX but the privacy we get from the government is quite helpful and as the other decentralized platforms are missing on local payment methods as CEX, we are unable to use it. If the other platforms add those, then that will be the best option.

Not sure why fruitloopfranky is once again trying to derail a non-LN topic to whine about LN, but I'd encourage people to place him on ignore if they don't want the (seemingly full time) job of correcting his lies and misinformation.  I'm also not entirely sure how I somehow became the "leader" of the "LN cult" when I'm certain there are far more experienced and knowledgeable users than I.

But in terms of the actual topic, which is monetary sovereignty and control over your own funds, both on-chain and off-chain have options that allow you to be your own bank.  LN has options if you want to sacrifice sovereignty for convenience, just like on-chain does.  I'd always encourage people to explore the options where they retain full control of their funds, but with the disclaimer that personal responsibility is vitally important.  Make sure you know what you're doing before you commence with self-custody.  That's for both on-chain or off-chain, but particularly off-chain as there's a steeper learning curve and more to actively manage.

Everything you just posted are simply lies. Sorry frankandbeans, but two Bitcoin Core developers won't give you negative trust ratings for no reason. Plebs and newbies will have to look into them and decide. If you trick them once, shame on you, if you trick them twice, shame on them. But I'm confident they will learn, either the easy way or the hard way.


👍

If they suffered a security breach in 2019 (7000 BTC lost (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2019/05/08/binance-bitcoin-hack-over-40-million-of-cryptocurrency-stolen.html)) and then had another breach in 2022 (2 million altcoin tokens lost (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/10/24/binance-narrowing-down-identity-of-hacker-behind-bnb-crypto-hack-ceo.html)), that doesn't meet my personal criteria of "good".  Others may see it differently.

They have bad reputation in security but the community thought that Binance will always make compensation to their users. They did it in the past but they might or might not do it in future.

I guess they will do it if they won't suffer a very big loss which can damage their exchange treasury and trigger its collapse. If a loss is big enough for a collapse, Binance will become insolvency and they will come to an unhappy ending for users, like FTX.

This is not true, Bisq is open source and malicious devs cannot steal your funds. Bisq does not even at anytime control your money that is deposited for trading, it is in a multi-sig wallet controlled by you and the other trading peer. I really don't know how you can be hacked since you only have to download the Bisq software and run it locally on your device over Tor, just as you would do with a software like Electrum. The only way i think you can lose your money trading on Bisq is if you are scammed by your trading peer, and that will only happen if you don't know what you are doing.

It is much easier to lose your funds in centralized exchanges because they can confiscate your funds, be hacked, go insolvent or collapse for some other reasons, your funds are always at risk because they control it.

It's like looking at a brand new automobile with a documented history of minor engine problems. A healthy dose of scepticism is appropriate here. However, it is as important not to discard the useful along with the useless. Binance, for instance, abides by international regulatory norms and has included innovative security features like multi-signature wallets.

Self-custodial wallets need a level of technical proficiency that is beyond the reach of certain users. Just picture giving your secret keys to an untrained individual. It's like handing someone a puzzle box with instructions to keep all the parts together. A catastrophe is just waiting to occur.

Self-custodial wallets also lack a trading platform, which is something an exchange provides. In order to participate in the buy-low, sell-high game, traders need these venues. While I can certainly see your worries, I find your outspoken rejection of centralised trades to be a little bit excessive. Like a funny host at a party, they play an important part in the ecology.

That proves that not all traders are ready and good enough. Some are just here for trading alone, without  even thinking about the security and safety of their coins. As long as they can trade and gain profits, that what’s only matter to them. But if they have been in the shoes of those people who have save their coins in FTX, perhaps it will serve as an eye opener for them not to trust and place their coins in a centralized exchange for an indefinite period of time.

How can you set up a multi-sig wallet in Binance when you do not even control your keys nor have any seed phrase to your coins, there's no multi-sig set up in Binance.
There is nothing difficult in setting up a self custody wallet like Electrum for example, and backing up your seed phrase in a secure location, it is even easier than registering on Binance, sending them your picture and everything about you and then waiting to see if it will be approved or not.
Self custody wallets is for holding funds and not for trading. Trading should take place in exchanges, either centralized or decentralized exchanges, for privacy, security and trustless trading, you should use decentralized exchanges, but whichever one is chosen, the funds should be sent into a self custody wallet after the trade.

I think that without education these people will never learn their lesson, because maybe they don't know that custodial wallets exist and have entered an exchange not really knowing how cryptocurrencies work but thinking they are trading like on the stock exchange.  That's what education is actually missing.

@iwantmyhomepaidwithbtc2
I think you misunderstand some things about Bitcoin. The whole idea of Bitcoin is that it gives you control on your funds but only in terms of storing them. There is no one capable to seize your Bitcoins, to steal your bitcoins, to rob your bitcoins and to cancel your transactions. This is the privilege that you gain by acquiring and storing Bitcoins.
Thief can steal your cash and your gold, Bitcoins? Nah, if you are smart and know how to store them. If you don't pay the bills, banks can seize your funds and freeze your accounts but your Bitcoins? Nah.

If you were the lucky one that got thousands of bitcoins in 2010s, then congrats, you are a whale and probably spend every day in Ibiza and don't have to worry about p2p when you are an average guy, with the hope to one day become rich by Bitcoin, then you will struggle if you use decentralized exchanges. For example, on Binance, you can quickly deposit/withdraw Bitcoin, convert in different currencies, withdraw those different currencies, buy/sell at any moment, use leverage, do this, do that. Now, think about it, there is a reason CEXs are popular and believe me, if someone is interested in privacy so much, that person will definitely hear about DEX before he or she makes any crypto financial decision.

Sorry but sometimes I really wonder, do some people here go outside to buy a thing or have fun with friends? What about cameras that are in every corner? How do you manage to move or buy a thing without revealing your privacy? It's 21th century, things change. It's very sad but don't be so confident that you manage to keep your anonymity well-hidden from everyone.

Also, one thing that worth to mention is that, the more you try to remain anonymous, the more suspicious you look for governments. When you do p2p exchanges and deposits come to you from Nigeria, UK, Somalia, UAE, Pakistan, Vietnam, the USA and every time there are new senders that you don't know, it really makes you to look suspicious but when deposits come from registered CEX, you don't look suspicious. I really want to strongly highlight it, if you are going to maintain your privacy by using someone else's identity and revealing his/her privacy, then you are a moron (It's definitely not meant for you, I'm just generally saying).

Well, thinking that way, Bitcoin is everything other than decentralized p2p payment method that doesn't depend on 3rd parties. Actually, you depend on 3rd parties, including miners and node runners. If nodes don't broadcast and if miners don't include your transaction in the next block, you won't be able to finalize transaction. You also depend on Core developers, internet service providers, on electricity and so on. So, I would say that exchanging via Bisq is still a decentralized way.

I see your good intention here, to make these traders aware that centralized exchanges will never be good and profitable forever. But the fact that every trader has its own point of view about centralized exchanges, then you can never take control of their actions towards the exchanges. Good thing if they just listen to the long time traders in the market since they gained more experiences than them, but traders nowadays have their own perspective and their own plans in trading. I just hope they will not suffer losing their coins from trusting these centralized exchanges.

Miners and nodes aren't third parties, neither can they work arbitrarily, the consensus rules must be followed. Miners and nodes are contributors that are part of the BTC network and community, and it is decentralized and open because any BTC user can run their own node or become a miner.

Centralized third parties work arbitrarily, they can make their own rules or take any decision without your consent, they can confiscate your funds, suspend or stop withdrawals, etc, exchanging via bisq is decentralized, not because you depend on the internet or electricity, the world depends on that, lol. It is decentralized because there is no third party that controls your money or can take any arbitrary decision, you control the funds and trade directly in a peer to peer manner.

Some persons might not still understand what it means by not your key, nit your coin. This will take some  persons a big life experience for them to have fully understanding. There are few exchanges that had crashed and those that are victims of such exvhnages would understand what it means for someone not to have access to the key of there wallet. Even though we want to make us of an exchange for transactions, we should ensure that we are only holding small quantities of coins there so that if anything happens, it would not have greater effect on our holdings.

I must say your experience has greatly taught you a big lesson, and that is not to trust centralized exchanges as they can’t guarantee the safety of our coins in a long period. Yes, we would always want to look for bigger and more reputable exchanges when trading, but that is just for trading purposes as we only have few decentralized exchanges that are making their own names in the market. Other than that, storing a lot of bitcoin in a centralized exchange will never be advisable anymore. You can open your own hardware wallet for better security, which will not put your coins into high risk of losing.

I get your point that the saying does not directly refer to exchanging Bitcoin, however anyone who is completely following the rule will already not be using CEXs to exchange.

If you deposit into a CEX or used a centralized swap service, you are violating the rule as you are temporarily giving up ownership of your coins. So, anyone following the rules will already be thinking "how do I swap or liquidate without sacrificing sovereignty?"...This question should then lead to a line of searching that would lead then to P2P & decentralized exchanges.

My point? There's no need to make the saying more obvious. If it's followed completely, CEXs aren't being used for storage, or exchanging.

While I agree with the majority of things you said, let's not forget that not everyone is able to use cold wallets, DEXs, and other tools that require a certain knowledge because just one little mistake and you can lose everything. With this I'm not saying that CEXs are 100% safe but for the average Joe they work just fine. If CEXs didn't exist bitcoin would need way more time to spread and in the future they will likely succumb to DEXs but, in my opinion, for the moment we still need them since we need more adoption.

You don't have only cold wallets to use. You can choose single signature wallet, multi signature wallet to use and they are free. You can buy open source hard ware wallets if you have money but it is not at top of your list if you want something free.

Decentralized exchanges have their low trading volume and risk of scam from trade partners so if a person is not familiar with Bitcoin transaction and that type of trading, use Centralized exchanges first.

[LIST] Open Source Hardware Wallets (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5288971.0)

I think they know all about custodial and non-custodial wallets or the saying "not your keys, not your money.", but the problem is they ignore it because their priority goal is how to make the most profit. It can be said that, for a day trader, profit is the top concern. Furthermore, since decentralized exchanges have not yet been able to provide them with a favorable trading environment, they will look to centralized exchanges as that is the only option.
Even if Binance collapses and the DEX still cannot provide a good trading environment like CEX, traders will still use other CEXs despite the risks.

Decentralized exchange isn't that bad like you said.

People just need to read how to use the exchange and follow all of the instructions, most of the reason why people get scammed in DEX due to greedy and low literacy. The DEX always ask the buyer to check if the seller have send the money before release the buyer's money. But the buyer not really care about that and they easily get scammed due to the seller ask them to trade outside of the exchange where there's no escrow.

I agree with your point, but what happens after the Bitcoin/crypto ecosystem becomes completely CEX/KYC free?
I'm sure that all the governments will start banning crypto mining and trying to shut down all DEX platforms, due to money laundering and tax evasion. Maybe the DEX platform will host their servers somewhere offshore. Maybe the DEX platforms and non-custodial wallets will fuse into one decentralized service.
Let's not forget that CEX platforms are one of the main reasons Bitcoin reached really high price levels. Will it be the same when CEX platforms go down? The centralized crypto companies abiding by the rules and regulations and imposing KYC is one of the reasons the governments still tolerate the crypto industry. I'm not a fan of centralized crypto companies at all, but they also contribute something to the crypto industry.

@DooMAD already said what I was about to say about this so...

Dude, what you're saying, I already know that, if you've read my whole reply regarding why I still ise Binance, your paragraph would be much shorter. But for you and others to see I will repeat it, "I don't care about the money too much", I want to gradually detach myself from material things and I hope that my indifference to the fate of my bitcoins in the hands of Binance is a step forward to that.

With long paragraphs, posters think they are making quality posts. Indeed, it only reduces quality of the post. Ideas for your posts are more important. After a poster has a good idea, it's time to express that idea succinctly enough, not too short, not too long and still describe that idea clearly enough.

This quote can enlighten some posters.

Truly CEX was the reason why bitcoin was very much and fast in circulation. It also aided in price increase as well but you should not forget that the CEX is also the arm of government on Crypto. Through the CEX government do whatever they want to control the industry and they have their ways with it. Although they have been very much instrumental for the wide spread of Crypto currency globally and it is good CEX worked that way but never safe to keep your funds with them for your own good.

But I want to ask you a question, if you are a trader and don't want to use centralized exchanges out of fear of risks. So what will you do to make a profit, and what will be the solution for traders if they do not use centralized exchanges? We are long term holders, and using exchanges is not recommended, but traders, they have no second choice.
People are always praising decentralized exchanges, but I wonder why they can't create a perfect place for traders like what centralized exchanges provide?

It all starts with one full node, just like how Satoshi started to bootstrap the network. Each node is a peer, and in itself both a server and a client. The network needs multiple peers to be an actual network, but saying a single full node depends on other full nodes in your context, is wrong. Each node independently validates.


That's true, but the genius of Satoshi's creation is in its incentive structure. If a miner won't include your transaction in the next block, another miner will and take the fees. It would have been better for that miner to maximize its own profit than giving opportunities to the other miners.

My whole point in my post was to briefly explain to NotATether that using DEX for exchanging crypto is not actually a centralized way and if we think that technically it's a centralized way, then we can consider absolutely everything about bitcoin to be centralized. That was just my point, that's all.

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Btw guys, have you thought about what would be Bitcoin's price if centralized exchanges didn't exist? Or how massively adopt it would be? I am not a CEX fan but it has its pros and cons that we can't deny.

It is sad to see that people are still not 100% sure what they are doing and that means we are not going to see security in the crypto world all that often and not anytime soon. There are still a lot of people who keep on forgetting that crypto is a dangerous place and since the law is not on our side just yet, people who hack or steal or scam you "usually" do not get caught. Of course anyone who does it for a grand scale would be caught or at least looked for, there are people who stole millions, and those people will be searched.

However, someone who steals a few grand from someone in the crypto world will not be cared about at all, so you can't really trust anyone in this world and you need to be more careful than you probably should be.

👍


Bitcoin's price discovery would be more inefficient caused by lower liquidity, which would therefore make the market more volatile.

Adoption would also be slower because it would be harder for everyone to buy their first Bitcoins. It's another reason why ransomware hackers and the dark markets still use Bitcoin instead of the more privacy-enhanced cryptocurrencies because Bitcoin is easier to find and purchase.

Probably someone ignores the message even if they are aware of what a wallet with private keys is but I am convinced that some traders don't even waste time in finding out, they think that the exchange is legitimate and that it cannot close without warning, they are interested in good tools to operate well.  I hope that after FTX someone has started to understand.

You are right that when a centralized exchange faces exploits or hacks, it also has the risk of losing users' personal data to hackers or exploiters as well along with the funds, which is not the case with decentralized exchanges since they don't have any personal data of their users, but to be honest, people still prefer using centralized exchanges because they provide more tools and products and better opportunities such as competitions and stuff.

One more thing that mainly why people prefer using centralized exchanges is because they have the most liquidity for almost every single coin or token. Take Binance as an example, any token or coin listed in Binance will have the most liquidity available on Binance.

When a centralized exchange is hacked, they compensate their users instantly or gradually.

When a decentralized exchange is hacked, who will compensate you as a user? Nobody because it is decentralized and I am talking about really decentralized exchanges, not what are called as DEX with public founder teams.

Like if Bisq is hacked because that software is exploited, who will compensate you?

There was a chunk of people that probably understood after MTGox, but those people are pobably the same (or at least I hope not to be the same) as the ones in FTX. I think one way or the other, the market and the ecosystem itself will take care of the "bad players" in the network. And by bad players I don't even mean the ones with bad intentions. I mean the ones that know about things and still don't care and keep their investments in exchanges. Or if they don't know is because they didn't DTOR (do their...). Those are probably not needed in the network! The network somehow needs these "filters", I guess!

Failure in Arbitration (https://bisq.wiki/Arbitration#New_Trade_Protocol). Use reputable order makers to avoid that as much as possible.

Except this is not always the case. Regulations haven't evolved yet to force all exchanges across the nations have user protection mechanisms. In Mt. Gox some have still not been compensated, same as with Bitfinex's and Coincheck's hack. And those who were compensated, were partially.

I honestly feel more safe in a reputable, open-source environment, as with other Bitcoin software like Bitcoin Core and Electrum, than leaving my funds in some stranger with questionable security and money insurance.

I know they don't always compensate users and it depends. Like if a hack is not big enough to kill that exchange and if they see they will have long term gain if they make compensation to their users. It is possible if they don't have their exchange tokens and bet it as collateral like FTX.

They can die or file bankruptcy and I only say there are some factors to consider when using CEX or DEX.

Again it depends too. If a person is amateur and can not learn to use non custodial wallet in a few hours because of old age, lack of English reading skills ... using centralized exchange is not too bad. Then try to learn and improve knowledge and practice to use non custodial wallet.

It is acceptable if you are a newbie and use centralized exchange account to store bitcoin. Though, it is not bad to start like that, if you are in this market like 6 months, 1 or 4 years and still don't use non custodial wallets, it is unacceptable.

I only want to say, it is not correct to say CEX is the best or DEX is a best, it depends on specific user and at specific time.

They can have poor security. Or bet with users' funds irresponsibly. Or lock you out from your money arbitrarily. Or simply become unnecessarily big target for hackers. I think that when it comes to your funds' safety, there is little to say about that. To me, it's DEX by far.

This implies that the person would agree to an endless list of terms that are consistently proven to be unfavorable to them. Also, if you admit to lacking technical expertise, I do not consider that a wise decision either. If the person is incapable of reading accurately and comprehending fundamental aspects of the concept of cryptocurrency, it's not worth pursuing. You should never invest money in something you don't understand.

There are pros and cons for both centralized and decentralized exchanges, and it's for the user to decide if he or she is willing to accept the trade-offs of each. But if some users don't want to accept the cons of using a decentralized exchange, it shouldn't suggest that development for them should be discouraged. There should be at least one that exists, like there should be at least one censorship-resistant cryptocurrency existing.

It doesn't need to be a better alternative than its centralized counterparts, just a dependably working one and robust.

So, we find out that centralized exchanges are necessary too. This world is like, every type of thing is necessary. You need people who do manual labor to have white-collar jobs too. So, you need people who use CEX to take an advantage of high bitcoin price and massive adoption while you still continue to use all the other advantages of bitcoin, including being your own bank and protecting your privacy.

The only one thing that makes me sad is that Bitcoin was really good back then when it was a new thing. It was a new, an innovation with very fresh community, wish I haven't missed those days.

Eeehhh.... kinda.  For now, and only if you're a frequent trader (my guess is that at least half of CEX users don't actually need to use CEXs). 

Technology improves over time.  DEX will get better and will have fewer trade-offs as things develop.  I hope to see a time where centralised exchanges are consigned to the history books, where they belong.  They're antiquated, vulnerable and on borrowed time.

It's not going to be simple in my opinion, and I believe many users will be put off by the trade-offs they need to accept in a "decentralized-only" world because they have to take absolute responsibility if they indeed choose to participate. We're seeing it in the Ethereum community's "DeFi movement". Their DEXs are being hacked, being scammed, with the bad actors running off with the "bounty", and with the users given no hope for compensation.

Technology improves, but does the security assurances improve side by side with it? That's a question open for debate.

The world of bitcoin is dangerous, but it also offers unprecedented security and transparency. Blockchain's immutability helps build confidence in trustless environments. Bitcoin proves it. Its not a scam-ridden sewer but a dynamic ecology thats altering money and trust.

Hackers and scammers are human nature, not crypto. They're anomalies. I see the crypto community as full of innovators and visionaries fighting to make the digital future safer and more secure. Small-scale thefts go unpunished in traditional banking systems too. Credit card fraud, identity theft, and phishing schemes are commonly ignored. Instead of condemning crypto, promote reform and legalization.