Safe to keep coins on exchanges?

[manchester93]

Better to keep your coins on exchanges just for trade and then transfer it to your own wallet, keeping coins in exchanges for long time is not safe at all.

No exchange is safe, so they should only be used for short term trading/withdrawing -- this is true. However, I feel comfortable holding funds on Coinbase. The USD I keep there is FDIC-insured. I also think that in a major hack of the exchange, that their investors could bail them out. Their brand is much more valuable than Bitfinex (who had to crowd fund from their own customers to recover the losses).

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[in00]

yes but with 2 factor authentication enabled

[Kemarit]

It has been told time and again that funds on exchanges are not safe because you don't hold your private keys. It you want to put all your funds in an exchange, that is your risk. So I advise that you only kept fund in there enough for you to do your trading activity. We have seen what happened to BTC-e, who would have expect that this exchange would be take down by authorities? Then we see a lot of their customers crying out because they have a lot of funds in that exchange. Some as big as $100,000 or even more. And hackers are targeting exchanges now because of the huge amount of bitcoin that they can get. Lessons should have learned here already from Mt. Gox to BTC-e events.

[Mindin]

Better to keep your coins on exchanges just for trade and then transfer it to your own wallet, keeping coins in exchanges for long time is not safe at all.

No exchange is safe, so they should only be used for short term trading/withdrawing -- this is true. However, I feel comfortable holding funds on Coinbase. The USD I keep there is FDIC-insured. I also think that in a major hack of the exchange, that their investors could bail them out. Their brand is much more valuable than Bitfinex (who had to crowd fund from their own customers to recover the losses).

There would be some red flags and time to pull your funds before an exchange tanks. I would not worry too much about that on the major exchanges.

[IAMYOURLEADER]

yes but with 2 factor authentication enabled

Maybe for now but what if hackers made another breakthrough on bypassing 2FA? I would say that cold storage is still the best so let's just hope for 100% safety for our coins when we are trading.

[Error 522]

Only exchange I recommend is btc-e I keep all my coins there, those guys will always do the right thing.

Hello all,

Hereby a newbie question (again)
I have coins on Kraken and Bittrex and would like to know if it is 'safe' to keep them there before/after the 1 august date as well.
I did read that cold storage and paper storage are the best, but what if i keep my coins and fiat on those exchanges so i can more easily buy/sell during fluctuations?
How would you keep the coins secure yet flexible to move around?

Thank you

[Mindin]

Only exchange I recommend is btc-e I keep all my coins there, those guys will always do the right thing.

Hello all,

Hereby a newbie question (again)
I have coins on Kraken and Bittrex and would like to know if it is 'safe' to keep them there before/after the 1 august date as well.
I did read that cold storage and paper storage are the best, but what if i keep my coins and fiat on those exchanges so i can more easily buy/sell during fluctuations?
How would you keep the coins secure yet flexible to move around?

Thank you

There are many better exchanges than that, why would you recommend such a thing.

[erk]

I have lost coins on Mt Gox, coinex.pw, mcxnow, Cryptsy, mintpal, and most recently BTC-e.

So I would have to say that it's not safe to keep coins on exchanges unless you are in the process of trade.

[Mindin]

I have lost coins on Mt Gox, coinex.pw, mcxnow, Cryptsy, mintpal, and most recently BTC-e.

So I would have to say that it's not safe to keep coins on exchanges unless you are in the process of trade.

Not true at all, if an exchange goes belly up, there is normaly some red flags way ahead before that happens.

[erk]

nothing is safe unless you own your private keys

Very true, if you let someone else control your money, there is a good chance they will run away with it, that's why we have this massive global infrastructure to stop people running away with money. It works sometimes.

[manchester93]

I have lost coins on Mt Gox, coinex.pw, mcxnow, Cryptsy, mintpal, and most recently BTC-e.

So I would have to say that it's not safe to keep coins on exchanges unless you are in the process of trade.

Not true at all, if an exchange goes belly up, there is normaly some red flags way ahead before that happens.

Where were the red flags with BTC-e? They were in business for six years and had a reputation as one of the most reliable major exchanges in the industry. They had the most reliable trade engine and API, access to MetaTrader4, PAMM. They continued to have working fiat withdrawal options after Bitfinex lost all fiat capabilities in March or April of this year. They were a monument to what an exchange should be.

If there were red flags with BTC-e, I didn't see them.

[1Referee]

I have lost coins on Mt Gox, coinex.pw, mcxnow, Cryptsy, mintpal, and most recently BTC-e.

So I would have to say that it's not safe to keep coins on exchanges unless you are in the process of trade.

It surprises me that you made use of a large list of exchanges that time on time again messed up big time. I have been using Mintpal, Cryptsy and MCxnow as well back in the days, but I stopped using these exchanges after a few red flag moments that made me leave these exchanges for ever. If I look back, I did the right thing as they all went down with user funds being lost as result. The only exchange that got me to swallow losses, is the very recent shut down of BTC-E. Regardless of the exchange is properly registered or not, as trader you have to keep a certain number of coins on-exchange, and thus they are always at risk, unfortunately.

[manchester93]

I have lost coins on Mt Gox, coinex.pw, mcxnow, Cryptsy, mintpal, and most recently BTC-e.

So I would have to say that it's not safe to keep coins on exchanges unless you are in the process of trade.

It surprises me that you made use of a large list of exchanges that time on time again messed up big time. I have been using Mintpal, Cryptsy and MCxnow as well back in the days, but I stopped using these exchanges after a few red flag moments that made me leave these exchanges for ever. If I look back, I did the right thing as they all went down with user funds being lost as result. The only exchange that got me to swallow losses, is the very recent shut down of BTC-E. Regardless of the exchange is properly registered or not, as trader you have to keep a certain number of coins on-exchange, and thus they are always at risk, unfortunately.

It seems that the days of the "wild west" are ending for cryptocurrencies. Now traders are faced with the increasing risk not just of hacks, but of actions against unlicensed exchanges. That means, increasingly, choosing between identity verification with reputable exchanges (and paying your taxes in full), or having your funds increasingly put at risk of loss.

[Mindin]

I have lost coins on Mt Gox, coinex.pw, mcxnow, Cryptsy, mintpal, and most recently BTC-e.

So I would have to say that it's not safe to keep coins on exchanges unless you are in the process of trade.

It surprises me that you made use of a large list of exchanges that time on time again messed up big time. I have been using Mintpal, Cryptsy and MCxnow as well back in the days, but I stopped using these exchanges after a few red flag moments that made me leave these exchanges for ever. If I look back, I did the right thing as they all went down with user funds being lost as result. The only exchange that got me to swallow losses, is the very recent shut down of BTC-E. Regardless of the exchange is properly registered or not, as trader you have to keep a certain number of coins on-exchange, and thus they are always at risk, unfortunately.

It seems that the days of the "wild west" are ending for cryptocurrencies. Now traders are faced with the increasing risk not just of hacks, but of actions against unlicensed exchanges. That means, increasingly, choosing between identity verification with reputable exchanges (and paying your taxes in full), or having your funds increasingly put at risk of loss.

Your private wallets at your home computer can in theory be hacked if you download or click on some link with a coinstealing virus in it. So you are not safe anywhere unless you keep all your coin in cold storage.

[Yuhee]

I have lost coins on Mt Gox, coinex.pw, mcxnow, Cryptsy, mintpal, and most recently BTC-e.

So I would have to say that it's not safe to keep coins on exchanges unless you are in the process of trade.

It surprises me that you made use of a large list of exchanges that time on time again messed up big time. I have been using Mintpal, Cryptsy and MCxnow as well back in the days, but I stopped using these exchanges after a few red flag moments that made me leave these exchanges for ever. If I look back, I did the right thing as they all went down with user funds being lost as result. The only exchange that got me to swallow losses, is the very recent shut down of BTC-E. Regardless of the exchange is properly registered or not, as trader you have to keep a certain number of coins on-exchange, and thus they are always at risk, unfortunately.

It seems that the days of the "wild west" are ending for cryptocurrencies. Now traders are faced with the increasing risk not just of hacks, but of actions against unlicensed exchanges. That means, increasingly, choosing between identity verification with reputable exchanges (and paying your taxes in full), or having your funds increasingly put at risk of loss.

Your private wallets at your home computer can in theory be hacked if you download or click on some link with a coinstealing virus in it. So you are not safe anywhere unless you keep all your coin in cold storage.

Well for me i store small amounts of money in any of my private wallets. I directly put it to withdrawing sites if ever i get incomes then transfer it to my bank account. Vie versa also if I'm going to transfer it to exchange sites. That is the most safest way for me to store my btc because I know it's much safer if you have small amounts. It's not garuanteed invulnerable but it lessens disappointment.

[RodeoX]

NO. I don't know what the last 3 pages say, but the answer in no. Unless you have complete and exclusive control over your private keys then you do not even own any bitcoin.