Reminder Everyone: If You Don't Have The Keys, Then It's Not Your Crypto

[Yatsan]

Have you ever assured that you have get into a legitimate and reliable exchange before putting your funds in there? Even if we say so that it is a local exchange, still there could be chances that such exchange you have gone through is a shit one and you have been victimized by a scheme. Be sure not just for the OP but as well as to everyone's attention that before engaging into putting up even a small amount of fund in the exchange you have picked, always to check the credibility of the exchange itself for the funds won't be ay loss when there is no one's fault. It could be a human error for transferring or doing transactions unnecessarily causing your account to get hackee or the exchange is the one who have problem with. I do hope the OP could still regain even it is a small amount for it is still money at stake.

[MCobian]

If I read the chronology of your lost BTC, it's quite strange, there is no withdrawal history where your BTC is lost. This problem must be
wait for the exchanges to investigate, let them investigate for a few days. If the result is not satisfactory indeed these exchanges are
problematic, and don't use these exchanges anymore. What local exchanges are you using popular and including old exchanges, because
it is risky to use unpopular new exchanges.

[AakZaki]

You need to question the credibility of the local exchange you are using. If you lose funds, at least there are traces of transactions that can be traced. if they (local exchange) cannot solve the problem of losing your bitcoin, then of course they are not professional exchanges. I also have some bitcoins on my local exchange, until now it's still safe and I always open it every day.

It is very risky to leave assets on the exchange because we don't have full control, but you also have to know the reputation of the exchange you are using, don't use an exchange that has a bad reputation.

[Kelvinid]

...
I quickly navigated to the withdrawal history section to see if my account have been hacked and the hacker withdrew it, but surprisingly, there was no new withdrawal history except for the ones I've previously made which the last one was about 3 weeks ago, my bitcoins disappeared just like that.

It was a bit worrying when you have seen a withdrawal transactions but there is nothing, it might be there is a problem with the site only. We can't still conclude that you have been scammed already ( not possible) because you have visited the same site (not a phishing site) and made transactions before and it works fine.

The support gives you the replies and there a chance that it will get back to you unless if there are no responses coming from them. Better to wait somehow, put yourself at ease. Because if you are using legit exchange, you'll nothing to worry about. This could sometimes be an issue, in fact, I'd experience like this before but it is just resolved if we are asking help from their support team.

[Sadlife]

This is really quite frightening, this is why i only trade occasionally in exchanges since Binance got hacked, i've lose trust in this exchanges, not only they ignore responsibility towards their customer but also does not refund the money you've lose.
Best way to trade is to keep them in an hardware wallet and only exchange them if you've profited.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

Update

I got a mail from them this morning, they apologized and asked several of us affected to be patient, that the issue was caused by a glitch in their system, they claim they are currently working on fixing the problem and should give them between 50 to 72 hours to restore our balances.

Now I know I wasn't the only one affected as they clearly said it affected several of their users. So I wait patiently for them to ruturn my bitcoin and I run away from them forever   

[bitsurfer2014]

~snip~

Sorry for your loss but I suppose this could serve us all a lesson to consider using a DEX instead, though I think those DEX's may have low daily volume and prices aren't as attractive as compared to centralized exchange. Imho.

[ILuckyGuyI]

Update

I got a mail from them this morning, they apologized and asked several of us affected to be patient, that the issue was caused by a glitch in their system, they claim they are currently working on fixing the problem and should give them between 50 to 72 hours to restore our balances.

Now I know I wasn't the only one affected as they clearly said it affected several of their users. So I wait patiently for them to ruturn my bitcoin and I run away from them forever   

I have never come across a situation like that in my life. Normally, I think the chance of this kind of 'vanishing' is very low. I thought there should definitely be a problem with their system. And there it is. I hope they will restore your coins quickly like they said.

[molsewid]

Update

I got a mail from them this morning, they apologized and asked several of us affected to be patient, that the issue was caused by a glitch in their system, they claim they are currently working on fixing the problem and should give them between 50 to 72 hours to restore our balances.

Now I know I wasn't the only one affected as they clearly said it affected several of their users. So I wait patiently for them to ruturn my bitcoin and I run away from them forever  

It's good for you. But the reminder you give to us is a fact. I already encountered that problem before and lost my altcoins in different exchanges. So the best recommendation is to keep our bitcoin or altcoin in a much safer place than keeping it on exchanges that might endanger our crypto-currency.
The reason why I'm keeping my crypto in exchanges before saves a lot of transaction fees. However, saving fees solution is not worth it if your account is affected by hacking incidents.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

Update

I got a mail from them this morning, they apologized and asked several of us affected to be patient, that the issue was caused by a glitch in their system, they claim they are currently working on fixing the problem and should give them between 50 to 72 hours to restore our balances.

Now I know I wasn't the only one affected as they clearly said it affected several of their users. So I wait patiently for them to ruturn my bitcoin and I run away from them forever  

It's good for you. But the reminder you give to us is a fact. I already encountered that problem before and lost my altcoins in different exchanges. So the best recommendation is to keep our bitcoin or altcoin in a much safer place than keeping it on exchanges that might endanger our crypto-currency.
The reason why I'm keeping my crypto in exchanges before saves a lot of transaction fees. However, saving fees solution is not worth it if your account is affected by hacking incidents.

Exactly my point, this is exactly what happened to me with cryptopia, though I don't blame myself much cus i was kind of new to crypto then, but I won't say I don't regret it, I stored every of my coins on cryptopia as long as they are listed on the exchange, I heard of exchanges been hacked but I never knew it would soon get to cryptopia's turn, so I never bothered until it happened, that was how i lost everything I had on that exchange till today.

[playingpolice]

Sorry you lost your bitcoins. It is an important lesson to learn not store too much cryptocurrency on the exchanges. Unfortunately it is a necessary evil for many at this point of time.

[Darkelf11]

Everything digital isn't really yours, so there's no reason to worry. Just accept it.

There should always be a reason to worry especially if you can't track what happened to the money you stored, it just disappeared. You earned that money so I think I can say that it is yours though, we are just lodging here in digital world so our money isn't 100% safe.  So, the best thing to do next time is to find trusted exchanges and distribute your money, do not just put all your money in one exchange or even in one wallet.

[AjithBtc]

Sad you lost little fund from your exchange account. Trusted exchange services won't get into such issues, because the reputation lost will affect their business. For increased security, it is always good to prefer the leading exchanges. In simple even if some issue took place with the fund, we'll get it resolved on time.

Some suggest to go for decentralized exchanges. With decentralized exchanges the full control will be with the user, but if human makes an error it can't be rectified further. The loss out of the error can't be recovered.

[adzino]

Hi gentlemen of this beloveth forum, I wanna remind you guys to try as much as possible to never leave your bitcoins or any other crypto on an exchange except you are ready to loose them.

I just lost 78.82 usd worth of bitcoins I left on one of our local exchangers here, the exchange was not hacked, nothing happened, i just logged in this morning to discover that my bitcoin are no where to be found, I quickly navigated to the withdrawal history section to see if my account have been hacked and the hacker withdrew it, but surprisingly, there was no new withdrawal history except for the ones I've previously made which the last one was about 3 weeks ago, my bitcoins disappeared just like that.

I thought of withdrawing this coin a day before but decided not to bcus I knew I will be using them soon, so to avoid paying a withdrawal fee and in 2 or 3 days time, pay transaction fee to deposit them again, i decided to leave them there, now they are gone and i cant even trace where or how they went out.

I contacted support and they claim they are investigating the issue but whatever the result turns out to be, i dont have any hope of ever seeing my 78.82 usd in bitcoin again, bcus I think they know the worst am gonna do is stop using their exchange and as well discourage people around me from ever using them.

So the point of this message/post is if you value your coins, always keep them in a wallet you have the keys.

Huh, which exchange was that? If the bitcoins disappeared from your account, that probably was a glitch or a bug maybe since no one withdrew it from your account. Since I am almost sure the coins don't stay on the "wallet" you are given. Look at the transactions, you will see once the coin reaches to the wallet address given to you buy the exchange, it gets moved to another wallet. So, even if the wallets private key has been compromised and the hacker moves the coins,  the balance change shouldn't be reflected on your account since the change will take place only if you withdraw from your account (which according to you no one did). I think the exchange you have joined is fake or a scam exchange.

[Fivestar4everMVP]

Hi gentlemen of this beloveth forum, I wanna remind you guys to try as much as possible to never leave your bitcoins or any other crypto on an exchange except you are ready to loose them.

I just lost 78.82 usd worth of bitcoins I left on one of our local exchangers here, the exchange was not hacked, nothing happened, i just logged in this morning to discover that my bitcoin are no where to be found, I quickly navigated to the withdrawal history section to see if my account have been hacked and the hacker withdrew it, but surprisingly, there was no new withdrawal history except for the ones I've previously made which the last one was about 3 weeks ago, my bitcoins disappeared just like that.

I thought of withdrawing this coin a day before but decided not to bcus I knew I will be using them soon, so to avoid paying a withdrawal fee and in 2 or 3 days time, pay transaction fee to deposit them again, i decided to leave them there, now they are gone and i cant even trace where or how they went out.

I contacted support and they claim they are investigating the issue but whatever the result turns out to be, i dont have any hope of ever seeing my 78.82 usd in bitcoin again, bcus I think they know the worst am gonna do is stop using their exchange and as well discourage people around me from ever using them.

So the point of this message/post is if you value your coins, always keep them in a wallet you have the keys.

Huh, which exchange was that? If the bitcoins disappeared from your account, that probably was a glitch or a bug maybe since no one withdrew it from your account. Since I am almost sure the coins don't stay on the "wallet" you are given. Look at the transactions, you will see once the coin reaches to the wallet address given to you buy the exchange, it gets moved to another wallet. So, even if the wallets private key has been compromised and the hacker moves the coins,  the balance change shouldn't be reflected on your account since the change will take place only if you withdraw from your account (which according to you no one did). I think the exchange you have joined is fake or a scam exchange.

No mate, they are not scam according to my findings, please read my update above, they had a glitch in their system and that caused balances to disappear in some affected accounts, it happened that I was one of the victims, they are currently working on resolving the issue and restoring balances in all affected accounts, but as I have stated before, as soon as my balance is restored, I will withdraw and never use them again, atleast until they upgrade there system.

Everything should return back to normal by tomorrow

[Karartma1]

Before starting a new thread I saw this one doing some research. Following OP's golden reminder Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins I would suggest that everyone take a look down memory lane to remember how many failed exchanges we saw during these years.
Mismanagement, theft, hacks etc. can always take your coins away from you.

I was lucky enough to have withdrawn my funds from both Cryptsy and Mintpal before they collapsed. For those of you who don't remember them, those where like the Huobi, Bitstamp, Bitfinex of today.

So, please, learn how to manage your wallet/keys 
https://bravenewcoin.com/insights/36-bitcoin-exchanges-that-are-no-longer-with-us

[taufik123]

Sorry for your loss but I suppose this could serve us all a lesson to consider using a DEX instead, though I think those DEX's may have low daily volume and prices aren't as attractive as compared to centralized exchange. Imho.

You are right about the DEX exchange which has a small daily volume which has the advantage of being able to fully control our assets.  but centralized exchanges or large exchanges such as Binance, Bithumb, Bittrex and many more, have security that is constantly being improved so that it is not easy to hack.  It is very risky, but as users we also have to be vigilant and not put all the assets on one exchange, you also have to have a secure private wallet such as using a hardware wallet and the like.  security is the responsibility of the asset owner.

[Findingnemo]

Sorry for your loss but I suppose this could serve us all a lesson to consider using a DEX instead, though I think those DEX's may have low daily volume and prices aren't as attractive as compared to centralized exchange. Imho.

You are right about the DEX exchange which has a small daily volume which has the advantage of being able to fully control our assets.  but centralized exchanges or large exchanges such as Binance, Bithumb, Bittrex and many more, have security that is constantly being improved so that it is not easy to hack.  It is very risky, but as users we also have to be vigilant and not put all the assets on one exchange, you also have to have a secure private wallet such as using a hardware wallet and the like.  security is the responsibility of the asset owner.

Binance also hacked as well so there is no hack proof exchange yet and could be never possible as well so people have to take responsibility of their coins and store on a hardware wallet or paper wallet for long term, desktop and HD wallet for short term.Choose exchanges only when we are going to trade that coins in the near future.

[Twentyonepaylots]

Sorry for your loss but I suppose this could serve us all a lesson to consider using a DEX instead, though I think those DEX's may have low daily volume and prices aren't as attractive as compared to centralized exchange. Imho.

You are right about the DEX exchange which has a small daily volume which has the advantage of being able to fully control our assets.  but centralized exchanges or large exchanges such as Binance, Bithumb, Bittrex and many more, have security that is constantly being improved so that it is not easy to hack.  It is very risky, but as users we also have to be vigilant and not put all the assets on one exchange, you also have to have a secure private wallet such as using a hardware wallet and the like.  security is the responsibility of the asset owner.

Binance also hacked as well so there is no hack proof exchange yet and could be never possible as well so people have to take responsibility of their coins and store on a hardware wallet or paper wallet for long term, desktop and HD wallet for short term.

I agree, there is no hack proof system of security, even the cryptography has its limit. But some may ask why there are exchanges that has no reported cases of hacking like Huobi. It does not mean that if it don't happen to you, it will not come after you, though I'm not wishing them a bad luck to get their security be compromised. Still one of the safest way to store crypto is on hardware wallets like Ledger or Trezor.

Choose exchanges only when we are going to trade that coins in the near future.

There is nothing much of a risk when you let your funds sleep in the forum for like a day or two, the risk increases when you just leave it there for a while. Or exactly when they are compromised.

[Igor17Krik]

If you use a top exchange, your bitcoins will be found. Once my 500 dollar TRON coins disappeared. The support team helped me. This can take a very long time. My coins were returned to me after a month. When choosing an exchange, you need to be very careful.