Do not store your wallet on the exchange, store it on your crypto wallet.

[Alucard1]

Some people stored their funds on a crypto exchange, which is not a good thing to do like a good bitcoin. Some people believe that their cryptocurrency is much safer in exchange than their crypto wallet, this concept is a big no for me, well, in fact, I always read some articles about a hacked exchange every week or months. It is much safer to store our money in our crypto wallet but the problem with it is that it is also vulnerable to being stolen by hackers.

We can prevent this thing from storing our private and public keys.
Just key terms to remember:
Transferring of funds
Public key - allows you to transfer funds into it
Private key - allows you to transfer funds out to it.

Exclusively
Public key - publicly known and important for identification
Private key - this should be secret, excluded only for two parties which are the receiver and the sender.

If you lose your public key, you can still access it using your private key and if you lose your private key you cannot access your fund anymore. Storing your private key is a really important thing to do whenever you want to secure your wallet. Do not store it on your device because any device ate prone to hackers. Use any strategies except online.

[GreatArkansas]

You got a point OP! Thanks for this.
But to be honest, I also hold some of Bitcoins in the exchange but not too much, some of them are just for trading.
And some of them are funds that I may use in an emergency, so I don't need to access my hardware wallet, since not all the time I bring my hardware wallet. So, some exchanges or centralized wallets are here to help.

[carlfebz2]

Some people stored their funds on a crypto exchange, which is not a good thing to do like a good bitcoin. Some people believe that their cryptocurrency is much safer in exchange than their crypto wallet, this concept is a big no for me, well, in fact, I always read some articles about a hacked exchange every week or months. It is much safer to store our money in our crypto wallet but the problem with it is that it is also vulnerable to being stolen by hackers.

Another example incident that just happened recently.

https://blockchain.news/news/okex-founder-star-xu-arrested-after-crypto-exchange-suspends-withdrawals
https://www.coindesk.com/okex-founder-star-xu-named-as-key-holder-in-police-custody-report

For sure those people who had stored some coins on OKEX had a sweating balls at the moment.
Its never been good to make exchange wallet as your primary or storage ones.

[blockman]

For so many times, a lot of threads and posts I've read that's been reminding especially the newbies that they don't have to store or use the exchanges as their cold wallet for holding. There is a misconception of the use of exchange and if they have decided to use it as a place to store for a very long time, it's not the best venue for their holdings. Many hacks have been made on exchanges and funds were stolen, if exchanges doesn't have the capability to refund the victims, goodbye to those funds that are present on that exchange during the hack and are stolen.

[Ludmilla_rose1995]

Thanks for giving me good advice. But a trader, especially a daily trader, they will keep their assets in the exchange wallet for trading and the profits will be sent to the personal wallet. Very inconvenient if every day you have to make deposits and withdrawals. After all, losing crypto assets is a risk that must be borne by the holder, because hackers always have a way to commit crimes.

[Renampun]

I personally never store my HODL coins in an exchange wallet...
but as a trader I always prepare coins on an exchange wallet, it is very complicated if I send my tokens back and forth to my personal wallet and then to the exchange wallet again. There is no certainty that an exchange that we believe can be safe from hacker attacks but a trusted exchange usually guarantees the customer's token / coin.

[mikeauerbach]

It's so evident. I'm wondering why some people still use exchanges for long term storage.

[royalfestus]

It's so evident. I'm wondering why some people still use exchanges for long term storage.

I keep some exchanges for portability,so I can access my exchange anywhere with just my password and authentication code. I dont like carrying private keys around either on hardcopy materials or phone, it should be kept in a position. Though the wallets have been doing great but remember some wallets were good some years ago e.g blockchain.com. Any online wallet can be compromised especially the cheap ones without private keys

[Shame_Game]

It seems to me that storing crypto on wallets is quite safe. I used - Trust, Atomic, Ownr, Jaxx. And no one hacked my accounts, no one stole my funds.

[kryptqnick]

You got a point OP! Thanks for this.
But to be honest, I also hold some of Bitcoins in the exchange but not too much, some of them are just for trading.
And some of them are funds that I may use in an emergency, so I don't need to access my hardware wallet, since not all the time I bring my hardware wallet. So, some exchanges or centralized wallets are here to help.

I guess it's common knowledge that storing cryptos on an exchange is not a good idea. The money can be stolen, and since the exchange controls your money there, it's not really yours. I think I have some altcoins on exchanges because it was much easier in 2017 for me to keep them on an exchange rather than create wallets for every coin, but I'm talking about very small amounts of money. That being said, sometimes I can understand why someone would keep money on a reputable exchange. It's easier if a person uses it for trading, but if the exchange tends to fully compensate the losses in case of a hack, it can also seem to be a reassurance. I choose a wallet, however, not an exchange.

[sheenshane]

I think there is a small correction of your thread title. It should be like this, "Do not store your Crypto/Bitcoin on the exchange, store it on your crypto wallet".

If you are a trader, there's nothing you can do is to trust that exchange you have to choose and risk fund that you can afford. That's why we should pick a reputable exchange where we can trust upon leaving our fund, but it doesn't mean we trust them by leaving our fund for a long period of time. If you have done in trading, don't let your fund sleep on the exchange over a year, it should be transferred immediately on the wallet that you hold over the private key.

Choosing a hardware wallet that fully open source is the best choice or much better if you know how to make a paper wallet that is the best cold wallet for a long purpose of holding. This just saying it over and over again here in the forum, "not your keys, not your fund". Anyway, thank you for reminding us this way.

[Rexler]

Thanks for reminding us mate, this topic should always serve as a reminder to us that it's never safe to leave our crypto on exchanges, and it will be more helpful for the noobs in  crypto,cus alot of them normally make this mistake, and when the exchange where there their funds are kept eventually gets hacked they will start crying, storing our crypto should always be our top priority and since exchange security have proven to be weak and very easy to exploit, it's best we store them in our wallet, storing crypto in exchanges became a bad idea, since some group of people decided not to work for money, but rather they prefer to exploit security weak points in exchanges then hack into  them and steal the funds on the exchange,so its better for our crypto to remain in our wallet than in an exchange wallet.

[emrecemsan]

Exchanges are not very safe because you don’t have the private key of the wallet in which you store your coins. In the past, there were a lot of exchanges that have many coins stolen. The best-known example of this is MT.gox. All the money of those who had money on Mt.gox was gone.

[stompix]

I feel like these warnings are becoming something like "don't cross the road when it's a red light ", everyone is giving the advice but at least once or twice a year when there is no car in sight everyone does it.

With the avalanche of newbies, people that associate exchanges with banks, with less educated investors the exact opposite is happening:
Five mega exchanges hold 10% of Bitcoin's entire supply

Nope, people are just too lazy or afraid of being responsible alone for their coins so they would rather trust an exchange than their own laptop or knowledge.
I don't like what's happening but I also don't believe in miracles, the percentage of people doing exactly the opposite will only grow in the near future.

I have a feeling at least 1/4 of the ones saying it's not right to keep coins in exchanges have some right now as they type stored on binance or another one.

[tsaroz]

I think it's both of insecurity and greed.
People don't have trust on themselves and their devices/browsing habit and don't prefer/afford a hardware wallet. They'd find it easier to store in exchange.
People want to earn from their idle money. Exchanges provides both savings and trade profit for traders, which on sufficient amount could be a good income.
Though I have a good portion of my coins in my wallet, that hasn't increased in quite a time as I have discovered it's much profitable to trade than keep my coins idle.

[DdmrDdmr]

I was reading a moment ago about the OKEx Exchange’s decision to temporarily freeze withdrawals today, and moving from one reference to another I came across the OKEx’s announcement on the situation. Within the wording, they reference part of their TOS, which look ever so spooky when drafted  on a short two paragraph explanation of the situation:

Pursuant to 8.1 Service Change and Interruption of the Terms of Service, OKEx may change the Service and/or may also interrupt, suspend or terminate the service at any time with or without prior notice.

See https://www.okex.com/support/hc/en-us/articles/360051090391

While one may normally interpret the above on an individual scale, it can also be applied to the whole range of accounts simultaneously (as has happened today).

There are situations where one certainly may need to have some crypto on an Exchange (preferably small sums, constituting each person’s bare minimum – ideally cero), especially for frequent traders, but the risk is latent and may crystalize when we least expect it to do so.

[AniviaBtc]

There are circumstances where investors are losing their money in a certain exchange without them knowing that the exchange that they are using is not secure enough. That's why they are losing a certain amount of money without doing anything. It is much better to store all of your crypto asset in your personal and trusted crypto wallet instead of risking it in an exchange. It is not a problem if you are using a high reputable exchange that you might use for a long term like Coinbase. It has a lot of user and customers so that you are not that afraid of using it in storing your assets. Be mindful of choosing an exchange because all of your hardwork in your investments rely on that.

[pawanjain]

What you said is absolutely right and this is what I have been advising to everybody I communicate with but the thing is that holding bitcoins in wallet/exchange differs from person to person.
If the person is an investor then he should definitely hold it an a secure wallet but if the person is a trader then he won't be able to hold all the amount in a wallet.
A trader can't keep on transferring funds from his wallet to the exchange.
A trader should keep some amount on the exchange as well to trade on coins so that he doesn't miss the opportunity when the time arrives.
So I think that should be mentioned clearly in OP so that the traders know this difference.

P.S : Your title should be more like : Do not store your coins on an exchange, store it in your wallet.

[The Cryptovator]

I  can say this topic has been discussed multiple times on the forum. It should be basic practice for cryptocurrency holders. But sadly we have a lack of technical knowledge about bitcoin and wallets. Even a few users don't know about noncustodial wallets and they think web wallets and exchange is the wallet where they could receive and spend funds. I always prefer a hardware wallet if it's affordable. Otherwise at least should store funds into a open-source noncustodial wallet like Electrum. Storing funds into exchanges is the worst decision, exchange would be hacked or shut down at any time.

[ChrisPop]

Unless you use a regulated exchange with deposit guarantee from a financial authority there is no reason to hold your crypto on a third party platform unless you are an active trader. Even in that case you don't need to hold more than 10-30% - even less on exchanges that offer customers up to 100x.

It is true that you need some basic cybersecurity knowledge to safely store your Bitcoin, but that can be easily acquired in a couple of hours if you put your mind on it.