"Not your keys, Not your coins" is not enough

[erep]

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.

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.

[1714656211]

1714656211

[mendace]

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)

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.

[paid2]

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.

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

[Kasabus]

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".

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.

[serveria.com]

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.

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.

[paid2]

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

[Smartvirus]

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.

[Nwada001]

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.

[Latviand]

I don't mind putting my bitcoins there so I can earn some satoshi everyday until it hits my target price

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.

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.

I guess some people use CEX the same reason as mine.

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?

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.

[larry_vw_1955]

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

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.

[Wind_FURY]

but i see how now you want to make an altnet pretend to be more bitcoiny than bitcoin..

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.

as for the second IOU status

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.

[franky1]

but i see how now you want to make an altnet pretend to be more bitcoiny than bitcoin..

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.

as for the second IOU status

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

[tjtonmoy]

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

I guess this will answer your question.



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.

[DooMAD]

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.

[Wind_FURY]

--Snip--

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.

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.

👍

[DooMAD]

Binance is known for being a good and reputable company

If they suffered a security breach in 2019 (7000 BTC lost) and then had another breach in 2022 (2 million altcoin tokens lost), that doesn't meet my personal criteria of "good".  Others may see it differently.

[tranthidung]

If they suffered a security breach in 2019 (7000 BTC lost) and then had another breach in 2022 (2 million altcoin tokens lost), 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.

[Z-tight]

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.

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.

[Blitzboy]

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.

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.

Binance is known for being a good and reputable company, but I don’t think it will still be the same in the next years or decade. The reason why we don’t need to trust them wholeheartedly as we might only regret our decision in the future. However, I respect your decision to store your bitcoins in an exchange like Binance because what you think is what matters for you. But you should know at least that centralized exchanges will never guarantee the safety and security of our coins and what had happened to FTX might also happen to your trusted exchange. That’s the reason why instead of prioritizing Binance and other centralized exchanges, I think it’s best to just avoid them and settle for self-custodial wallets. That way, we own our personal coins and we are solely responsible of their security, and not another third party company.

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.

[Japinat]

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)

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.

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.