Are exchanges evading proof of reserves unsafe for users?

[Vivageneviv]

Proof of reserves is designed to get exchanges demonstrate transparency by proving that customers deposits are safe in their possession. In an industry riddled with uncertainties and fraud, the need to reassure investors that their funds are safe cannot be overemphasised.

In a bid to raise transparency and trust in cryptocurrency exchanges Proof of reserves allows customers and auditors to indeed verify that exchanges retain the funds they deposited in them.
Unfortunately only a handful of exchanges currently offer any kind of proof of reserves for their customers; while some cite security, cost and competitive disadvantages for their failure to release their proof of reserves, the bold ones have gone on to release theirs.

As a trader, do you feel safe using such exchanges that haven’t released theirs or should the more transparent ones be given preference?

[Oshosondy]

The only exchange that I may be using that is not supporting it is Coinbase, but luckily my country is restricted to use the exchange. I do not like how the exchange do not support derivative trading too.

I noticed that all the exchanges that I am using like Binance, Bybit, OKX, Huobi global and Kucoin all have proof-of-reserve. There are many exchanges that are having it that crypto exchange users can choose from.

But people should not trust proof of reserve because it can be manipulated. We should also not be deceived and still always know that not your key not your coin. Proof of reserve can not prevent the inconveniences of many exchanges and also it can not prevent exchange hack.

[Wiwo]

The big question is,  how reserved is the poof of reserved?

Because just as we have fake trading volume or bot trading in exchange same way exchange can still manipulate the proof of reserves,  and of what use will a proof of reserve be if the exchange declare bankruptcy just like what FTC did in 2022.

The bottom line is never to trust an exchange and does not allow your balance on the exchange to exceed the amount you want to trade with to avoid losing all your money trusting using an exchange as your personal wallet.

Always make sure to keep your funds off the exchange,  even though the displayed proof of Reserved find (POR).

[Johnyz]

This issue started since the exit of FTX and now we are talking about this again, Binance showed their financial capability and I think that can be a good relief to Binance users and other exchanges also did this. Well, the question is, is this enough to be called a safe exchange? Honestly anything can happen in an instant just look at FTX as an example, it is a top exchange before but look at what happened. If you don’t want to be on trouble and don’t want think about this from time to time, better not to hold big funds on any exchanges.

[Chibaba]

The big question is,  how reserved is the poof of reserved?

Because just as we have fake trading volume or bot trading in exchange same way exchange can still manipulate the proof of reserves,  and of what use will a proof of reserve be if the exchange declare bankruptcy just like what FTC did in 2022.

The bottom line is never to trust an exchange and does not allow your balance on the exchange to exceed the amount you want to trade with to avoid losing all your money trusting using an exchange as your personal wallet.

Always make sure to keep your funds off the exchange,  even though the displayed proof of Reserved find (POR).

You have some valid point but the crypto market is all about taking risk and also trading with what you can afford to loose. FTX was an accident and a huge lesson to other top exchanges. I wouldn't discredit the idea of proof of reserve even though it can be manipulated but its an idea that have restored confidence in the market.

It's also worthy to note that exchanges like Binance, OKX and particularly Bitget have launched 'Customer Protection Fund' which is currently exceeding $2 billion in total. This is another asset security measure these three have in place and I also learnt Houbi and Coinbase have a similar arrangement but in the form insurance. So I guess in no distance time the crypto market will have more sanity than what we use to have. Its an emerging space and we are evolving

[AmoreJaz]

This issue started since the exit of FTX and now we are talking about this again, Binance showed their financial capability and I think that can be a good relief to Binance users and other exchanges also did this. Well, the question is, is this enough to be called a safe exchange? Honestly anything can happen in an instant just look at FTX as an example, it is a top exchange before but look at what happened. If you don’t want to be on trouble and don’t want think about this from time to time, better not to hold big funds on any exchanges.

that is true, we can't get an absolute assurance from all these exchanges, whether they are at the top or not. but one thing you can safeguard your funds is get out your funds as soon as you finished trading. secure it in your own wallet where you have full control of your funds.
having proof of reserve of funds won't guarantee that they will rug pull or do something unexpected. they can easily give the wallet address having their funds but they have full control of such funds, so they can still do what they want to do with their vault money.

[Wiwo]

The big question is,  how reserved is the poof of reserved?

Because just as we have fake trading volume or bot trading in exchange same way exchange can still manipulate the proof of reserves,  and of what use will a proof of reserve be if the exchange declare bankruptcy just like what FTC did in 2022.

The bottom line is never to trust an exchange and does not allow your balance on the exchange to exceed the amount you want to trade with to avoid losing all your money trusting using an exchange as your personal wallet.

Always make sure to keep your funds off the exchange,  even though the displayed proof of Reserved find (POR).

You have some valid point but the crypto market is all about taking risk and also trading with what you can afford to loose. FTX was an accident and a huge lesson to other top exchanges. I wouldn't discredit the idea of proof of reserve even though it can be manipulated but its an idea that have restored confidence in the market.

It's also worthy to note that exchanges like Binance, OKX and particularly Bitget have launched 'Customer Protection Fund' which is currently exceeding $2 billion in total. This is another asset security measure these three have in place and I also learnt Houbi and Coinbase have a similar arrangement but in the form insurance. So I guess in no distance time the crypto market will have more sanity than what we use to have. Its an emerging space and we are evolving

I think have a reserve funds and an insurance cover will give exchange legitimacy from it users since they will have the confidence that in the event that anything happens to the exchange they can reclaim their funds through the insurance company but saying that the exchange will maintain a reserve balance by itself still leave us with the same risk.

Binance has safu which is something relieving but the big question is,  is the safe fund registered with an insurance company that can step in to settle customers when things go wrong?

[milewilda]

Proof of reserves is designed to get exchanges demonstrate transparency by proving that customers deposits are safe in their possession. In an industry riddled with uncertainties and fraud, the need to reassure investors that their funds are safe cannot be overemphasised.

In a bid to raise transparency and trust in cryptocurrency exchanges Proof of reserves allows customers and auditors to indeed verify that exchanges retain the funds they deposited in them.
Unfortunately only a handful of exchanges currently offer any kind of proof of reserves for their customers; while some cite security, cost and competitive disadvantages for their failure to release their proof of reserves, the bold ones have gone on to release theirs.

As a trader, do you feel safe using such exchanges that haven’t released theirs or should the more transparent ones be given preference?

To be able to know or able to see the better on which it does really give out that kind of transparency and we investors or users would really be having that kind of emotion of having that kind of confidence on which we do
always prefer on seeing on everything specially on reserves but its true that only a handful or platforms who do really give out that kind of transparency and the rest are just making out some reasoning that they cant just provide out such information and having the alibi about security or whatsoever but actually they might really just trying out to hide off something whether on those common means.
About unsafe things then as long you do put up your money on an exchange platform or something that you dont possess the keys of your wallet then its not considered 100% safe even if we do speak about the most
known or reputable exchange in the planet but still it wont really be giving out assurance of total safety of your coins because of possible circumstances that might happen then for sure you would be able
to experience those locked up for funds or really totally lost your asset which is totally that devastating.

[DoublerHunter]

This issue started since the exit of FTX and now we are talking about this again, Binance showed their financial capability and I think that can be a good relief to Binance users and other exchanges also did this. Well, the question is, is this enough to be called a safe exchange? Honestly anything can happen in an instant just look at FTX as an example, it is a top exchange before but look at what happened. If you don’t want to be on trouble and don’t want think about this from time to time, better not to hold big funds on any exchanges.

that is true, we can't get an absolute assurance from all these exchanges, whether they are at the top or not. but one thing you can safeguard your funds is get out your funds as soon as you finished trading. secure it in your own wallet where you have full control of your funds.
having proof of reserve of funds won't guarantee that they will rug pull or do something unexpected. they can easily give the wallet address having their funds but they have full control of such funds, so they can still do what they want to do with their vault money.

^Definitely right.
While measures like proof of reserves and financial capability are positive steps toward transparency, they do not provide an absolute guarantee against all risks. Even with such assurances, there is always a possibility that exchanges could engage in unexpected or unethical behavior.
One of the most secure ways to safeguard your funds is to withdraw them from the exchange as soon as you are done trading and store them in your own wallet. By using a hardware wallet or other secure cold storage solution, you have full control over your private keys and funds, reducing the risk of potential losses due to exchange-related issues.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

Proof of reserve, or no proof of reserve, what if the exchange gets hacked? Does that still mean that your deposit is saved? If an exchange gets hacked and encounter a significant loss, they cannot even instantly return their customers funds back, but rather it will take some time, if at all they will even return them. One good approach for using an exchange is to just not store your assets there; if you are not using your assets for any business on the exchange, then they should be in your personal wallet. Perhaps, just as Oshosondy has said, some exchanges can even manipulate those proofs of reserve, and customers will be deceived into believing that their deposit is safe. Every trader should just be sure they are using a reputable exchange.

[mk4]

As a trader, do you feel safe using such exchanges that haven’t released theirs or should the more transparent ones be given preference?

While I'd definitely prefer if the exchange provides non-opaque proof-of-reserves, I don't worry that much. My money on centralized exchanges are extremely small that while I don't want to lose the money, I'll just end up having a scratch if the exchange goes bust.

^Also nothing that I mostly trade on GMX and Uniswap for a good while now.

[dansus021]

For me, I would simply avoid the centralized exchange that does not give Proof Of Reserve. Tho if you love playing with Centralized Exchange you should be aware with your fund and maybe only deposit enough for trading and withdraw to fiat and other asset save it in cold wallet.

Coingecko now provide data about proof of reserves that centralized exchange have https://www.coingecko.com/en/exchanges

if you still aware then you can use DeX 

[Cookdata]

Proof of reserves is designed to get exchanges demonstrate transparency by proving that customers deposits are safe in their possession. In an industry riddled with uncertainties and fraud, the need to reassure investors that their funds are safe cannot be overemphasised.

In a bid to raise transparency and trust in cryptocurrency exchanges Proof of reserves allows customers and auditors to indeed verify that exchanges retain the funds they deposited in them.
Unfortunately only a handful of exchanges currently offer any kind of proof of reserves for their customers; while some cite security, cost and competitive disadvantages for their failure to release their proof of reserves, the bold ones have gone on to release theirs.

As a trader, do you feel safe using such exchanges that haven’t released theirs or should the more transparent ones be given preference?

You see that proof of reserve thing, it doesn't prove anything. Last year when the famous clown and FTX collapse, it begin to raise many questions if exchanges have coins on there wallet as they say to the public and then, the whole crypto community began to panic, follow by many FUD that started on Kucoin and then to Crypto.com exchange, so many people withdraw there exchange and when they found out that the rumours has done damages, finance announce their audit and wallet balance just to mitigate the damages but guess what Crypto.com exchange did. They went to borrow money from Gate exchange and show as proof of reserve only to secretly move out the usdt back to Gate exchange they were caught by chain analysts and mini onchain FBIs on twitter.

The earlier you accept that your coins are not safe on the exchange the better for your health, you will have peace of mind and enough time to sleep. Many who left there savings on FTX are still hurt today because they never listen to "not your keys, not your coins". Proof of reserve open the eye of the public in 2022 but some of them were very foolish to withdraw their coin from other exchange and then sent to Binance thinking CZ will protect them, pathetic right!

[Eternad]

As a trader, do you feel safe using such exchanges that haven’t released theirs or should the more transparent ones be given preference?

Of course everyone don’t feel safe on exchange that is not transparent since providing Proof of Reserve is very easy for exchange if they don't hide anything. But most of exchange use their customer funds to venture on different crypto investments to get more funds that why they can't provide a legit Proof of Reserve same as Binance. Crypto exchanges are more shady than banks since they are not regulated even with billions of money they are holding.

So far, No crypto exchange manage to provide an official proof of reserved that is audited by official auditors.

[Minecache]

This issue started since the exit of FTX and now we are talking about this again, Binance showed their financial capability and I think that can be a good relief to Binance users and other exchanges also did this. Well, the question is, is this enough to be called a safe exchange? Honestly anything can happen in an instant just look at FTX as an example, it is a top exchange before but look at what happened. If you don’t want to be on trouble and don’t want think about this from time to time, better not to hold big funds on any exchanges.

that is true, we can't get an absolute assurance from all these exchanges, whether they are at the top or not. but one thing you can safeguard your funds is get out your funds as soon as you finished trading. secure it in your own wallet where you have full control of your funds.
having proof of reserve of funds won't guarantee that they will rug pull or do something unexpected. they can easily give the wallet address having their funds but they have full control of such funds, so they can still do what they want to do with their vault money.

Even depositing money in a bank doesn't guarantee us, so it's risky to use centralized exchanges no matter how much proof they have in reserve or they're backed by anyone. But honestly, if you are a long-term holder, leaving your assets on exchanges is the dumbest thing to do. But if you are a trader, daily deposits and withdrawals are cumbersome and difficult to do. Trade does not always start and end during the day so it is difficult to withdraw at the end of the day, not to mention the fees we have to pay if we lose that day. Therefore, once we have accepted to be day traders, we should be aware of the risks of using centralized exchanges as well as other risks.

[stompix]

I noticed that all the exchanges that I am using like Binance, Bybit, OKX, Huobi global and Kucoin all have proof-of-reserve. There are many exchanges that are having it that crypto exchange users can choose from.

Lol, Binance?
https://coinmarketcap.com/community/articles/63a2946981d6291ec15005c8/

Apart from that, Binance’s released proof-of-reserves shows a gap of 245 million dollars that claimed to be lent out (Binance claims to have collateral) to a third party and were out of bounds for Mazars. Also, Mazars did not release any reports disclosing the mechanism that it used for conducting the Binance audit.
One more important thing to note here is that, right after releasing its proof-of-reserves reports, Binance moved billions of dollars worth of funds out of its reserve wallets to unknown wallet addresses. When the questions were raised, Binance cited the on-chain activity as nothing but security measures for moving funds to secured cold wallets.

Let me guess, you actually believe the whole #SAFU thing?  

FACTS:
Japan has legislation in which customer funds be it crypto or fiat can't be moved outside designated bank accounts, Binance fled Jpana not willing to obey, FTX stayed and FTX customers in Japan have received all their money.
The US wants to have the same legislation, but Binance wants to flee and avoid it!

Think again, why don't they want that?

[Iamcrypticguy]

Proof of reserve, or no proof of reserve, what if the exchange gets hacked? Does that still mean that your deposit is saved? If an exchange gets hacked and encounter a significant loss, they cannot even instantly return their customers funds back, but rather it will take some time, if at all they will even return them. One good approach for using an exchange is to just not store your assets there; if you are not using your assets for any business on the exchange, then they should be in your personal wallet. Perhaps, just as Oshosondy has said, some exchanges can even manipulate those proofs of reserve, and customers will be deceived into believing that their deposit is safe. Every trader should just be sure they are using a reputable exchange.

Imo, the last point is the most important: being certain that you're using a suitable exchange. A few months ago, when I was looking to switch to a CEX, I conducted thorough research on Merkel tree, securities, licenses, and other factors before making my choice. I found out that exchanges like Binance and Bitget have a protection fund as an extra layer of security, which streamlined my decision. Nowadays, I primarily use the latter due to its copy trading feature.

[Owagee]

Proof of reserves is designed to get exchanges demonstrate transparency by proving that customers deposits are safe in their possession. In an industry riddled with uncertainties and fraud, the need to reassure investors that their funds are safe cannot be overemphasised.

In a bid to raise transparency and trust in cryptocurrency exchanges Proof of reserves allows customers and auditors to indeed verify that exchanges retain the funds they deposited in them.
Unfortunately only a handful of exchanges currently offer any kind of proof of reserves for their customers; while some cite security, cost and competitive disadvantages for their failure to release their proof of reserves, the bold ones have gone on to release theirs.

As a trader, do you feel safe using such exchanges that haven’t released theirs or should the more transparent ones be given preference?





Imagine being able to verify with your own eyes that the exchange you're using actually holds the funds it claims to have. Exchanges that offer proof of reserve empower you to see for yourself, building trust and confidence in the platform. so hell yeah I'd entrust my assets with such exchange tbh

[Faisal2202]

Proof of reserves is designed to get exchanges demonstrate transparency by proving that customers deposits are safe in their possession. In an industry riddled with uncertainties and fraud, the need to reassure investors that their funds are safe cannot be overemphasised.

In a bid to raise transparency and trust in cryptocurrency exchanges Proof of reserves allows customers and auditors to indeed verify that exchanges retain the funds they deposited in them.
Unfortunately only a handful of exchanges currently offer any kind of proof of reserves for their customers; while some cite security, cost and competitive disadvantages for their failure to release their proof of reserves, the bold ones have gone on to release theirs.

As a trader, do you feel safe using such exchanges that haven’t released theirs or should the more transparent ones be given preference?

I think you are referring to liquidity but using another term of POR. I had some discussions on this topic before. Well here in your case. People prefer to chose exchanges on many factors. Because there are those people who like DEXs over CEXs and vice versa. Then comes the factors on which they chose qhixh DEXs or CEXs they should select for trading purposes.

1. The one on which the token they want to trade is listed.
2. That exchange must have liquidity to execute the trade.
3. Mostly select only those exchanges either they are cexs or dexs which are most famous and are in the market for longer period of time.

Except above many other factors are also keep in mind but that depend on person to person. Overall, the liquidity details are only available if they approve POR we can see the liquidity of a exchange on many websites like CMC or coingecko etc.

[nelson4lov]

As a trader, do you feel safe using such exchanges that haven’t released theirs or should the more transparent ones be given preference?

I don't really care about it because prior to FTX collapse, no one really care about proof of reserves. The thing is, if an exchange is going to collapse, proof of reserve will have little to no effect on such an event  (my personal belief) so this is why I'm not too big on exchanges declaring their proof of reserves as it could be faked since most of those reserve assets are not publicly available on-chain plus there's plenty of moving parts with this sort of things. Definitely a "nice to have" attribute but not the ultimate decider for me