Are cold wallets safer than online exchanges?

[MarvinHagler]

If you had a large amount of cryptocurrency would you prefer to keep it on an offline cold wallet or an online cryptocurrency exchange?

Both have pros and cons.

I'm interested to hear the thoughts of others.

[SamReomo]

If you had a large amount of cryptocurrency would you prefer to keep it on an offline cold wallet or an online cryptocurrency exchange?

If I had large amount of a cryptocurrency I would always keep that in a offline cold wallet with an air gapped system. There's no point to keep your cryptocurrency at an exchange unless you're a full time trader.

Even traders keep their investment in cold wallets and anyone who knows about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies would prefer a cold wallet over an exchange's wallet.

[Maus0728]

Yes, cold wallets are much more safer than storing them in exchanges, if you can imagine what I'm describing to you then you'd understand, picture cold wallets as something like safe in your house, you can store anything in that safe and only a handful can open it without forcing the safe to get to the inside and exchange wallets are like those informal lending that's organized by a group of your acquaintance in your work, they may say that it's safe but there's really nothing that's stopping them from running away with the money or risk the money being stolen because of a thief. So based on how I've described it, it basically means that your cold wallets might be the best thing for storing your bitcoins, just don't forget about how to access them or you'd end up like that dude that's suing the landfill because he can't find the laptop that contains a lot of bitcoin but I digress.

Always remember these saying: "Not your keys, not your coins."

[BABY SHOES]

It's not a pro and con but you keep large assets in a cold wallet so you have control over them, whereas if you keep them in an exchange then the exchange owner will control your assets.

I'm sure the majority of forum users here would advise you to use a cold wallet because it's safer, storing on an exchange is full of risks where the exchange can go bankrupt at any time.

One last message for you to read. Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts

[Reatim]

If you had a large amount of cryptocurrency would you prefer to keep it on an offline cold wallet or an online cryptocurrency exchange?

It depends. Am I using that money to trade? If not then I wouldn't want to hold my coins in an exchange as they are only recommended primarily for trading not holding. So if I had a large sum of bitcoin, I'd put it in a cold wallet safely secured somewhere that no one would know. However I'd still leave some coins in a wallet located on my phone for emergency purposes as they are more convenient.

[bitbollo]

This Is a question really easy to answer. I think also that this Is a basis about innovation bring by Bitcoin and the blockchain. There Is a simple motto "not your keys, not your coins". And you can understand why exchanges are less secure then cold wallet.
Great resource below...
Visit https://glacierprotocol.org/assets/glacier.pdf you will find the state-of-the-art guide on how to setup your cold wallet...so cold that they call "glacier"!

[TheUltraElite]

If you had a large amount of cryptocurrency would you prefer to keep it on an offline cold wallet or an online cryptocurrency exchange?

Both have pros and cons.

There is no pro in storing coins in a online exchange, it is a blunder.

Aside from the coins that are on active orders, do not keep coins on exchanges because you do not hold their private keys and those coins can go into KYC-lockout/exchange hack and limbo and so on.

While coins on your own wallet are always ready to be accessed. Hence for storage, a wallet is always the best option.

[Churchillvv]

Is their any benefit of keeping you coins in an exchange that could be compared with savings your coins in a cold storage wallet?.

Firstly I don't believe exchange wallets are really wallets infact they are classified as creating an account with an exchange which practically means you do not have power over you coins, that means exchange do not have wallet but an account which you register to keep your coins with them. "Not your keys not your coins".

Cold storage/offline wallets, I haven't seen anything that's better than having full control of your coins which this cold storages provides.  cold storage/offline wallets are the best way to store you coins, maybe the safest for now since their is nothibg with has been provided thst is more safer

[fuguebtc]

If you had a large amount of cryptocurrency would you prefer to keep it on an offline cold wallet or an online cryptocurrency exchange?

Both have pros and cons.

I'm interested to hear the thoughts of others.

Do you want to store money your way and only you can access your funds or do you want to deposit them in the bank and depend on the bank? The bank can go bankrupt or freeze your assets at any time without prior notice to you while it is your money.

Similarly, using a cold wallet gives you full control over your assets, you are like your own bank, you will be responsible for the safety of your assets. Meanwhile, centralized exchanges are even riskier than banks. They can be attacked by hackers, go bankrupt, freeze your assets without notice or compensation to you. It will all depend on your preferences and choices.

[peter0425]

One of the features I admire about crypto is decentralization so why would I use crypto if I were just going to do pretty much the same thing I was doing before which was entrusting my money to centralized banks. I would prefer to hold my own coins and if there are already quite a lot then I would store it somewhere discreet in a cold wallet to reduce or completely eliminate the possibility of hacks.

[Zlantann]

I'm interested to hear the thoughts of others.

You would have easily gotten this information by doing a quick search. Keeping large amounts in an exchange is risky because you can lose your funds if the exchange is ceased, go bankrupt, or suffer a hack. The funds you keep on centralized exchanges are not your own because you can lose them at any time. But people have come up with several reasons why they use it which include the ability to recover passwords and the ease of exchanging or trading. It is advisable to keep only small funds in exchanges
Decentralized cold wallets are suitable for keeping large funds because they are more dependable. You also have total control of your funds which makes it recommendable for long-term hodling. But if you lose your password or seed phrase you might lose your money.

[ajiz138]

I don't have large assets but I never keep them on exchanges, use cold wallets as more security because it is a safe way than exchanges are not so recommended.

Actually many people keep large amounts of assets on exchanges, there are several reasons behind it for them, trading becomes more instant as you can trade anytime, they can withdraw directly to fiat over exchanges and many more reasons.

If it is just for HODL it is better to use a cold wallet even if you spend more than $50 to buy a cold wallet but your assets will be safe as long as it can be a seed phrase.

[dunfida]

If you had a large amount of cryptocurrency would you prefer to keep it on an offline cold wallet or an online cryptocurrency exchange?

Both have pros and cons.

I'm interested to hear the thoughts of others.

#Offline/Hardware wallet/Non-custodial would be the best - Or something that you do possess the PK of that wallet
#NOT YOUR KEYS NOT YOUR COINS- This has always been the primary rule when it comes to crypto possession.

This is why if you are trading up actively then you should really be just that putting on the amount that you would really be tending up to trade and not really that putting up all of your assets on an exchange
because you dont know on when shit things do happen. We've seen exchange hacks and other incidents on which it causes up for someone to lose up money and on the moment that you've been on such
condition then recovery would really be that so hard. This is why you should really be careful on where you would really be storing your coins with.

Always consider out on having that kind of securing your coins rather than on being that too confident with the current set up you do have. We wont know on when
unfortunate conditions do happen and this is why we should really be that careful.

[Frankolala]

If you had a large amount of cryptocurrency would you prefer to keep it on an offline cold wallet or an online cryptocurrency exchange?

Both have pros and cons.

I'm interested to hear the thoughts of others.

Cold wallets or cold storage is the best wallets to keep large amount of funds. There are hardware wallets that are airgapped, or electrum airgapped cold storage wallets are good.

The exchange themselves in which people are keeping their funds in, are using cold storage wallet to keep their SAFU to prevent it from hackers.

Only traders should keep their coins in which they are using to trade in an exchange, apart from them nobody should think that an exchange is safe to keep funds. Exchanges are vulnerable to attack and they are in charge of your keys which means that your coins is not yet yours until you have withdrawn it from the exchange.

[FatFork]

What would be the pros of storing bitcoin on exchanges? Convenience? Maybe easier trading?  But for large amounts, security trumps all that.

Cold storage is the way if security matters. Exchanges get hacked like every other week.  Poof - there goes your life savings in Bitcoin.  Not a good feeling, and convenience ain't worth that stress. But with cold storage, you control the keys. Only keep on exchanges what you're cool with losing.

[Charles-Tim]

The exchange themselves in which people are keeping their funds in, are using cold storage wallet to keep their SAFU to prevent it from hackers.

So why are the exchanges gotten hacked? A Japanese exchange was hacked few days ago and it will not be the last exchange that would be hacked. Also many exchanges have been hacked before.

For faster withdrawal, exchanges have some or most of their coins on hot wallets. But some exchanges make use of multisig. I noticed OKX makes use of multisig wallet.

[CryptoHeadlineNews]

If you had a large amount of cryptocurrency would you prefer to keep it on an offline cold wallet or an online cryptocurrency exchange?

Both have pros and cons.

I'm interested to hear the thoughts of others.

Yes, both has it's merits and demerits, but on a general scale, when it comes to safety and security of funds, I think cold wallets are more safer than crypto exchanges, because it offers you the access to have full control over your funds and its private key. However, there are several factors that will warrant one to choose which option, such as;
1. If you are a trader, and needs funds/coin for your daily trade, then keeping them in your exchange wallet is far better, as it saves you the stress of transferring funds too and fro using high fees.
2. If you are just an ordinary investor who wishes to just buy coin and hold for very long period of time, then storing it on a cold wallets is far better, as it grants you the full control over it.

[Hatchy]

 

Both have pros and cons.

Its not even a matter of weather it's safe or not. Just don't forget this not your keys not your coins. Yes you might feel like because you see the amount of funds displayed on your exchange account, you literally own the funds in that account but the truth is that you as an exchange users, creating an account with them is like giving them your funds to keep and do what ever they want with it.

For large amounts of funds, make sure to store them in cold storages. The risk of losing funds using cold storage is very low compared to another form of storage. As long as you keep your keys safe.

People who store their funds on exchanges account are mostly short term traders who performs daily transactions. But as a normal holder, short term or long term, you should avoid keeping funds in exchanges.

[aylabadia05]

If you had a large amount of cryptocurrency would you prefer to keep it on an offline cold wallet or an online cryptocurrency exchange?

Both have pros and cons.

I'm interested to hear the thoughts of others

An exchange is a place to buy and sell, not a place to store assets.
It's not really a matter of pros and cons, but about the security of the assets. If you store assets on an exchange, then the assets are not yours, but theirs. How is that possible? Because the address obtained from the exchange to receive and send is not controlled by us. We only have a password for access to the exchange that is registered using an active email.

This has been repeated because there have been many questions like this that have been asked.

[GideonGono]

If you had a large amount of cryptocurrency would you prefer to keep it on an offline cold wallet or an online cryptocurrency exchange?

Both have pros and cons.

I'm interested to hear the thoughts of others.

Just a simple answer "NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR COIN", it is always better to keep your crypto in a wallet that you have full control.
Yes using an exchange or trading site would cut the transaction fee and time when you want to convert, sell or trade your crypto, but you don't have full control of the wallet and there are so many events before that trading or exchange got hacked.