"NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR COINS" non custodian wallet are good storage for coins

[ColdLava40]

We have heard alot of stories in the past how major cryptocurrency exchanges got hacked and the most recent one that was surprising was that of bybit. Just imagine waking up in the morning and the exchange where you stored all your coins hoping that it's safe suddenly goes dark. you read on the news that they got hacked and no news from their officials yet. It would be very devastating especially if you have a reasonable amount of coins stored with them.

well this thing can be avoided if you have a non custodian wallet and let's not fail to remember all the time "NOT YOUR KEYS NOT YOUR COINS". It just never gets old and it's very important we continue to pass it on to newbies joining in the crypto space who barly even have any idea of the dangers of storing their coins on centralized platforms. most exchange are vulnerable to hackers and it's important to understand why you need to keep your coins away from them. 

Aside from hack, we have regulatory controls. For years, we have seen how the government have been fighting against decentralised platforms and successfully forced many of them to become centralised due regulations. It's just like how the banks works. When they find an unusual activity on your account, they may end up freezing it. These exchanges can works on order from the government bodies to take down any accounts if they have suspicions, which to me would have never happened if you were in control of your coins.

Imagine asking a honest user to provide unnecessary explanation of the  source of his coins, thats going too far and invading the users personal life.

The lesson here is to avoid storing a large amount of funds on centralized platforms. If you must use them, then it should be just for  very small transactions or those who are into trading on a daily business, but it shouldn't be used as a means to store your coins.
It's not that difficult to get a non custodial wallet, write out your seedphrase and store them in a secure place is it? So why would you want to risk the safety of your funds in the hands of centralized platforms? Let's try to play safe at all time. The cryptocurency space is filled with unseen circumstances that one would regret over and no one would enjoy going through such stress for their hard earned money.

[Amphenomenon]

Imagine asking a honest user to provide unnecessary explanation of the  source of his coins, thats going too far and invading the users personal life.

I have seen someone stressed out by this simply because he recieved money from a country that they said maybe related to terrorism.

Man had to submit all forms of documents they could request from him because his entire account was frozen and he did no wrong by the way just a legal business transaction.  It spent a month or more before he could get access to it.

I know they shutting down can be scary but regulations can make hell feels like they are living in hell and that's among the  main reason for not your key notes your coin .

We haven't spoken of the dangers of kyc and how CEX continues to request for more information against issues regarding regulations. Those who knows how well KYC can be dangerous would definitely try to avoid it when possible or feasible.
Op you can gi through this thread, a long but good readfor an enlightenment.
for an enlightenment,

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

We have to let the newbies understand the reason why they should hold their bitcoin or any crypto in their personal wallet and not on a custodial storage, technically, some will say that custodial wallets are not regarded as wallet, instead accounts created and these exchanges and institutions choose to hold our own asset with them and keep the keys to the wallet with them as well, these platforms are vulnerable to being hacked, they can reveal our identity or at any point restrict us form having access to our account created with them, which all these does not exist in a non custodial storage.

[un_rank]

This is one warning that can never be repeated too many times cause of how common it is for users to rely on centralized exchanges for storage, but as much as hacks are very common, many exchanges now handle it much better and even smaller ones eventually allow withdrawals after such cases.

I think we should highlight the other obvious risks more often to get the message passed faster. Someone who has had funds on exchanges that have been hacked and got their funds back will build trust with them and not react when that is used as a warning.

• The privacy risks,
• Transaction censoring,
• Loss of decentralization.

- Jay -

[Findingnemo]

~
It's not that difficult to get a non custodial wallet, write out your seedphrase and store them in a secure place is it? So why would you want to risk the safety of your funds in the hands of centralized platforms? Let's try to play safe at all time.
~

People are afraid of taking their responsibility, being our own bank comes with more responsibile but the average user conditioned to use the centralized banking system, they depend completely someone for their entire life savings and all of a sudden we ask them to take custody of your assets and it's entirely under your control, even though lot of positives still many use exchange for keeping their coins and we will hear their cry for help only when we see those exchanges hacked.

BTW, it's our responsibility to keep reminding them about the significance but if they choose not to listen, then they need to face the consequences.

#Not Your Keys Not Your Cryptos

[Su-asa]

The topic is simple "Not your key-Not your coin", everyone should know that if they don't have their seed phrases, they are not in control of their assets. Not only the newbies, everyone that's into the crypto space should keep this in their mind that a custodial wallet is not the type of wallet where they should keep their asset for a long time. A noncustodial wallet is more safer because the user will be in possession of his keys.

[Patikno]

The lesson here is to avoid storing a large amount of funds on centralized platforms. If you must use them, then it should be just for  very small transactions or those who are into trading on a daily business, but it shouldn't be used as a means to store your coins.
It's not that difficult to get a non custodial wallet, write out your seedphrase and store them in a secure place is it? So why would you want to risk the safety of your funds in the hands of centralized platforms? Let's try to play safe at all time. The cryptocurency space is filled with unseen circumstances that one would regret over and no one would enjoy going through such stress for their hard earned money.

Well, your suggestion to store a large amount of funds in a non-custodial wallet is excellent, and it's clearly safer if we have control over our wallet, which is clearly different from centralized platforms or custodial wallets, as you mentioned. However, we also need to realize that both carry their own risks. Custodial wallets carry the potential risk of losing our assets if an incident occurs, such as being hacked or even going bankrupt (or running away). Meanwhile, non-custodial wallets also carry the potential risk of asset loss, and this is usually due to the owner's own error or negligence, whether it's losing the key (seedphrase or private key), forgetting to back up, or even natural disasters, which are all possible occurrences.

So, in conclusion, we need to realize that storing our assets (especially crypto and on the large amount of) should be under our full control, and we must always take precautions to prevent negligence or mistakes.

[Joy_learns_crypto]

People do see this warning some even comment on the thread but they still don’t take to the advice. I posted this on my local board https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5551320.msg65610786#msg65610786 it is about CoinCDX losing around $44 million, the exchange claimed that this was not part of the clients funds but what if on another attack it affects their clients funds.
Get better results from saving in cryptocurrency by putting the safety of your cryptocurrency assets under your supervision and control.
Before cryptocurrency I have like four bank accounts and some online payments accounts these is what I can remember at this time and opening those accounts was not without stress. Opening a wallet of your own is easier than setting up a social media account no excuse not to have your own wallet.

[Outhue]

This is one warning that can never be repeated too many times cause of how common it is for users to rely on centralized exchanges for storage, but as much as hacks are very common, many exchanges now handle it much better and even smaller ones eventually allow withdrawals after such cases.

I think we should highlight the other obvious risks more often to get the message passed faster. Someone who has had funds on exchanges that have been hacked and got their funds back will build trust with them and not react when that is used as a warning.

• The privacy risks,
• Transaction censoring,
• Loss of decentralization.

- Jay -

Thanks for the writeup but it doesn't end here, some investors are giving up their assets to fraudsters because they don't get their non custodial wallets from the factory, they rather get it from local stores nearby or from thirdparty sellers.

How can someone keep storing their coins in a hardware wallet thinking they are in safe hands until the money is much and the fraudsters decide to take everything just like that? Many beginners still don't know this fact that's why I am sharing.

Buying hardware wallets from third parties is highly unsafe, the wallets can be tampered with already and they are just waiting patiently for you to start depositing some assets and baam! Everything is gone.

[Alone055]

There are two very common reasons why people, mostly newbies, store their assets in centralised exchanges. The first reason is that they believe their assets are safe with them because the exchanges are regulated, they have 2FA and stuff, and only people who lack basic knowledge will have this sort of a mindset. The second reason that I've often observed about why people keep their assets on a centralized platform is that they believe they get to keep all their assets at one place, because if you want to use non-custodial wallets, you will have to use separate wallets for each asset, because you can't store ETH in Electrum, right? If someone argues that there are non-custodial wallets with multiple asset options, I don't trust them, and I believe they shouldn't be used, also because you shouldn't keep all your eggs in one basket.

So, those who understand that exchanges aren't really as safe as they pretend to be would never use them as wallets, because they are not supposed to be used that way. An exchange provides you with tools and options to do trading, that's what they are for. You can trade, stake, or use any other feature they provide, but you should know that they aren't supposed to be used as a wallet, and you should only have funds that you have on regular use on a centralized platform.

[SOKO-DEKE]

Most newbies nowadays are just after how to make a profit from their Bitcoin investment, and that is the only thing many always focus on. But what about how their Bitcoin will be kept safe? They are not after that.the first thing I always expect newbies to learn after they know how to buy Bitcoin from an exchange is how they can ensure proper security for their Bitcoin investment. Because what would be the point if, after someone hold for long preriod and has made a profit from their investment, one day they just wake up and see news that the exchange where they left their Bitcoin has been collaps?it would be a very painful experience. We can't say that any exchange is 100% safe and that is where they advise not to leave their bitcoin in any exchange. In fact, I have seen few exchanges we once trusted disappoint us later with their collapse.

So, it's very important that we have full control over our Bitcoin investment. The only way to truly do that is by moving our Bitcoin to non-custodial wallets, because that is the only place we can have full control over it.So, I would advise newbies: as early as possible, once you have gathered a reasonable amount of Bitcoin in an exchange, you should move it to your non-custodial wallet. That way, you can avoid future stories of losses from exchange hacks.

[un_rank]

Thanks for the writeup but it doesn't end here, some investors are giving up their assets to fraudsters because they don't get their non custodial wallets from the factory, they rather get it from local stores nearby or from thirdparty sellers.

That is a different topic, but still relevant to security of assets. Anyone who does not know what they are doing yet, most likely does not hold a lot of funds and does not have to use a hardware wallet. You get very high level of security using a non-custodian wallet on an airgapped device. You should ensure you download the wallet from the original source and verify the signature before using it.

- Jay -

[SilverCryptoBullet]

It's not that difficult to get a non custodial wallet, write out your seedphrase and store them in a secure place is it? So why would you want to risk the safety of your funds in the hands of centralized platforms?

""NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR COINS" non custodian wallet are good storage for coins".

It's not enough.

Choosing good wallets to use must have two main criteria: non-custodial (or aka self-custodial) and open-source (aka reproducible) and you only mentioned about non-custodial but forgot about open-source.

It's not hard to get a non-custodial and open-source wallet as it is free to download, verify and install to use without any fee. People either don't know about open-source, non-custodial wallets or just believed in custodial wallets or close-source non-custodial wallets.

[TravelMug]

It's not that difficult to get a non custodial wallet, write out your seedphrase and store them in a secure place is it? So why would you want to risk the safety of your funds in the hands of centralized platforms?

""NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR COINS" non custodian wallet are good storage for coins".

It's not enough.

Choosing good wallets to use must have two main criteria: non-custodial (or aka self-custodial) and open-source (aka reproducible) and you only mentioned about non-custodial but forgot about open-source.

It's not hard to get a non-custodial and open-source wallet as it is free to download, verify and install to use without any fee. People either don't know about open-source, non-custodial wallets or just believed in custodial wallets or close-source non-custodial wallets.

It's about how you can verify those open source self-custodial wallet. We don't like close source as obviously we don't know what's inside, we don't trust we verify. So there is a big possibility that there could be a back door program put by the programmer and it's like a switch that he can turn it on anytime without us knowing. We won't point a good self custody wallet, for sure the OP and others might have known what wallet is it already. And gradually after learning this self custody wallet and their Bitcoin are growing, then that is the time that you move to hardware wallets, same criteria, it should be also open source.

[hd49728]

It's about how you can verify those open source self-custodial wallet. We don't like close source as obviously we don't know what's inside, we don't trust we verify. So there is a big possibility that there could be a back door program put by the programmer and it's like a switch that he can turn it on anytime without us knowing.

Verify has two steps:

Verify the wallet software like is it open source or close source.
Verify the wallet software file we downloaded on our devices before install it for using.

For example with Electrum wallet, there is a guide on how to verify it.
[GUIDE] How to Safely Download and Verify Electrum.

Verify Bitcoin Core wallet software.
https://bitcoincore.org/en/download/

[Merit.s]

Bitcoin nature is decentralized which is the main purpose why we should use and store it in a decentralized way for privacy and anonymity. This why we should use a noncustodial wallet that is open source where only you have the private keys. It's easy to set up a noncustodial hot wallet and taking full responsible of your coins.

 A good wallet security management should be practice by having three duplicates of your seed phrase and safe them in three different locations very far from each other. Also, using only one address for one transaction will enhance privacy. Electrum wallet and blue wallet are user friendly for newbies.

[Fiatless]

Imagine asking a honest user to provide unnecessary explanation of the  source of his coins, thats going too far and invading the users personal life.

This is the part I don't like about the government of my country. Law enforcement agencies don't know much about crypto. They usually perceive crypto users as scammers because they don't believe that people can make money from the crypto industry. Keeping large funds in exchanges is risky because the government can easily freeze them and start asking for the source of income.

To avoid government problems, it is safer to keep funds in a non-custodian wallet and gradually move funds to exchanges if you want to convert to fiat.  But keeping large funds in a centralised wallet is a no-go area.

[Issa56]

This is the part I don't like about the government of my country. Law enforcement agencies don't know much about crypto. They usually perceive crypto users as scammers because they don't believe that people can make money from the crypto industry. Keeping large funds in exchanges is risky because the government can easily freeze them and start asking for the source of income.

Some law enforcement agencies know about bitcoin, but since some of them don’t like bitcoin, they are against bitcoin, so they will just want to punish you just because you believe in bitcoin. If you don’t like bitcoin, I don’t have any problem with that, but why punish people that are interested in it, it doesn’t really make any sense to me. 

I think the law enforcement agency should be lectured on a daily basis to keep them updated about things coming up in the society, at least they should change their mindset about some things. I know some criminals do hide under bitcoin, they make use of bitcoin to make illegal transactions, and that’s why most people just tag bitcoin as a bad thing, but we all should think about fiat currency, it’s a currency that criminals have been making use of, but it’s not been tagged as a scam, I just feel that people saying negative things about bitcoin don’t just like bitcoin.