Hacks are everywhere and Where should we store our money?

[bangjoe]

I once read a post on X that was quite interesting a few weeks ago, but I forgot not to save the post, so I can't give the reference as a thread that was created, but I remember what it said, with a sentence like this;

Perps was hacked
DeFi was hacked
CEX was hacked
DEX was hacked
Prediction Market was hacked
Hot Wallet was hacked
Cold Wallet was hacked
Hardware Wallet was hacked

There is no safe place to store money, so where should we store it?

[Dave1]

You forget another one, crypto base casinos have been hacked as well. But to be fair, all those mentioned are services, so if you put your crypto in a wallet that you have control, yes there is risk, but if you know how to practice security then you might be safe.

And now, I also see a lot of suggestions like using multi-sig wallet. Or even metal back-ups.

But into consideration, everything is really up to us, on how we are going to secure our crypto and understand each risk as everyone is not safe.

[Kryptowerk]

I generally agree with OP, though.

With AI-assistance code breaching has become possible for almost anyone with internet access, there will be a lot of trouble ahead and the cat-and-mouse of hackers vs. cyber-security will reach its peak in the upcoming months/years (with no real end in sight I guess).
That said, yes your computer and your phone and potentially also HW wallets etc. will be a target. HOWEVER I believe the traditional finance-world will most likely face a higher amount of attacks and focus, there is still so much more money to be made and so many more people involved.

Anyway, when dealing with crypto trying to be extra cautious has never been more important than now.

[traderethereum]

You must store crypto asset to the wallet that you have fully control. Don't ever think to use exchanges to store your crypto because no one know how secure that place.

We have seen exchanges hacked from a long time before so that is a lesson to us not to store crypto there. If you store in your wallet, make sure you back up the credentials and don't telling others. If you can keep it secret from others, you can feels safety although that still not guarantee.

At least, you follow the right step to secure your crypto assets.

[pooya87]

There is no safe place to store money, so where should we store it?

The same place everyone else who hasn't been hacked store their money!

All these posts these days on the social media are focusing on the negative. But what percentage of the people were affected? 99% of them or 1% of them? It's obviously a minority. The cases are just too small a percentage compared to the whole community. So majority have to be doing something right that they weren't affected.
Do that.

[Charles-Tim]

There is no safe place to store money, so where should we store it?

One of the safest that we discussed about were wallets on airfapped devices. You can use your old laptop as an airgapped device and set up an Electrum wallet on it.

The safest is a multisig wallet generated on different devices. You can use a hardware wallet that is completely open source and two online wallets that are also completely open source to set up 2-of-3 multisig wallet.

[Ziskinberg]

Since there's no such thing as 100% safe, I would still prefer to store my Bitcoin in a hardware wallet where I can control it, as I think it's the safest option among them all. If you put it in an exchange, even if they improve their security, there's still a possibility that your funds will be frozen and that is the scary part.

At least with a hardware wallet as long as you are not careless with your seed phrase, you will be able to keep your Bitcoin safe more easily if you intend to hold it for the long term.

The cases are just too small a percentage compared to the whole community. So majority have to be doing something right that they weren't affected.
Do that.

This I would totally agree, media trying to cause some panic,.. is the whales planning to dump the market so they can accumulate?

[Merit.s]

The chance of your funds being hacked in an exchange is very high compared to when it's in your self custody because exchange have workers who can easily make one or two mistakes that will expose a sensitive data in the system to give hackers access to hack the exchange. A hardware wallet can be compromised when be shipped from one place to the other. A cold storage setup like Electrum wallet on an airgapped device is more safer because you did your set up yourself and only you is aware of it.

Add a strong passphrase to your seed phrase and keep your seed phrase in a separate place from your passphrase. Don't forget to make duplicate copies and keep them in two different locations far from each other.

[Donk1]

Well we don't really know how these hackers think, but one thing is for sure they continue to advance. And it's easy to say we can't know for certain whether or not the exchanges are the ones vulnerable or the hackers are just too good. Still when it comes down to it, the responsibility of our assets is still in our hands. How we choose to keep them is our decision , basically you might decide to diversify them just to avoid putting all your eggs in one basket. So yeah to me there is always a risk in holding either it's hackers, scammers, influencers, or it could be lack of being responsible for your assets. Personally it depends on what kind of risk you want to take, but still it's not advised to keep money in an exchange. So to me i would say holding in cryptocurrency that has value would be better, that's all......

[Dickiy]

It's a bit far fetched as if it becomes unsafe, when it's clear that depositing funds on the CEX is not a safe place. Cold wallets, hardware wallets, even hot wallets as long as they are not connected and do not provide access to any third-party services will be fine. Just because there have been incidents of platform hacking, doesn't mean the entire crypto asset storage ecosystem isn't secure.

[Aliciaworld]

With advancement in technology and AI getting more developed the concept of security becomes harder and harder to dictate for sure what measures to take as even the safest methods have one flaw or the other that can be exploited by these hackers.

I personally believe that once you put your crypto in a wallet you control, safely store your pass phrase offline, you can feel that sense of ownership and control over your fate. But in the case of the recent hacks, exchanges have been able to safeguard user funds, allow withdrawals alongside other measures that feels like having a later or insurance for your crypto.

[Somegory]

Don't put all your eggs in one basket if you still want to consider using hardware wallets, you don't know which company will betray next, and to be honest they are man-made objects so many made decisions can happen to them as well.

I advice considering Passphrase after generating your crypto wallet seed, if somehow your seed phrase get leaked they will need your Passphrase to get access to your coins, what they will get is an empty wallet.

If you want the most secured way you will have to deal with multisig which many people don't find easy to get used to because it's confusing and complicated, choose wisely.

[Shinpako09]

The more reason you shouldn't store all your money in just one wallet. If you have one wallet from this brand, the next brand should be different. The same thing goes for non-custodial wallets. One wallet per app/software. Most importantly, don't visit random sites and click any ads. If you can't stop yourself from doing it, it would be better if you had a separate phone mainly for wallets. With all the hacking incidents, what you need to do now is be extra careful.

[Japinat]

If you want the most secured way you will have to deal with multisig which many people don't find easy to get used to because it's confusing and complicated, choose wisely.

That's what I thought too, for someone who is not techy enough, doing it might be complicated and could even result in losing Bitcoin if the setup fails. So keeping things simple is what most people would be looking for and I believe the poster above me is correct, using different hardware wallets from different manufacturers will help minimize the risk.

[Livingleged]

If you want the most secured way you will have to deal with multisig which many people don't find easy to get used to because it's confusing and complicated, choose wisely.

That's what I thought too, for someone who is not techy enough, doing it might be complicated and could even result in losing Bitcoin if the setup fails. So keeping things simple is what most people would be looking for and I believe the poster above me is correct, using different hardware wallets from different manufacturers will help minimize the risk.

Multisig isn’t that difficult, sometimes we don’t just like to try out somethings because that’s not what we really love doing. But it’s worth trying for the safety of our funds. However, the option for different hardware wallet from different manufacturers is a good one but you’ll also have more seed phrase to backup that’s what it implies.

[Findingnemo]

The answer is simple and as always, store them in a non custodial wallet then you have the private keys/seeds that is the only tool that can give access to the funds so the only job is to keep the seeds safer and somewhere completely safe and offline.

The recent hacks are due to the vulnerabilities in their platforms but their hot wallets are hacked not the cold wallets.

[PostQuantumBTC]

Multisig isn’t that difficult, sometimes we don’t just like to try out somethings because that’s not what we really love doing. But it’s worth trying for the safety of our funds. However, the option for different hardware wallet from different manufacturers is a good one but you’ll also have more seed phrase to backup that’s what it implies.

No need of wasting money in buying more than one hardware wallets for multisig, you can use one hardware wallet and one or two software wallets for it.

Multisig is not hard at all, but people will not want to learn something that can benefit them. The added bonus is that if you have two devices like your phone and PC, or you have three devices like two phones and PC, you can use them for the multisig wallet.

[CryptoBuds]

There is no safe place to store money, so where should we store it?

More precisely, no place or method of storing money is completely safe. Every option come with its own risks. The goal is not to hunt for spot with zero risk. It's to go with lower risk option and stack as many security layer on top as you can.

Use non custodial wallet, and add multisig, 2FA, keep your seed phrase offline, and spread your funds across multiple wallets instead of keeping everything in one place.

At the end of the day, just pick the risk you can live with.   

[Gaza13]

It's a bit far fetched as if it becomes unsafe, when it's clear that depositing funds on the CEX is not a safe place. Cold wallets, hardware wallets, even hot wallets as long as they are not connected and do not provide access to any third-party services will be fine. Just because there have been incidents of platform hacking, doesn't mean the entire crypto asset storage ecosystem isn't secure.

As for physical hardware wallets such as Trezor or similar devices I have never heard of them being compromised en masse remotely in a way that directly leads to the loss of the private keys held by their users. I believe connectivity will remain, but we must exercise caution whenever we use it. If you receive a suspicious message, it is best to look into it first or simply ignore it if you know you never initiated such an interaction. The recent hacking incident has indeed caused widespread panic and commotion. Yet, to this day, many people myself included still believe in keeping their assets in their hardware wallets.

[tsaroz]

I once read a post on X that was quite interesting a few weeks ago, but I forgot not to save the post, so I can't give the reference as a thread that was created, but I remember what it said, with a sentence like this;

Perps was hacked
DeFi was hacked
CEX was hacked
DEX was hacked
Prediction Market was hacked
Hot Wallet was hacked
Cold Wallet was hacked
Hardware Wallet was hacked

There is no safe place to store money, so where should we store it?

There are multiple safer ways already discussed but an easier one I have done to keep bitcoin safe is
- Download Electrum wallet and Install
- Disconnect from the internet
- Create a wallet offline, copy bitcoin addresses while print and write down your seed phrase. You can even write your seed phrases in half in one diary and half in other and keep them in different place.
- Delete everything except the receiving address you copied and clear any memory
- Use the receiving address to receive bitcoin and use explorer to view your balance.
- When you eventually need to transact, you could put the seed phrase on any supported wallet in a safe device and send.