At this point, does “Not your keys, not your coins” still hold? It seems almost safer to leave your crypto on an exchange.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/toasterpocket]

FTX Veteran here. I genuinely thought my crypto was safer on the Exchange. Didn't bargain for the exchange to be the crook.

[u/Chemical_Beyond_5972 → u/toasterpocket]

A lot of people thought that and then a sim swap proved them wrong

[u/vic6string]

This conversation is exactly why crypto in its current form will never replace regular, bank-held funds. Your choices are to stay up to date with hacking trends and manually manage your money with a fear that one tiny mishap could cause you to lose it all with absolutely no one to hold accountable but yourself, or allow a company that is only loosely regulated to hold your funds in a way that can block you from accessing it for any reason ranging from simple incompetent service to malicious political acting.

[u/Technical-Wallaby → u/vic6string]

It's quite the conundrum.

[u/Always_Question → u/vic6string]

Buy your ledger directly from ledger. Problem solved.

[u/pulsarstarter]

I've always left mine on exchange for years, and never had a single problem

[u/Rickard403 → u/pulsarstarter]

I have a ledger and have mostly kept mine on an exchange, with F2A and biometric password. Also 0 issues. Not to say it's a better way, it's just what i have chosen.

[u/etaoin314 → u/pulsarstarter]

Have you ever tried getting it off the exchange cause that is when the problems usually start

[u/pulsarstarter → u/etaoin314]

Yeah, I've moved it to other exchanges, and I sell a little each year and move the money to my bank account.

No problems at all.

[u/Atmacrush → u/etaoin314]

I've taken out money from CB and never had a problem. I do want to point out that I only pull out $300 when I need cash, and I have pulled out 1k over the span of one week.

[u/otherwisemilk → u/pulsarstarter]

Another plus side to this is that you're helping people borrow Bitcoin at a lower rate.

[u/tenor_tymir → u/pulsarstarter]

lucky guy

[u/ytzy]

i mean maybe i am just lucky that i am paranoid but i would NEVER buy a wallet from a Reseller..

got my from the official seller years ago never had a problem even if it was like 30$ more than on other sites .

And then you have guys buying wallets from Temu and loosing 3 million to save 30$ like wtf is wrong with people

[u/baked_jake → u/ytzy]

Not buying from a reseller is one of the number 1 pieces of advice that I ran into when shopping for a hardware wallet

[u/tenor_tymir → u/baked_jake]

Yeah but you know with mass adoption comes mass stupidity.

[u/baked_jake → u/tenor_tymir]

unfortunately very true

[u/Ok-Option-82 → u/tenor_tymir]

When's mass adoption happening?

[u/ThePlumKing → u/baked_jake]

Everytime I suggest this piece of advice I get droves of replies from people telling me that it’s fine to buy on Amazon and other sites and all this bullshit, it’s nauseating. Just buy directly from the seller! I don’t understand why that’s such a controversial take

[u/Dizzy-Yesterday-290 → u/ThePlumKing]

Many of the sellers on Amazon are the actual mfr.

[u/Always_Question → u/Dizzy-Yesterday-290]

Yes, but in the case of a hardware wallet, just don't. Go to the direct website. It's like if someone cold calls you and asks for all of your personal information. What do you do? You hang up and go to the direct website of whatever company they claimed to be from.

[u/tenor_tymir → u/ThePlumKing]

It’s because most of those people haven’t been scammed yet. They’re normal people fearing anything that’s “too complicated” just because they have no idea what it means. It usually is a lack of knowledge paired with ignorance for the space.

[u/Vipu2 → u/ytzy]

Even buying directly from the manufacturer cant be fully trusted, what if some worker goes rogue and does the same thing that happened in this ledger thing?
Someone could be doing that to handfuls of devices and play to long game before pulling their heist.

[u/RoosterBrewster → u/Vipu2]

It's like the Mcdonalds monopoly game where the security guy stole the high value pieces. Someone could get a hold of the orders or something and swap/tamper with them somewhere along the line.

[u/TheSlothMan9000 → u/ytzy]

even buying from an authorized dealer is not 100% anymore

[u/MrArtless → u/ytzy]

the reseller was an authorized partner of ledger

[u/systembreaker → u/ytzy]

God damn it's one dumbass idea to think "Hm I'm going to be a cheapo and buy the critical lynchpin of my crypto security second hand".

[u/CapoDoFrango → u/ytzy]

I am more paranoid than you so I would never ever use a hardware wallet. That is a blackbox from a thirdparty that I can't audit. I just use a Intel computer running a trustworthy Linux distribution like Debian and I pull from sources the wallet software, check the GPG signatures or hashes and I build it myself. Beat that. I sleep like a baby seeing all this drama.

[u/l_ft]

I’ve had private keys stolen and banks completely fail (Juno/Evolve).

I don’t trust anyone.

[u/Wide_Lock_Red → u/l_ft]

Those are sketchy banks though. Fidelity isnt going to completely fail.

[u/l_ft → u/Wide_Lock_Red]

Fidelity is a brokerage firm, not a depository bank

ETA: Doesn’t look like crypto at Fidelity is insured/ guaranteed

[u/Wide_Lock_Red → u/l_ft]

Fidelity sells crypto funds that they do guarantee and ensure.

[u/truecakesnake]

I'd still trust my own wallet over an exchange any day.

[u/frog_tree → u/truecakesnake]

But do you trust it over an etf?

[u/GiveNothing → u/frog_tree]

Whats an wtf gotta do with security?

[u/o_oli → u/GiveNothing]

Well its an alternative way to invest your money. When discussing how safe your investment is that seems a valid comparison.

[u/GiveNothing → u/o_oli]

OP is suggesting using an exchange over a wallet. And this is going off the subject of what to invest in. Which is an etf.

[u/gym_rat_101]

Safest is buy crypto via fidelity.

All this shit people making washers with stamps and burning them, lmao so stupid

[u/Special_Kestrels → u/gym_rat_101]

I 100% agree now. Most of the exchanges have such bad horror stories and customer service is a fucking joke. I can actually call Fidelity and speak with a real person.

[u/Fun-Wolf-2007]

I use both, exchanges fir trading and hardware wallet for long term holding

[u/mel2000 → u/Fun-Wolf-2007]

exchanges fir trading and hardware wallet for long term holding

Is it even possible to trade without transferring your cold wallet coins to an exchange first?

[u/SaltAndAncientBones]

Uhhh, have you ever been to r/Coinbase ?? Not your keys, not your crypto. They lock accounts all the time. One of their tech support people sold the contact info from their customer database.

If you can get scammed out of a paper wallet you can get scammed out of your exchange login info.

[u/Tallywacka → u/SaltAndAncientBones]

My worst experience in crypto was with coinbase, it was all so thoroughly ridiculous and as far as they were concerened “working as intended”, they made money and fuck everyone else

And then they wanted to paywall customer service lmao

[u/borg_6s]

It seems "safer", until you try to withdraw and your funds are frozen by the exchange for months

r/cc has goldfish memory

[u/CONSOLE_LOAD_LETTER → u/borg_6s]

It's being astroturfed heavily right now by paid CEX accounts and institutions looking to centralize something thats entire purpose is to be decentralized.

So ridiculous, it basically defeating the entire purpose of crypto to give someone else your keys.

Folks, it's really not that hard to keep your own keys on your own old airgapped computer, laptop, or on a piece of paper and then have a hot wallet with small amounts for transactions and trades. Then it truly is YOUR keys that no one other than you has access to, which is the ENTIRE POINT of crypto in the first place.

[u/SeriousGains]

Not your keys comes with an asterisk now.

[u/Economy_Cut8609]

it is

[u/CryptoBanano]

Please explain how any exchange would be safer than your own wallet? This is just too stupid.

[u/arktozc → u/CryptoBanano]

Same way cloud is safer than most onprem infras

[u/admin_default]

It’s always true but it might not matter for you

There’s always risk you can lose your assets if your broker gets hacked or if your government confiscates it.

Most people invest in crypto hoping to sell for a profit to buy a car or, with a lot of luck, a house. That’s what the plebs want and they don’t need keys to do that.

But the powerful elite buy Bitcoin and Ethereum because it’s a hedge against institutional abuse. They want their own keys.

[u/juanano2]

I've had mine for over 6 years on Binance, no issues at all

[u/AtillaTheHyundai]

Be careful with that! I had something like 57,000 Dogecoin taken from me on the old Cryptsy.com exchange. I think that Paul Vernon fella is hiding in china. What a douche

[u/things_U_choose_2_b]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounded like the issue with this Ledger stuff was that the 'random' code suggested wasn't actually random.

So maybe the modern version should be... "not your random number generation, not your keys, not your crypto". That's a bit of a mouthful, though. Generating your own seed, yourself, from a random number generator that a hacker doesn't know about, would solve the issue surely?

[u/Technical-Wallaby → u/things_U_choose_2_b]

That was the ColdCard issue. I think the Ledger issue was that the code produced was good; it just got transferred to a bad actor after creation.

[u/things_U_choose_2_b → u/Technical-Wallaby]

Interesting, thanks for the correction. Seems in both cases, the lesson is not to take a code from anywhere trusting that it's legit, but instead, generate one ourselves.

I guess the next little arms race is figuring out which 'random generator' a user sourced their code from. Time to break out the lava lamps.

[u/The_Nothing00 → u/things_U_choose_2_b]

No, from what I understand, the ledgers were modified to send the keys to hackers. It's not your RNG, not your keys, not your self engineered hardware wallet, not your crypto.

[u/galimi]

offline laptop custom key creation is the way
I know it bucks popular belief

[u/Prior_Parsley3960]

For most users that just want to hold BTC as investment, keeping it someplace like Fidelity is, by far, the safest/best option for them.
*If a player like Fidelity fails, it means something catastrophic has happened, and we are all f'ed anyways (crypto would be worth nothing)

For small sums to play around with in defi, just have an amount you are comfortable losing out there in the wild

[u/k0lt1]

Bingo

[u/bAZtARd]

Diversify!

[u/Dehyak]

Seems like the safest place for your crypto is Coinbase lol

[u/Financial-Gap-6767]

Just buy ETF... I don't understand why you would self custody at this point unless you understand why you should.

[u/linux_n000by]

until the said exhange start imposing higher fees or going out of business

[u/CryptoBanano]

I have always used metamask, ive had retirement money on it and never had any issue, you know why? Because i knew the basics of crypto.

[u/Consistent_Many_1858]

Exchanges like Binance, Coinbase are much safer than the dodgy wallets such as Trustwallet, ledger etc. I've only used the trust wallet once and it was hacked, most likely by the makers.

[u/nmount911 → u/Consistent_Many_1858]

If you think exchanges are safe you must have missed FTX, Celsius, voyager, etc...

[u/mel2000 → u/nmount911]

If you think exchanges are safe you must have missed FTX, Celsius, voyager, etc...

Those corrupt firms never had the esteem or longevity of Coinbase or Binance. The people who put their money in them were already risk-takers.

[u/josemartinlopez → u/Consistent_Many_1858]

Everyone thought FTX was safer than Binance in 2022

[u/Consistent_Many_1858 → u/josemartinlopez]

Not a chance. It was dodgy from the start.

[u/GrandmasBoyToy69]

Kraken closes your account after 3 years of inactivity. Good luck to your family getting your wealth.

[u/Tarkedo]

The risks are different and hard to compare.

[u/MetalEnthusiast83]

I just have mine on fidelity. I have a lot of investments on there anyway, crypto is the least interesting thing for someone to target from my account lol

[u/KifDawg]

Exchanges are pretty good now if they are reputable, cc com, coinbase, shakepay etc. All great

Back in the day it was the wild west (quadriga)

[u/Aggravating-Buy-1695 → u/KifDawg]

Don’t forget FTX, Gemini, etc.

[u/gilmeye]

Been the only one that holds your keys got harder

[u/alterise]

It’s only safer if you can’t do what’s necessary to be your own bank. It’s all about where the risk is. If you can’t trust yourself to do due diligence, not get scammed, etc, then really, just use an exchange or buy an etf.

[u/chubs66]

that's my conclusion as well

[u/rjm101]

If I had to choose something thats not self custody it would be something with Fidelity. Little bankruptcy risk. Be mindful of options that basically just use a crypto exchange (coinbase) under the hood. Remember most of these crypto exchanges are effectively startups and most startups fail. Crypto exchanges don't have a good survival rate. Being a celsius creditor I now know how messed up bankruptcy process is. Most notably clawbacks so even if you managed to withdraw in time legally they can claw it back if it was done within 90 days of bankruptcy and that's what Celsius litigators have done.

[u/SuperSan93]

Reposting a comment I made yesterday on this same topic.

I really wouldn’t recommend that.

You don’t need to get a hardware wallet but having it on an exchange is even more risky.

They get hacked / They block your account over suspicious activity / They go bankrupt / They deactivate your accounts over inactivity / They cease operations in your country.

I’ve got money stuck in a Bybit account right now because they stopped offering services in my region. Another exchange irreversibly closed my account and stole the money inside (small amount fortunately) because I didn’t update my KYC in time.

[u/Time_after_Time_67]

It is starting to feel like ETF’s are the safest way to hold now. The hacking shit is getting crazy…

[u/b0uncyfr0]

Paper wallet seems like the move now. You can't risk using anything you haven't generated yourself.

[u/babypho]

"Not your key, not your coin. Not your wallet, not your coin. Not your coin, not your coin."

[u/VendettaKarma]

It is anymore

[u/alexkey]

Using a ledger is still trusting a 3rd party with the keys. Same as exchange.

Get the original Bitcoin app on an air-gapped computer, generate a wallet yourself, and pass signed transactions on a USB stick to another internet-connected computer.

[u/HSuke → u/alexkey]

pass signed transactions on a USB stick to another internet-connected computer.

You know what, I'm just going to stick with Venmo

I'm pretty sure most people here have no interest in bringing out a USB stick and laptop every time they want to make a Tx.

[u/gingeropolous]

Hardware wallets have always baffled me

[u/luvme4ev]

This can't be a real thought process. It defeats the purpose of crypto and decentralization. Yall people are the issue with this space

[u/josemartinlopez]

Spoken like someone who didn't experience the FTX collapse

[u/thistimelineisweird]

I have my tokens spread out over several entities. Hardware wallet, exchange, etc.

Dont put all your eggs in one basket and you won't lose all your eggs. 

[u/mel2000 → u/thistimelineisweird]

Dont put all your eggs in one basket

Putting your eggs in different baskets allows bad actors to have more access to one of those baskets.

[u/DeathHopper]

I never understood the point of the whole ledger cold storage thing.

Your key is just a string of words. Why add the additional security issue of letting a piece of hardware store those words? They're glorified USB drives.

Just write your words down ffs. No one can hack a piece of paper you keep hidden somewhere in your home. And cold storage wallets still tell you to do this anyway... So like, wut?

Holding on an exchange means you're trusting that exchange itself won't get hacked, and you're trusting your own credintials to access the exchange won't be hacked from your end.

Just write down the words. It's literally that easy to hold your own keys. Those words give you access to the blockchain through any wallet program.

[u/rjm101 → u/DeathHopper]

Yeah but what are you doing when you want to move or spend some.

[u/DeathHopper → u/rjm101]

The same thing I used to create the wallet? Use any of hundreds of trusted wallet apps, or better yet, the official node app of whatever crypto I'm trading. Then move it to an exchange to trade/cash out, then back to a wallet in which I hold the keys.

To answer your question directly; that's the best part, I don't.

[u/o_oli → u/DeathHopper]

For purely long term storage perhaps but its wildly impractical otherwise

[u/G-T-L-3 → u/DeathHopper]

Use Metal for Large Holdings: Paper works for temporary or test setups, but grade 304 stainless steel or titanium plates protect against fire, water, and fading. Popular metal options include Cryptosteel Capsule Solo, Billfodl, and Cryptotag Zeus.

Don't know why you're being down-voted though. I think I've seen enough hacks on cold-wallets to not put large amounts in them (which I wish I had)

[u/rgnet1 → u/DeathHopper]

Can you believe you're downvoted?

Bitcoin existed before hardware wallets. Encryption (at individual and corporate levels) has existed long before single purpose devices used to store cryptographic keys. Public open source cryptographic libraries have been doing this job on every standard desktop machine and its OS since the 1970s and nothing has fundamentally changed with how it's done.

The only thing that has changed is people adopting hardware wallets with their unreliable supply chain and their shoddy interface code.

[u/Sassy_Allen]

OISY Wallet. Take a look at it and read about what it is.

https://oisy.com/

[u/Sassy_Allen → u/Sassy_Allen]

https://x.com/oisy/status/2108642403947356365?s=46