It feels to me that a huge number of people dismiss the risk of keeping your coins on an exchange because they are looking primarily at the risk of being hacked - that is, the risk is that if the exchange is hacked (as with MTGox) you’ll lose your coins without recourse. Compared to the risk of being hacked as an individual holding their own keys, this risk doesn’t seem particularly high (and I would agree that the risk of a typical individual losing their coins that way is higher than the risk of a reputable exchange being catastrophically hacked).
BUT, the real risk of exchanges that most people will face, and which IS a relatively real and common risk, is that exchanges have the power to lock you out of your own account; withhold withdrawal of your coins; change and manipulate fee structures in exorbitant ways; institute arbitrary / unfulfillable KYC requirements; and so on. Obviously many folks already understand this, but for those of you considering leaving your coins perpetually on an exchange primarily on the risk calculus of hacking-based loss... you’ve now been formally warned.
[link] [comments]
Comments
Post a Comment