Topic: Exchange wallets - some important notes (Read 158 times)

Exchange wallets are very popular and easy to use, but you should still pay attention to their use to avoid a loss of your funds. Mistakes by your own actions are very unnecessary because they can be easily avoided.
Especially these points are very important:

For centralized exchanges you do not own the wallet, it’s managed by the exchange. You only have access to the public key, but not the private key (the important one). If you lose access to the exchange wallet, you cannot restore it anywhere else as you would do normally with your private key (like Electrum for BTC or MEW for Ethereum).

In the past, it has often happened that exchanges have been hacked and if that happens your funds are lost. If the hackers have access to it, they can transfer your balance to another address, then you have no chance to get it back.
With dubious exchanges, it is also possible that there is no need for a hack to lose the balance if the exchange is itself a scam.

Perhaps the most important rule you should know is: not your keys, not your coins.
If you do not have access to all the keys, you are not the owner of the wallet and the coins.

It's always a good decision to avoid storing large amounts of funds on exchanges, whenever possible it's recommended to transfer them to a wallet where you have access to your public and private key. Paper wallets, desktop wallets or hardware wallets are always better than storing your funds on an exchange wallet.