In some groups I belong to, I do see people giving advise to persons who ask questions on how they could trade on Dex. They would tell them to import their private keys on the decentralized exchange, I will quickly object them never to import their PK on any dex. Some don't take me serious I leave them to their fate until they cry of hack, sometimes people prefer to learn by experience, leveraging on others knowledge should be a better way of learning.
Now, with your private key you can unlock your wallet by importing it on any compatible app or site, the danger with this is that you may not know who is watching you, or if when moving it, you had saved it in an unencrypted place. Another dangerous thing is that you may have been lured into a phishing Dex which automatically steals your private keys.
What I usually do is to use Metamask to interact with Dex, this does not require my private keys to interact with the dex, hence my private keys are still kept secured, and every transaction sign out, will require my authorization. Metamask has some features which automatically determines some phishing sites, which helps to keep one safe like in the case of the scam project called ethereum classic vision, a scam fork of ETH by some faceless team, Metamask barred their users from accessing the site, while those who imported their private keys on the site had all their ethereum and valuable coins stolen.
If one does not have Metamask installed which is very easy. One can choose to import using Keystore , this is encrypted and requires your password to unlock the wallet, I will recommend you use this on a very trusted Dex like Idex, and not new dex.
In this era of having many dex springing up, it's important we play safe with our private keys as they are as important as our ATM card PIN. Never save your private keys online, keep them offline.
I will love to hear your view too.
