Topic: Recent events should make everyone withdraw all their coins to their own wallets - page 3. (Read 1256 times)

It's really sad to be reminded of that -- the pride and nationalism and patriotism one tends to feel like just being born in a random place in the world, does not ever grant you the privilege of saying: "my government will never do that". It's still so surreal to think Canada and then Russia taking the stage, both doing what most of their countrypeople would bet a million times their respective countries would never do.

I've already seen and read -- without evidence of course -- of people already running and leaving everything behind. If anyone has been lucky enough to store some of their wealth in Bitcoin in an effort to preserve it, well done. But indeed, take custody of your Bitcoin. Sole custody. And it's simpler (and easier) than you think.

Ask anyone active with merits if you're lost.

If that's what makes someone feel more comfortable, then it is their prerogative to do that and let someone else manage all their finances. But people need to be aware that accounts are frozen and assets seized through external events which they have absolutely no control over, as we have seen multiple times in multiple different countries in the last few weeks, and crypto is not immune to this either. If you want to take the risk of losing all your coins because you were too lazy to figure out how to safely set up your own wallet, then go right ahead, but you'll have no one to blame but yourself when your coins are seized.

Interesting story I read - a couple of Danish reporters in Ukraine used bitcoin to buy a car a couple of days ago because all the ATMs had run out of money.

I still don't understand why you would perform peer to peer trading through a centralized exchange. You are combining all the worst parts of peer to peer trading (lower speed, lower liquidity) with all the worst parts of a centralized exchange (full KYC, zero privacy, risking your coins in centralized wallets).

Exchanges have been arbitrarily locking accounts for as long as exchanges have existed. Also, Binance have been hacked on more than one occasion on the past, so it is far from impossible.

Nigeria is a case study for that. Since the introduction of peer to peer trading system in Nigeria. The majority of Nigeria mostly use Binance to trade on crypto. It's very mandatory to pass the KYC before you're able to trade. Nowadays accounts are easily locked without warnings if you are reported by someone or a government official for any inappropriate dealings. Imagine if your account is locked for no just cause or the impossible happened(hacking Binance)

Because people, for the most part do not think about or understand the implications.

I posted a few years ago about how we as a group here because we are BTC enthusiasts tend to know and understand more, I then continued that post and pointed out because of that many things that we think are obvious are probably not to the rest of the world. And, that because we do know more we tend to not want to help people who for whatever reason cannot do things the best or even a good way. But we should be informing them.

Same here, telling everyone to withdraw their coins to their own wallets is great. Telling them to shuffle / hide them after to wipe any possibility is better. Letting them know that if someone really does not need their real information then don't give it to them is even better.

-Dave

Unfortunately, people often only realize some things when it's too late, but no matter what Bitcoin offers them, they still feel more comfortable when someone else takes care of their financial assets. The system that created the opinion that money is the safest in a bank is still dominant even when it comes to Bitcoin allowing everyone to be their own bank.

Sometimes each of us may feel privileged to have the opportunity to be somewhat independent of banks, but of course it all depends on how adapted Bitcoin is in our environment. A man who has 1 BTC in his cryptowallet and does not have the ability to pay for goods and services, or make a conversion to fiat - is still in trouble despite having some value under his control.

Absolutely. KYC goes both ways. If you are going to go to the effort of avoiding KYC when you buy bitcoin, or by thoroughly mixing the bitcoin you do buy to break the link, then why would you compromise all that by completing KYC when you spend/transfer/donate your bitcoin?

I just don't agree with that. If you are technically savvy enough to open an account on a centralized exchange, upload photos of your documents, link your bank account, deposit fiat and place an order for bitcoin, then I think you are technically savvy enough to plug in a hardware wallet and follow the instructions which come with it. The problem is that that's the boring bit. Actually buying bitcoin is the cool sexy bit that everyone wants to do. Once you've bought the bitcoin, setting up your own wallet is boring so many people don't bother. If there was no way to own bitcoin without having it in your own wallet, then we would suddenly find that everyone was managing to set up their own wallets without too much bother.

The only time I ever have significant amounts of bitcoin on exchanges is when the price is somewhere close to a price I am happy to have limit sell orders. When we went sub 50k I took all coins off. There is always a level of risk but obviously the less time you have funds on exchanges the safer you are.

I do have fiat on exchanges now though with limit buy orders close to 30k. If there is ever a scam wick down I want to buy it. In this scenario ensure you use an exchange which requires 2FA for withdrawals.

Yes. When it comes to cryptocurrencies, it is always advised to keep them in an offline, cold wallet for the majority of time. As a matter of fact, even the CEO of Kraken, one of the world's most popular cryptocurrency exchanges, has advised users on Twitter not to hold their coins on the exchange. Unfortunately, the majority of Bitcoin holders, used to using Coinbase and similar sites, are not technically savvy enough to self-custody solutions at the moment. And they probably won't be for a long time. So it will require a concerted effort to teach new users about the ideas behind self-custody wallets and the benefits they offer.

Also, since you did use the truckers as an example, keep in mind that although spending your coins can never lead to loss directly, spending your coins at places with poor security can or not hiding your whereabouts can easily reveal who / where you are. The company that took over the donations for the trucker convoy has had *5* data leaks / breaches in the last couple of months. Just about every piece of data it there. Entered name and address, phone number, email (although you could put anything) also IP of the connection and some other collected data. It's all out there to be downloaded.

If you don't hide where your BTC comes in it is now trivial to see if there is where it went out.
Then all of a sudden, your exchange locks your account. Even if you went Exchange -> your wallet -> donation. Because it's easier to block you then deal with the grief.
Note: Banks have been doing this for years. They have closed accounts because they *thought* you might have been doing something shady and did not want the grief.

-Dave

Russia are now being cut off from SWIFT, as well as some sanctions against the Central Bank of Russia.

Looks like bank runs are going to be come widespread across Russia. This tweet - https://twitter.com/taxfreelt/status/1497811412265099265 - roughly translates as "In Moscow and other Russian cities huge queues gather in front of ATMs. This was taken at 5 am." I imagine when the banks open tomorrow it's going to be mayhem.

Yet another reason to hold your own coins. There is nothing stopping a bank run on centralized exchanges either.

Privacy is underrated, a whole lot of people thinking it's all about money and holding bitcoin, that's bad people lossing Bitcoin like this pains me badly.
Banks take your money, government borrow your money, regulate your money, they'll still do more, but Bitcoin gives you the liberty to get all of this.

I think this war is the best way to advocate and spread the impact of Bitcoin the effects of Bitcoin, the merits of Bitcoin, I see Putin as being wise accepting bitcoin before making advances for the war, I'm not in support of it but looking at the Bitcoin angle, both Ukrainians and Russians are using bitcoin majorly.
I try to learn from evry situation. Good or bad.

Having assets in your personal wallet can also earn you money, not only on the exchange. Some hardware wallets currently provide staking and other features that make your assets more profitable and not only in your personal wallet. For example, I use the Safepal hardware wallet which includes many features that allow for staking, swapping between tokens and between networks and there are several airdrop options that safepal users can participate in and many more. Exchange is only used as a temporary trading place and not to store primary funds.

Am partially guilty of this honestly,  even though part of me knows the risk involved but it seems to be the only option I have for staking because as it is in centralized exchange you can't stake from your personal wallet, so this is why part of my funds are in the exchange.  
Actually, I have thought of having everything in my wallet I hold the keys but the thought of having them idle in the wallet not generating additional funds doesn't sound good, but I will definitely find a better option in which I can from a wallet I hold the keys and not from an exchange.

One of the main advantages of bitcoin over cash is that you can have a nice balance in your bitcoin wallet but you don't really have to have it on you at all. You can use it to send and receive money from anywhere with internet access. The only thing you need is the private key or the seed phrase of your wallet, which can be written down even on a piece of paper.

Thanks to this, we don't have to carry cash when we have to travel to another country for whatever reason. Also, with bitcoins you don't need to have any centralized control in the payment process or any trusted third party. This is a major feature that no fiat currency has, which makes bitcoins a better option for traditional currencies.

Of  course no one would take the risk of leaving your physical cash at home with such a huge amount. This is why bitcoin wallet has been invented so that we can carry it anywhere we want and its always secured because its has its lock code. And having this undeclared war that will leave a lasting effect on the people, its a good thing that we should choose bitcoin over fiat because bitcoin has its own bank and there's no need to leave it in a third party since our own wallet can be our best bank ever.

This is an eye opener, all the innocent people in Ukraine and Russia would not have anticipated for something like this to happen to them, stranded and not able to do anything about it, I guess it is important to have a contingency plan for situations like this.
Not your key, not your money is something everyone should be serious with, if you must,  then 30% should in exchange or wherever you want to have them then 70% should be in your personal wallet,  this way you have control and access to the larger part of your asset.

You always have a choice. What fees are you referring to here? Exchange withdrawal fees?

As I said in my first post, the reason behind the funds being frozen or seized is irrelevant. The important thing is that it can happen, it is happening, and it is happening to innocent people through no action or fault of their own. I am vehemently opposed to both anti-vaxxers and to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but maybe next week something I am in support of leads to funds being frozen. Either bitcoin is decentralized or it isn't. You can't pick and choose who it is decentralized for. The bottom line here isn't whether you think these people should or should not have their funds frozen - it's that if you don't want to be at risk of having your funds frozen, you need to hold them yourself.

If someone can break in to your house and force you to hand over you seed phrase or wallet, they can break in to your house and force you to hand over the password to your exchange account. Keeping funds on an exchange instead of your own wallet provides zero security against physical threats.

Sure there is a high risk of leaving your funds in an exchange-controlled wallet because of unforeseen circumstances like the one happening right now with Russia and Ukraine, and other risks like exchange hack et al. However, there are several reasons that compel some people to have their funds in the exchange, same applies to having your funds in the bank, can you imagine someone having a stack of physical cash at home? That will be like inviting trouble especially when you are in a not-so-secured country.
There is a good and bad side of both, perhaps the former has a much higher risk than the latter.

Only hodling private keys is something that can ensure keeping the funds, that's true. What I don't like, of course, is the examples on which people learn their lessons. Canadian truckers were blocking strategic roads and promoted anti-vaccination propaganda in the middle of the pandemic. Russia was and is still being hit by sanctions because they invaded a sovereign state, and those innocents who don't want a war must go and tell so to their government on their central squares, organize strikes or advocate in any other way against the war. Otherwise they're complicit. But those who do protest and express support must, of course, have access to their funds. So I hope they will use Bitcoin for good, just like people in Ukraine do now when they donate money to the army in Bitcoin. But there's also another side: unless there's enough adoption of Bitcoin as a direct form of payment, keeping Bitcoin in one's own wallet can only do so much because then fiat is still needed to actually use the money, and this means banks and exchanges which can fall under sanctions.

That's really scary because i used to store money in exchange as well, although i know that its impossible to happen here in our country since we are too far from that war, but the world "freezing account" makes me worrying.. To be honest i don't have choice because of fees so i hope it didn't happen and the exchange that I'm using will not shutdown because of what's happening to those countries. .