Topic: Recent events should make everyone withdraw all their coins to their own wallets (Read 1265 times)

best comparison of a centralised exchange is.. a gym membership
you signed up to a gym you became their member you were given the gym rules. if you break their equipment or insult or harass their staff. your out. its their business they get that option.. they can put in any penalty clause they want about what to do if they want to ban you. so you have no recourse legally. their rules or the highway... if you dont like it go else where is their motto

but with that said.. decentralised systems are not as good either. your then playing to the whims of each individuals rules they set for a trade. things they can back out of or decide against.
decentralised systems are not immune to regulations either.

many people that done peer-to peer trading via contacting each other on local bitcoins, got caught because they were using personal bank accounts but doing alot of wire transfers to random people each day. they were not caught via any bitcoin tracking. but it was their use of their banks for doing swaps that caught them. not declaring they were a money business but doing money transfers got them caught. so even decentralised exchanges will need to register as money transfer businesses if they are doing a suspiciously lot of transfers.

but atleast if they keep the amounts(values per trade) low. they may not have to do much paperwork/monitoring/ reporting as the values are negligible. but it stil wont be a free ride-wild west scenario for DE-FI users

many people have had their bank accounts locked(account closed and asked to take money elsewhere) due to owning/operating an unlicenced exchange. or even just transferring in or out of one. (affecting both the service and the customer)

something like this happens with bitcoin users on Binance, whereby some suspected users accounts were banned following the suspicious activities on them, but the question here is that how many user can deem fit to ask or challenge such exchange, ask for the court order that warrant such, the truth is that many don't know their rights not to talk of fighting for it, exchanges or government can exercise their power on us but we don't know when and how to fight back the attack on them simply because of fear or lack of the understanding of human right.


you're right, that is exactly what's happening in the system, but let's consider the need for going against all this unnecessary stress in centralized exchanges and go directly decentralized, this could give is better mastery over our digital finance and in doing that, we will be owe responsible for any attack or misconduct to our coins just as the topic in implies.


Another big challenge here is users don't read to understand their policy and privacy statement, they will rather click on agree just to scale through the registration process without fully understanding what's in there, here they have all the jurisdiction to  win any lawsuit users filed against them.

if you think the AML/KYC regulations are unfair.. just read some exchanges own policies..

usually/morally
if an exchange thinks something is suspicious. an exchange cannot reveal to the user, that the user is under investigation. it is simply suppose to in-house do an investigation to see if the red flags reach a threshold to then report it to government regulators. at this point exchanges do not freeze accounts or give the slightest hint that something is off to the customer. the transactions are allowed through and as long as there has been a report then its all fine and dandy..
if the regulator does their own investigation and sees something suspect or gets corroborating info from other sources. then the authority gets a court order to push an exchange to freeze an account and confiscate the customers funds..
but without this court order. a exchange cannot confiscate users funds..

now heres where things get complex.
a business can have its own business policy(separate to regulation) about what customers should do under the membership of the business. where by again the business should not confiscate or freeze an account under investigation.. but it can without saying why. stop a user from using its service, by allowing them to withdraw their funds and close their account.

again only in a case of a regulator authorised court order can a exchange confiscate users funds and forfeit the users value away from the user.

but here is the thing.
a company "can" set terms that the breach of service contract of allowing the withdrawal to close the account only applies for like 90 days, by which if the person has not withdrawn their funds within 90 days of notification of their terms of service breach. the funds can then be forfeited and kept by the exchange. where other terms then allow the exchange to avoid being sued by the customer because the customer agreed to the terms included clauses such as not holding the exchange liable for losses and not seeking court actions but instead "arbitrations" if they want any chance of returns after the 90 day limit example
.. in short its not a legal forfeit sanctioned by the exchange. instead in simple terms you authorised to donate your funds to the exchange by not claiming them in the terms agreed window of opportunity that was part of the registration policy agreement(terms of service).
to which leave you out in the cold with no method of recompense(unless you have a really good lawyer)

so even if regulators dont see the use of mixers as a crime because there is no evidence that the funds before/during/after a mixer actually came from criminal proceeds, with enough evidential proof to get a court order for. .. the exchange can treat the mixer tainted coins as a red flag violation of the business terms of service. and tell the customer they can no longer use the service and give them just 90 days to get their money out..
(which some privacy loving people use fake emails so wont see these notices triggering the countdown.)

so if you have any funds in an exchange read the terms of service.
note the things outside of the regulatory minimum. but inside the exchanges own policy.
EG its not against the law to not give KYC. but if the exchange has terms that all account holders need to offer out their identity but refuse. then thats the business term of service breach.

yep. although regulations may have a $1k threshold before the regulators would want ID. the only way some exchanges can achieve this is to ID people right at the registration process or allow them to register with basic info. then hook them into KYC to activate the market order service or any service they offer.

This same regulation is what is applicable to them that uses centralized exchange, not only do they have the keys to the coins but they can see every transactions details and choose to halt user account, reveal their identity or comply with the government policy on AML law enforcement to freeze and trace a user's identity, when using the centralized exchanges, they have similarities like that of the government banks that are in custody of our financial assets, they decide and dictate what should be done on user's account and places embargo.

something closer to your involvement that will concern you
its not any about any FUD about miners, devs, pools or node users, of bitcoin, that happened last year where idiots read it all wrong and tried to class anyone in bitcoin as being a "broker" (your buddies know this topic well)


but that same "broker" law that went around fudding bitcoin. actually does apply to something else..
a certain altnet(not to be named) will find that by offering "routing" by passing value around on behalf of other people and taking a commission(fee). will be classed as a payment service.

yep altnet "routers" would need to be registered as a business and the regulated under a licence.
of course they will target the major hubs(ones with more then half a dozen channels) first.

I believed because all these factors by the governments in the world Satoshi Nakamoto creates bitcoin as a decentralized digital currency in which individuals control their money instead of intermediary. And I also believed that Satoshi Nakamoto creates bitcoin for a system of proof not trust because trust has fall the world but proof will never fall the people because the individuals control their wallet keys not third party. And I also believed that before the Russian Invasion, bitcoin had been existing and the core message to everyone in the bitcoin space was informed that bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency which control by the owner of the wallet and yet someone would still keep their coin to a third party hand at that of freezing, and blocking accounts by the state government and banks should not blame them but blame him or herself.
Just like what happened in Nigeria. The government just came up early 2021 and instructed all banks to freeze and blocked all bitcoin accounts. The truth if the matter is that, no government can freeze or block bitcoin accounts but can in the process of transacting to fiat currency.

Really at that time in Russia, bitcoiners suffered set back, because even though you want to leave the country for the main time, there was no way because most buys and sellers of the assets accounts were blocked. So most people started transferring the bitcoin to their personal wallets. Therefore, I am still advising those people that are keeping their coins for the hands of third party should learn lesson from the OP story.

Just to add on the things mentioned, recently there has been a hacking of an exchange in Ronin where more than $600 million worth of ETH and USDC were stolen. The hacker allegedly cashed out in a centralized exchange where the team management was able to track it down. After tracing, they were able to at least freeze the account but around 6,000 ETH (out of 177,000 ETH); and around $25 million worth of USDC we’re absolutely stolen.

This is definitely a sign where people should keep their funds to their personal wallets, preferably a hardware one to at least add an extra layer of security in your funds.

Yeah. Rather than trusting the man behind the curtain, I’d rather stick with my personal, non-custodial wallet and hold my money myself. This way I have absolute control of my coins and can decide when and if to sell them and also to whom to send them. And if I want to sell some of my coins, I can do so at decentralized exchanges instead of trusting a centralized entity to hold my coins.

I’m sorry to say that a lot of people would still not learn a lesson despite everything that has been happening. They would still continue to make use of these centralized exchanges, until they face the consequences of doing so. Is this the first time that it is being said in this forum that when people don’t hold their private keys, the coin in their wallet does not belong to them?

This is a topic that is being said every time in this forum even before all these things started happening. So, if people don’t want to wise up while there is still time, then that’s their business. Those that don’t want to learn will eventually learn when the time comes and it happens to them

It only applies to centralized, such as Coinbase.com and the rest of them that are alike. Decentralized/Peer-to-peer exchanges are not going to be affected a single bit, they will continue to work as they are doing today.

But, I think I would avoid doing any form of transaction with people who are making use of all these centralized exchanges , because if you’re to receive any crypto currency transaction from them, they would be required to give out information about you who is making use of an address that is unknown to the government. So, if you want to make sure that you’re maintaining your privacy, keep your transaction peer-to-peer.

But how many users don't use any third party services? How many users buy/sell/trade their bitcoin exclusively peer to peer, hold all their own coins in their own wallets pointed at their own node, only spend bitcoin directly with another person or merchant without going through a payment processor? Very few. And now they all need to collect not just KYC but also details of the source of the bitcoin you are spending and report all that to the authorities, for every transaction.

I'm not clear on how this will affect non Europeans. If I use a casino, for example, which is headquartered in the EU but serves my jurisdiction, will they be forced to try to collect the same information from me? I assume the answer will be yes, since they cannot confirm I'm not in the EU without collecting my information first.

It will be unenforceable, but that won't stop them from trying. Politicians around the world continue to try to do equally stupid things such as banning encryption, so I have no doubt they will eventually try to pass laws on peer to peer transactions to.

Of course they do because many believe the government propaganda being fed to them. Russians are being told it's the Ukrainians that attacked them and they have no other choice than to defend their country. The propaganda machine talks about Nazis killing Russian-speaking Ukrainians and a "military intervention" is needed to put a stop to it. I heard fake news about Ukrainians developing biochemical weapons and toxics meant to hurt Russians exclusively. Cockroaches and rats are being breed to recognize and infect Russians. That's the type off bullshit they are being fed.     

Protest against what? They don't know the truth because their media isn't telling them what is happening. Government-controlled news agencies aren't showing how houses and civilian apartment blocks are in flames. They show images of tanks, artillery, and dangerous Ukrainians ready to slaughter anything Russian.     

There is your proof that a different stance against the occupation is being silenced. If you speak out and tell the truth, you go to prison and get beaten.

You might be right on this part I didn't know.
The point is that rule applies only to professional service provider (exchanges, payment processors etc).
There are not major implications when dealing with centralized, KYC'd exchanges.

This rule would be intolerable (and inapplicable, in reality) if applied to private citizens dealing with their own cryptos.

Actually, the new EU regulations propose AML check for every crypto transaction, regardless of the value:

Source? And I would hardly trust a survey conducted by the dictatorship which has a vested interest in showing strong support for themselves.

So you admit that the Russian people are effectively slaves, and then in the next breath denigrate them for not rising up against their masters knowing full well they will be beaten and thrown in jail for doing so?

I am by no means saying all Russians are innocent, but it is just as naive to say that they are all equally guilty of Putin's crimes.

A few days ago, a survey was conducted in Russia of Russian residents and 82 percent indicated that they support Putin's actions related to the invasion of Russian troops in Ukraine. This is a clear answer to the question of whether they are now guilty of deliberate executions by Russian military of women and children in Ukraine.

When people come out to mass protests against the actions of their authorities, the authorities cannot do anything. And if a relatively small number of people come out in Russia, they are taken by the arms and led without resistance into trucks standing nearby, and passers-by calmly walk nearby, as we often see, this is not the resistance of the people. They are frightened slaves, except for this small part of the protesting population. The political passivity of the population of Russia is the reason for their guilt in the death of Ukrainian women and children.

The Russians allow themselves to be intimidated. In Ukraine, at the end of 2013, they also protested against the actions of their authorities, and the authorities began shooting at unarmed protesters. But from this the protesters became even more. Then President Yanukovych, fearing for his life, fled to Russia. The people of Russia are not capable of this. And this is his fault.

This is more true everyday.
The new EU regulation impose an hyper draconian AML check for every transaction above 1,000 EUR.
Bear in mind that currently Italy has a 2,000 EUR cash payment upper limit. So cryptos are well below this line.

I have been seeing some of the speculations about this option, and there is one thing that I did not like that happened in Colombia, is that Binance clients were victims of an investigation process by a foreign country other than Colombia, and the Binance's decision was to freeze all Colombian accounts until they see the origin of the funds of each of the clients, I consider this a violation, for me there is no safer place to have Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies than in one's own wallet without it being managed or in the hands of third parties, because it is assumed that here in crypto the Satoshi values should prevail or for which BTC was created, and this one of the premises is that each person manages his money without the intervention of third parties, from that moment I understood that it is better to keep crypto safe in your own wallet.

I was wondering what their major intent could be by influencing coinbase to include KYC before processing a transaction, this is truly uncalled for and is a bridge against the trust of securing ones privacy with those exchanges, i will advise most especially the bitcoin investors to shift their coin to the wallet rather than on exchanges but for those that do frequent trading like day trading swing or scalping may find using those exchange suitable for their daily trading because they will want to minimize transaction fees and conversion rate using exchanges.


To me we cannot totally avoid the role of exchanges but we can limit the level of risk it may implicate us, that's why if you're investing on bitcoin using exchanges is as risky as playing a gamble with your coins but a little portal of your coin can be on exchanges trading. Well i want to believe there are still lot of bitcoiners out there seriously investing without knowing the existence of a platform like this where they can get more enlightenment, as doing it well is not knowing it all.

What's the law in Canada regarding fiat transfers? I can't imagine the KYC limit for them is as low as $1000, which is only $800 USD? In the US it's $10,000. This seems like the Canadian government being particularly hostile to cryptocurrency.

And how is this going to work in practice? Coinbase will refuse to process your withdrawal unless you provide a name and address? And how are they going to verify that? If someone generates a brand new address for you to send coins to, and you tell Coinbase "That address belongs to me", how can they verify otherwise? Or since we already know they monitor your withdraws after you make them and use blockchain analysis to de-anonymize them (so if you do say an address belongs to you and they discover it doesn't they'll seize your coins), what's stopping you withdrawing to your own address first and then sending it to the third party? Which kind of makes the whole point of this thread - exchanges can only enforce this bullshit when you let them hold your money. Get your bitcoin in to your own wallet before it is too late, and be free to spend it wherever, whenever, and however you choose.

And as always, delete Coinbase.

Regarding why you shouldn’t hold your coins on an exchange, today on Twitter this surfaced:



If you leave your coins on an exchange, you leave yourself exposed to those aggressive practices.
Apparently, the Canadian government walked down the dystopian path with cryptos, truckers and democracy.

Two mandatory reads:

Coinbase the most anti-Bitcoin organisation. Make #DeleteCoinbase great again
A Treatise on Bitcoin and Privacy

That's a different situation. If your options are to shoot at innocent people on the whim of some mad dictator, or not do that, then the ethical choice is obvious. Ukraine are also offering amnesty to any surrendering Russian soldiers. That's vastly different to the comparison between protesting against a war and being jailed for it, or staying at home.

Well, the added disadvantage of fiat is that even fiat in your possession as cash can be deprived at any time. Government decides to print trillions of dollars out of thin air? Watch as your cash rapidly devalues. Government decides to invade another country for no good reason? Wave goodbye to half of the value of your money overnight.

This applies not only to cryptocurrensy, but also to any money. I'm talking about traditional. Money that is in any bank, online account or somewhere else, we can be deprived at any time. Recent events make it clear to us that we are the owner only if only we have access to money. No matter what form it is: crypto, online money or fiat.

Can rephrase the words a bit: "not fiat - not your money".

These difficult times, which are coming more every day, remind us that we need to reconsider  attitude to our finances stop blindly trusting 3rd parties with money. Regardless of their form, crypto or traditional.

Well said. The funny thing is I’ve actually had a decent amount of buddies reach out to me recently asking me how to safely store their bitcoins / cryptocurrencies. The other thing that I think will help drive bitcoin is I’ve had clients reach out to me and ask if their retirement plans can be locked up by the government. While I assure them this is very different from bank accounts, it still instills a level of fear in them that I think will open their eyes to “being your own banks”.

Although having all your coin in a wallet that you can access easily without restrictions is ideal. But the user friendly services of third party companies are very attractive and convenient.

Also in some countries were their is corruption and police brutality, third party companies help not to only safeguard your Bitcoin but to keep them secret. We have had cases where police in some countries have forcefully gained access to people's account through intimidation and torture.

o_e_l_e_o: Actually one captured Russian soldier said they were just told to be part of a military exercise and were suddenly found themselves marching over Ukraine. He said he couldn't disobey orders as that would be an act of treason.

---

I wonder if people will open their eyes. It seems many Russians did, but they were late.

You shouldn't use exchanges, its the same (if not worse) than using banks. If you have to, only send what you must exchange for daily life, never use it to store funds, you can lose them without warning, just like fiat money in a bank.

Its simple: If its not in your wallet (your keys) its not yours, as it has always been. Why must people need to be told the tale of Mt.Gox a decade later, will people ever learn not to trust others to keep their money?

The reason Bitcoin exists is precisely to stop the State from doing arbitrary things like this. Russia will now face the same thing other countries faced under hyperinflation. As i have warned in this forum many times, when it happens, it is TOO LATE for you to react. You should not keep fiat as savings, you can lose them (or their purchasing power), at any time.

It happened in my country, i know what it is. ATMs become useless, credit cards with ridiculous limits equivalent to 1 USD, and due to sanctions them leaving the country. Banks ordered to only give pitiful amounts of cash to people doing withdraws, until all paper money simply disappears (and even becomes pricier than digital counterparts).

Putin destroyed the ruble when he invaded Ukraine, there is no turning back. He has been given the option to just stop the invasion, but he won't... And the damage to the economy has been done the entire world is angry at him. I suppose he REALLY wanted to return to the old Soviet days, including their economy...

Which serves to reminds us of the dangers of letting the State or the Banks do with your money whatever they wish. One of the largest Russian banks is in danger of going bankrupt, thanks to the legalized ponzi scheme known as fractional reserve. This is a danger inherent in all modern banking, they may be unable to save it; it seems Russia needs to cash out their metals (some of that gold actually came from my country, sad story) but with all their frozen assets, it will be difficult if not much more expensive (ie. black market/laundering, etc).

The Russian soldiers are obviously not innocent. That doesn't really need spelled out. And neither are the Russian citizens who support the invasion, support Putin, and so on.

But there are many Russian citizens who are against this war. Would it be better if every single one of them hit the streets and started protesting? Sure. But when the likely outcome of the protests is that you are jailed and beaten and the invasion continues anyway, I can't say I blame the ones who don't. There are videos of Russian police even beating protestors who were carrying their babies. Would you go out and protest knowing that if you are jailed and lose your income then your family end up homeless and starving, or thrown in jail and beaten too? Stating that these individuals are just as guilty as the soldiers invading is nonsense.

That might be the case on paper, but you are deluding yourself if you think that is true in practice. Russia is an authoritarian state.

You obviously missed this part of the discussion.
Imho it's more like laziness (indifference) + lack of knowledge (risks) than lack of technical knowledge.

The Reason People Use Exchanges:

Nowadays we notice that people leave coins in exchanges even after knowing the implications. I am not an exception in most cases. We keep wondering why, but I see it as something that will continue pending the massive adoption of bitcoin.

• The technicalities involved in rightly securing your bitcoin is much. To get more security,  you need to be more technical. For instance, you don't only need to safe keep your private keys, in most times you need to backup your funds, encrypt your wallet and even go offline storage to be sure you are safe. Most persons can't memorise just 4 digits numbers,  and sometimes they will hide a thing at one corner of the house and next day they will not have the clue of where they kept it.
• Such people as above will always want a trusted party to rely on to save their coins. Again, if they persist to do it themselves, you will here someone doesn't have access to a wallet of x amount of bitcoin
• Some persons are addicted to fiat, either by themselves or family members. They will always want a way to convert their bitcoin to fiat.
• In Ukraine presently, having your money in crypto will ensure it is safe, but you will need it to move. Then it will be difficult. Transportation companies does not accept bitcoin, you still need to sell to fiat and will still suffer same fate with others.
• I think till bitcoin is massively adopted, we still need exchanges and they will exist as long as bitcoin exist. No matter how central, exchanges are better than banks.
• While we leave our daily and weekly spendings on exchanges, life savings or savings for projects should be in a wallet you have the keys.
• For traders who need large portfolios for trading, choose a reputable exchange
• How careful  can one be?

Indeed, the toughest international sanctions are now being imposed on Russia after the invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine. They affect both Putin and his entourage, and every citizen of the Russian Federation as a whole. Especially tangible are and will be the sanctions imposed in the last few days. You write that "this will hurt Putin, but it will hurt every Russian, including the innocent who do not want war..." Let's see if the current citizens of Russia are so innocent?

Now Russian soldiers with heavy armored vehicles are in Ukraine and are shelling peaceful cities of Ukrainians from Grad multiple launch rocket systems and other modern military equipment. The civilian population is dying, including children. Do you think that ordinary Russian citizens are innocent of this? They only resent each other in the kitchen, so that, God forbid, their indignations are not heard and they do not go to jail for this, or alone or in small groups go out to peaceful protests. Do you think that at the same time they did everything in their power to be considered innocent of the death of the civilian population of Ukraine? And the Russian soldier, who is now killing Ukrainian citizens on their territory and is their husband, brother, father, is also not to blame?

The Constitution of the Russian Federation states that this country is a republic and the supreme bearer of power is the people. The President of the Russian Federation is only an official who must be guided by the Constitution and laws of the Russian Federation. If the people allow their President to grossly violate the Constitution, then its people are to blame for this, and it is they who are responsible for this. If they consider themselves free people, and not slaves and a herd of sheep, then they should openly oppose this, and if this does not help, take up arms and kill their President, who has become insolent to the point that he considers himself the king and emperor in this country . There is no other way, and if citizens do not do this, they are guilty of what kind of genocide is now happening in Ukraine.
They need to realize that no one is going to do it for them.

Therefore, Russian "peaceful" citizens. Do not be surprised and do not be indignant if a response flies into your territory and you will already die.

to add to the list
banks have to adhere to certain laws. meaning they actually cant just freeze an account on a whim. they have to have just cause.
(court order resulting from an SAR)
however exchanges are a private business and can change their terms and conditions easily. meaning they can set whatever reason they like.
EG there is no laws about taint. but an exchange can set up its own taint blacklist or just stop supporting any currency they like at any time.
also an exchange is a customer of a bank. so an exchange can get frozen out of its own account meaning it cant service its own customers.

I see no challenge, really. If one has no technical knowledge a hardware wallet covers most of the security he needs and he can continue by reading a few non-technical things, but not much more.
And a light wallet like Electrum for Desktop or Mycelium for Android don't need 400GB and such, they are pretty straightforward and small.
I think that paper wallets are a (technical) step forward, not for everybody.


Indeed, centralized exchanges are somewhat like banks - in relation to KYC, legislation, sanctions -, but they're even worse actually than banks because:
* in Europe 100k EUR/person/bank is backed by the government; this doesn't happen with exchanges, no matter what their owners say (some may be insured or have a reserve fund, but inside job/theft and sloppy handling can happen)
* an exchange may tell it was hacked, close the business and leave you without your coins; or be hacked for real, with same result
* phishing schemes can steal your money usually easier from an exchange than from a bank
* you can easily mistake your overly complicates security settings at certain exchanges (like believing that 2FA keeps your account safe while your API keys are exposed)
* you can get your phone stolen, having both the 2FA and the exchange's app on the phone.

The challenge here now is the "technical know how" is it every body that can be able to afford the cost to run a full node transaction considering the technicality, fund and a capacity of about 400gb memory space among others, although use of paper wallet here as such in hardware wallets can still goes along way providing suitable solution to securing privacy and having control over your coins and the respective keys to them.


Yes i read it on the news about how account belonging to Russians were laid on embargo and the innocent citizens are suffering for this, and this call for a total avoidance of centralized exchanges because to me using them is synanymous to using fiat banks as they serve as a third party which can be easily use in tracking individual user by government or any private or corporate organizations as no privacy protocol is strictly adhere by them all.

I'm glad someone brought this up. It is indeed, should be our priority to transfer our funds from centralized exchangers to our very own private wallets because unprecedented conflicts could cause an inconvenience the moment new policies and regulations have been imposed. Restrictions are made for a reason. It's just that, no matter what reason and how good it may be, the innocent and those people who aren't really involved and shouldn't be affected will be suffering the consequences too. And no matter what people complain, it won't be eased out because the law applies to everyone and not to the selected people only. Imagine how tragic it would be if all of your funds and assets will be frozen until further notice. If you store everything or most of your funds in banks, then you'll have no other means and options on how to survive. Hence, we should take the current situation between Russia and Ukraine as an eye-opener to the possibility that the same scenario will happen in the future.

Having your funds stored in your own wallet will definitely make you feel secure because you no longer give permission over a third party and central organization the authority over your assets. You can monitor and get a hold of it anytime, anywhere without fearing what would happen if sudden rules will be set by the government and the authorities. Aside from storing your funds in your wallets, I personally recommend storing some cash with you in your trusted place at home or wherever you reside so that if conflicts were to occur, you have a cold cash at hand and will no longer undergo the hassle of withdrawing in an ATM amidst the chaos. You see, we should always be on our guard and we should always be prepared because we only have ourselves to look after for our own welfare if worse comes to worst.

I remember how nice it was for a lot of Turkish people too, arbitrarily blocked by banking networks in their own country, when they found the "freedom" and "access" of guys like Transferwise and then later Revolute. Wise (as it's now called) then started their own arbitrary blocking, Revolut did the same to some degree of scandal, so I'm definitely sure a lot of people learnt that Bitcoin was the only safe way to protect their own money.

So yes, Russian exchanges -- and any exchange in the region for that matter -- will soon have to comply. If not with the international networks, then with their own (perhaps even more arbitrary) central bank. It'll be worse than bank runs.

The regime is already beating people in the streets simply for questioning Putin's crazy war. There is only so much misery and poverty innocent Russian citizens will take before taking action. Perhaps another Russian Revolution is on the cards.

I don't care in the slightest about Russian oligarchs watching their net worth plummet overnight. I do feel for the innocent citizens who just want to live a peaceful life and will suffer greatly because of their crazy leaders.

That's the thing. I don't particularly like using banks, but modern life necessitates that I do, and I am relatively happy to leave money with them knowing that they are insured, are backed up by FDIC, if my account is locked I have avenues of recourse and legal action I can take, and so on. With crypto exchanges, you have absolutely none of that. I wouldn't trust any exchange with a single satoshi of my money.

Well pointed out. I feel that this is the main reason for this topic. (PS. You may want to fix your quotes though)


Indeed, the percents are very small. I don't know if it's 5%, however, small. But it doesn't necessarily means they trust banks more, I think it means they don't trust (or simply fear of) bitcoin.
It was said for so long that's unsafe to keep money in Bitcoin, most do follow that.
It also doesn't mean that 95% would keep their money in banks, some don't trust banks and keep fiat at home (which makes them perfect targets for thieves).

The problem is that the money in banks is (at least lately in Europe) even backed by the state (under 100k/person/bank, which is usually enough). So extra trust... until something bad happens (remember that in Iceland everybody lost all their bank deposits in 2008? or just look what happens now in Russia and Ukraine too; even in Romania panic did strike and many ATMs were empty yesterday)


El Salvador is a wonderful example to follow, although afaik most people there too use mainly custodian services.
And Russia... I don't know if I want it declare Bitcoin as legal tender, nor used by their government; it may label it criminals' money and I don't want that.

This has been a big issue in this part of the world leaving so many crypto investors stranded. And it came so sudden. The Nigerian government aren't friendly at all. All the do is either use the bank against it's citizens or implement laws that are unfavorable. Now most youths choosed to gain liberty through crypto they channelled their frustrations to using exchanges to wage war on the masses and binance is a key player in this.

First many still don't know the difference between custodial and non custodial wallet and the benefits of owning a non custodial wallet. Many crypto investors just feel all wallets provides equal benefits

I never see a reason why your coins should be held to any other place than in a wallet you own under your total control.However I also know that there are people who like to invest and trade so these people are forced to keep some of their money in 3rd parties wallets and nothing is sure there even at normal times let alone now in war time.You gave the best advice,it is time for all funds to come home to their respective owners in their wallets in which they have full power.Same for cash money hold into banks.

Russia asked for these tough sanctions and now they have to face them,it is only their fault and only them are to blame (mainly politicians as not all Russians want war).

If it is somewhat true that about 5% of the world's people own Bitcoin or have been involved in some way with other cryptocurrencies, then it is clear that most still trust banks more, and that a good portion of those who own a cryptocurrency still trust custodial services. Maybe that will change now that people in Russia are being forced to look for an alternative because of all the sanctions that are in place and those that are yet to come.

If we take El Salvador as an example of a country that first declared Bitcoin a legal tender, Russia may be the second big experiment where Bitcoin will become the best alternative if its financial system collapses. Although I have no doubt that the regime will react very sharply if people start using Bitcoin en masse, which poses a far greater danger to the government than people living in misery and poverty.

For the innocent people in Ukraine bitcoin can certainly be a safe haven right now. Much easier to take it all with you and much easier to cross a border with when compared to fiat. And no possibility of a bank run leaving you with nothing provided you are holding your own coins. And for the innocent people in Russia who don't want any part of Putin's insane war but are being affected by all the sanctions regardless, it also allows them to avoid a bank run as well as offering some stability against the ruble, which is devaluing rapidly and will likely continue to do so. However, again, this is dependent on them holding their own coins, as I fully expect crypto exchanges to start having to comply with international sanctions as well and therefore freeze accounts of Russian citizens.

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. .  

Very good to hear you ^{and hopefully many more people} have taken
the step to SECURE your Bitcoin/Satoshi's for the sake of $100/0.0025BTC

In the case of exchanges, they should be used only for exchanging.


We saw this before and a lot of people have probably forgotten what happened
in Greece back in 2015.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/greece-crisis-banks-shut-week-restrictions-imposed-atms-n383606



and unfortunately the majority of people around the world dont realise Bitcoins
power and will continue to be skeptical of Bitcoin.

This I think is one of the biggest issues. We go on and on about not your keys, not your coins, but millions of users ignore this. As I mentioned in my first post, so many people have the mindset "Well, it hasn't happened to me yet, so I'll be fine to continue using this centralized exchange or following this risky behavior or whatever". It's like someone saying "Well I never wear a seatbelt and I'm still alive, so therefore it's a perfectly safe thing to do". Even in threads where users complain about Coinbase, Binance, or whatever arbitrarily locking them out of their coins for no reason, plenty of users chime in with "I store all my coins there and have never had a problem", which completely misses the point. No one has a problem until you do, which point it is too late. Take control of your coins now.

The same goes for privacy. We can read stories about other people having their identities sold on the deep web all day, or having their data used by criminals to target them, but many people only start caring about their privacy after they personally have been affected, at which point it is too late.

You are very correct. The current situation is really an eye opener for many and this may boost the adoption of bitcoin once the dust settles.
People are literally standing in long queues outside ATMs while most ATMs are out of money.
I even read that few people used bitcoin to buy a car to flee out of Ukraine. Now this gives me shivers as to how bad the condition would be out there.
Bitcoin would have helped so many people in buying things during such a crisis.

it is true that giving funds over to a custodian means you are not in control. because you are not a key holder to just 'spend' them back to yourself on a safer key. you have to request the custodian to spend them to you.

if they are obligated/or just decide to not authorise your request, you wont get coins back
(scammer exchange with fake 'we been hacked' mottos to pretend they cant give coins because they lost coins)
(court order to freeze account)

however it must also be noted that people need to have some self control about their own security.
as some believe just having key control is the absolute sole need of security and nothing else needs to be done

by needing extra self control of security i mean, not advertising your real life association to the coins.
examples of how coins were still taken even on peoples individual keys:

dread pirate roberts was found and cybercrimes teams accessed his files
bitfinex thieves had private keys on a cloudstore file
drug addict doped up father to then steal his wallet
scammers/hackers get people to download trojans
soon to be ex wife claims 50% custody of coins in divorce
pickpocket snatches phone wallet out of pants
face to face meetup goes bad, someone brought a knife
SWAT smash front door in and find hardware wallet under pillow

its true that no one can brute force your value away from you from the network side. but people can brute force:
your front door of your house
your PC
a couple of your ribs/cheekbones to get to your coins

so take control of your coins and also ensure people cant take control of you via threats

the trucker fundraiser is where there are some private key holders. but the courtcase was not instigated by government making a claim. it was actually by a few citizens of ottowa making a claim. whereby even without those plaintiffs having key access. they have put penalties onto the key holders that if the coins move the keyholders can be fined and/or put in prison.

so its not just the government you have to worry about. you should be cautious with what you tell your jealous/greedy neighbours too

The tragic thing is, rapid adoption of Bitcoin will likely come from the misery of others. For example, with the Russian vs Ukrainian situation, regardless of what your view point is on the politics of it all, ultimately the people are the ones that are having the biggest impact, and will likely seek alternatives to fiat after having issues withdrawing their money after the attack. It's quite sad seeing people delay their evacuation to queue up outside a bank looking to withdraw their own money, and likely probably being rejected for whatever reason.

Also, it likely means that someone will have to lose money through a bank due to various reasons such as freezing etc, before they make the move. I was probably one of the lucky ones which discovered Bitcoin for other reasons other than losing money.

The issue is most people won't implement good enough security practices, and being responsible for your own money is a rather big responsibility which a lot of people won't be comfortable with. We can't change that, I know some people that would rather trust other people than themselves because of lack of knowledge. If we think about it, security is a big deal, but actually following, and understanding security is a bigger deal, which more often than not people don't have a grasp on. Whether this is through not having the motivation, education or simply being complacent. I don't know about others on this thread, but I've witnessed so called security experts with high positions in companies that are responsible for some pretty serious money, absolutely disregard the most basic security measures, so it does beg the question whether a average person who isn't security oriented would be willing to brush up on their security knowledge, and/or implement it properly.

Personally, I think by design Bitcoin is the best solution for storing your wealth I think we can all probably agree on that, and it's by a long margin when handled correctly better than any bank out there. However, I don't have faith that the majority who come to Bitcoin will follow the recommended ways of securing it, and that could potentially be a problem. Obviously, we try to make Bitcoin more user friendly, but because of the nature of it, there's a ceiling to how user friendly we can make it, Bitcoin will always have some sort of complexity because your looking after your own security. I don't think there's a solution to that.

Well, this is the common thing actually and discussed over and over to the forum. But still happening the same thing with us. The problem is even we don't want to hold our crypto assets on a centralized exchange, but still we are forced to use them to make them liquid. During that time also problems would happen. But for a big loss and big risk, we should ignore centralized exchange for storing crypto assets. Just buy and move to the non-custodial wallet. When need to sell just move into the exchange and convert for Liquidity. For that also we need reputed exchange though there is no guarantee freezing account. We can't always choose decentralized exchange due to Liquidity and availability of trading pairs.

Security is the most important one imho. And imho security doesn't necessarily means hiding from govt. Security means that you can have control over your funds anytime, no matter what (as long as you have electricity and internet, obviously).

Exchanges, with their KYC and SAFU can give a false sense of security. And imho this is the topic about: just another angle for "not your keys, not your coins".

Securing properly the wallet and the use is another, much wider topic, from basics like hardware wallet, clipboard malware and even "don't send your coins to an alleged Elon Musk promising he will double them", to more advanced things like "why Windows is bad", use of cold storage and safe generation of paper wallets, maybe also mixing and hide from govt, if you want to.

Another fine example.

I don't think that's been decided yet. Plenty of countries still pushing for it, and countries which were previously against it such as Hungary and Cyprus are today saying they would not block such a move.

More important than ease of use? Absolutely. Not more important than security, though. I'm also pretty vocal about my use of airgapped wallets and hardware wallets over simple software wallets. Although generally the wallets which are easy to use (web wallets, simple software wallets, third party accounts) rank pretty low on both the security and privacy fronts. And taking your security seriously by storing your own keys and coins yourself is the first step to extracting yourself from the privacy invasion of centralized exchanges.

True, but two things to consider. First, even if they locate your wallets, they still can't remotely seize them against your will like they can if you are holding your coins with a third party. Secondly, it is very easy for a government to say to an exchange "Ban all accounts from this region/country", whereas most governments do not have the time or resources to track down the personal wallets of every person in the country.

The question, which should be discussed with both topics is which is more important?
@o_e_l_e_o has made his views 100% known that privacy and anonymity are a tiny bit more important then security and ease of use.^{1 & 2 & 3}
I have never hidden the fact that I think security is a bit more important, because I feel once security is violated in any small way, even where a lot of people don't understand how or why the rest does not matter. They have you and possibly your coins.

^1: o_e_l_e_o I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I really feel that is your view.

^2: Really, really, really hiding yourself & your coins from the Govt & authorities is a lot harder then most people think. It's just that for the most part they are not looking real hard for you & your coins. But with a bit of effort and time it's not that hard for them to track.

^3: The more steps you add to hide you & your coins makes it more difficult to track you BUT the more steps you have to take, does make it more likely you will mess up one of them somewhere sometime.

-Dave

[Actually they decided not to remove Russia from SWIFT because Russia already built a SWIFT alternative and this kind of action would diminish the western political leverage of SWIFT].

I imagine it sucks to live in Europe, UK or US with e.g. a VTB credit card since payments could be blocked and (much more likely) ATM withdrawals and possibly even wire transfers to banks in those territories will be blocked.

Hence why it's just as bad to keep all your money in a single bank account or credit card as well.

With the user friendly access people are much used to the third party services. Only through experience people will learn, and now with the suffering of spending ones own money people around will realise why one should avoid using centralized services and exchanges. It'll be good if someone gives a briefing on what all the wallets that can be used to overcome such issues. The following comes under my search Electrum, Exodus, Ledger Nano X, Trezor One, Zengo, Wasabi.

This is the purpose why Satoshi created bitcoin. To give the people liberation from the traditional systems, banks, government. In this type of situation bitcoin is the only hope. But using a third party service (centralized exchanges) means you’re not in control of your bitcoins. In fact when you store your bitcoins in an exchange you really have no bitcoin. “Not your keys not your coins”. People forget exchanges are regulated and are the same as banks.

That's what I am worrying right now, I am jittery right now and nervous because I can't wait for my Trezor to arrive which I am going to use to evacuate all of my funds into, this is a dire time. Thankfully and fortunately, I am not from Europe so I can rest easy for awhile knowing that I'll be able get my funds transferred on time, to everyone who has doubts or doesn't want to do the same, heed my word: it will be your fault when the exchanges go down and you lost your funds.

Binance freezing the funds of Nigerian customers may also worth mentioning.


While you are completely right, I feel that properly securing the wallet (and usage) is another topic. A very important one, still, a different topic.

You left out the point of "So long as you know what you are doing and practice good security"

I work in IT, the security I see SOOOO many intelligent people implement is a joke no matter how hard I try.

Is it better to have your coins frozen by Coinbase because the government told them too or have them stolen by a hacker because you went to a phishing site and got some clipboard malware?

-Dave

Everyone knows you should hold your own keys and coins. Leaving your coins in the control of a third party such as a centralized exchange, web wallet, interest account, etc., means they are not your coins at all and access can be removed at any time. Despite such services frequently locking people out of their accounts and demanding KYC, millions of people continue to hold all their coins with these third parties, wrongly thinking "Well, it will never happen to me."

Then comes the Canadian truckers. Whether or not you agree with them is irrelevant. What I was far more interested in was the government's response, which was to freeze accounts, reverse transactions, and seize money belonging to these people and to people who were donating to them. Not only fiat bank accounts, but also crypto exchange accounts. And yet people still hold their coins on exchanges, knowing that their government can prevent them from accessing their money at any time. I don't know what the logic here is. Maybe "I'm so meek and unassuming I'll never do anything that my government doesn't approve of."

Then comes the Russian invasion. Countries around the world are seizing Russian assets, freezing Russian accounts, embargoing Russian banks, removing Russia from the entire SWIFT system, and more. Sure, this will hurt Putin, but it also hurts every Russian, including the innocent ones who have no desire for war. How do you feel knowing a decision made by your government which you fundamentally disagree with and even protest against could result in all your finances being frozen or seized? There is no logic here. You cannot possibly think "Well, my government would never do such a thing" given the propensity for governments around the world to serve their own interests at the expenses of their citizens all the time.

These last few weeks should be an eye opener for anyone leaving their coins in the custody of any third party. You may find yourself with no access to them at any time, and there will be nothing you can do about it.

Self-mod to prevent spam.