Generally storing a significant sum of coins in an exchange for a prolonged period is a bad idea, however this is what I currently do (while accepting this risk).
Cold storage, if done correctly, is one of the safest (if not the safest) form of storing coins long term.
It's really a trade-off between accessibility and security, though there are physical wallets that offer the pros of both.
Topic: Where is it safe to store money? - page 4. (Read 2323 times)
Damn that's a long list.
I thought these exchanges work under the same policy as the brokers did. For example I'm covered upto 500k for securities and 100k for deposits -by brokers I mean stock brokers using their platform. I thought these exchange people would have something similar.
What about wallet companies? Electrum ? what if it fails?
I'm not a trader, but in the time i've been involved with BTC, i've seen several exchanges getting hacked, starting to lock a lot of user's accounts and/or just plain run away... It is very rare to see the victims reimbursed.
As for your second question: electrum is an open source wallet (most, but not all, wallets are open source). If ThomasV decides to stop support, somebody else can continue where he left off. If nobody is interested, you can still use your recovery seed to generate your xprv, and derive your private keys/public keys/addresses from this xprv.
In short: in the (very slim) chance electrum ever seizes to exist due to no dev wanting to continue the project, electrum users will still be able to generate a private key to spend all unspent outputs that were spendable by addresses generated by their electrum wallet... However, it would take some technical know-how to do this.
Hi,
Just wondering , is it safer to keep money at an exchange like place poloniex or kraken what not or a wallet like Electrum?
It is very neat to have it all in one place like an exchange, for example, I currently mine and use their address to deposit my earnings for bitcoin I used to give my Electrum address but now I'm thinking it's better to just keep them at one spot?
Pros and cons of one vs another?
TIA
Just wondering , is it safer to keep money at an exchange like place poloniex or kraken what not or a wallet like Electrum?
It is very neat to have it all in one place like an exchange, for example, I currently mine and use their address to deposit my earnings for bitcoin I used to give my Electrum address but now I'm thinking it's better to just keep them at one spot?
Pros and cons of one vs another?
TIA
the cons of storing your funds in an exchange or online wallet:
- the owners of the exchange have access to your private keys, so they can use your unspent outputs (steal). so you lose everything
- if the exchange gets hacked, you lose everything
- if the exchange goes bancrupt, you lose everything
- if you do something against the exchange's TOS, they can block you (you lose everything)
- you're only able to do the things that were pre-programmed by the exchange's administrators. There's a big chance you won't be able to sign messages with your address, double spend inputs, pick your own fees,...
If you're not (the only one) in controll of your private keys, you're not (the only one) in controll of your funds.
The only "upside" i can imagine by storing all your funds on an exchange is that it's convenient... So you can pick: convenience or security.
Damn that's a long list.
I thought these exchanges work under the same policy as the brokers did. For example I'm covered upto 500k for securities and 100k for deposits -by brokers I mean stock brokers using their platform. I thought these exchange people would have something similar.
What about wallet companies? Electrum ? what if it fails?
Pros and cons of one vs another?
TIA
You have already said the pros of storing money on an exchange but the cons is that when the exchange decides to shut down without warning and run away with your money. The pros of storing on electrum and the likes are that they are relatively safer because you have control over your funds but the cons is that it is a hassle to move bitcoin out of there when compared to the ease of moving in and out of funds from exchanges. TIA
Hi,
Just wondering , is it safer to keep money at an exchange like place poloniex or kraken what not or a wallet like Electrum?
It is very neat to have it all in one place like an exchange, for example, I currently mine and use their address to deposit my earnings for bitcoin I used to give my Electrum address but now I'm thinking it's better to just keep them at one spot?
Pros and cons of one vs another?
TIA
Just wondering , is it safer to keep money at an exchange like place poloniex or kraken what not or a wallet like Electrum?
It is very neat to have it all in one place like an exchange, for example, I currently mine and use their address to deposit my earnings for bitcoin I used to give my Electrum address but now I'm thinking it's better to just keep them at one spot?
Pros and cons of one vs another?
TIA
the cons of storing your funds in an exchange or online wallet:
- the owners of the exchange have access to your private keys, so they can use your unspent outputs (steal). so you lose everything
- if the exchange gets hacked, you lose everything
- if the exchange goes bancrupt, you lose everything
- if you do something against the exchange's TOS, they can block you (you lose everything)
- you're only able to do the things that were pre-programmed by the exchange's administrators. There's a big chance you won't be able to sign messages with your address, double spend inputs, pick your own fees,...
If you're not (the only one) in controll of your private keys, you're not (the only one) in controll of your funds.
The only "upside" i can imagine by storing all your funds on an exchange is that it's convenient... So you can pick: convenience or security.
Hi,
Just wondering , is it safer to keep money at an exchange like place poloniex or kraken what not or a wallet like Electrum?
It is very neat to have it all in one place like an exchange, for example, I currently mine and use their address to deposit my earnings for bitcoin I used to give my Electrum address but now I'm thinking it's better to just keep them at one spot?
Pros and cons of one vs another?
TIA
Just wondering , is it safer to keep money at an exchange like place poloniex or kraken what not or a wallet like Electrum?
It is very neat to have it all in one place like an exchange, for example, I currently mine and use their address to deposit my earnings for bitcoin I used to give my Electrum address but now I'm thinking it's better to just keep them at one spot?
Pros and cons of one vs another?
TIA
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