3 Tips to stay safe when using an exchange

[Decoded]

Keeping Safe on a Bitcoin Exchange Today i'm going to be discussing one of the biggest service when it comes to trading bitcoin. The place where you trade it.
Bitcoin exchanges are notorious for going scam ("bankruptcy") or getting hacked. To name a few big ones,
- Mt Gox
- Cryptsy
- Bitfinex

These scams always end up with exchange users in the red. Some people have lost tens of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin on exchanges. This is months of pay for most people. I've come up with three tips to help you and your coins to stay together.

Tip 1: NEVER store coins with someone else longer than you have to
Your bitcoin is yours. When it is in your wallet, under your private key, no one knows it. You are the only one with access. If you deposit on the exchange, you are giving your bitcoin to them, and they send to you some credit on their platform. They can do whatever they want with your bitcoin. If an exchange gets hacked or runs with your coins, there's no transaction reversal process. Your coins are gone, unless the exchange's local government takes action.

Deposit your fiat/crypto into the exchange, do what you need to do (trade, sell), then withdraw whatever is there when you're done ASAP. The longer it's in an exchange, the higher the chance is that you'll lose them. Say, if you keep your coin on an exchange overnight, what if the exchange gets hacked, then and there?

Prepare for the worst.

Tip 2: Only use licensed exchanges that are regulated by a government, preferably yours.
If an exchange is unlicensed, it means they aren't insured and regulated by any official party. Even the owner is anonymous. If the site goes down, authorities may have no one to chase. They're just like any other website, or a person for that matter. Would you trust a guy on the street with all your bitcoin?

One exchange that I know of is BitStamp. They were licensed by the Luxemborg government. Honestly, BitStamp is the only exchange I trust at the moment.

Although ruling out non-licensed exchanges will severely reduce your choice of them, it's worth every bit of the risk.

If you're lucky enough to find a licensed exchange that's in your same country and under the same government, your bitcoin will be proud.

Tip 3: Before depositing and withdrawing, check if the bitcoin address belongs to you/the exchange.
There has been many reports of malware changing bitcoin addresses in clipboards (where your copy/paste information is stored), so when you paste your deposit/withdrawal address, it puts in the scammer's bitcoin address. Most people don't check this, and simply click "send". Then poof, you just sent your bitcoin to the hackers.

Remember to always check your bitcoin address after you paste it. I always do this, and even though I have not been infected by the malware before, I've seen many people on bitcointalk fall victim to this.

Thanks for reading my thread. I hope you learned something from it!
If you liked this post or found it informative and educational, please don't hesitate to give me a big thumbs up below! Thanks!
Tips go here: 1fdFgrw59gczh96esrpJST6MVHyQm4VJK

[dotthebeats]

Thanks for these tips. I dont really leave my bitcoins on exchanges because im quite aware on the risk especially on storing big amounts. Its better to prevent the possible situation.