How to keep your cryptocurrency safe after the FTX collapse

1 year ago

The autumn of the FTX crypto speech forced galore to reconsider their wide attack to investments — starting from self-custody to verifying the on-chain beingness of funds. This displacement successful attack was driven chiefly by the deficiency of spot crypto investors person successful the entrepreneurs aft being duped by FTX CEO and co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF).

FTX crashed aft SBF and his accomplices were caught secretly reinvesting users' funds, resulting successful the misplacement of astatine slightest $1 cardinal of lawsuit funds. Efforts to regain capitalist spot saw competing crypto exchanges proactively flaunting their proof-of-reserves to corroborate users' funds' existence. However, assemblage members person since demanded that the exchanges amusement their liabilities to safeguard the reserves.

With SBF, the self-proclaimed “most generous billionaire,” commiting fraud successful wide daylight with nary disposable ineligible implications, investors indispensable support a antiaircraft stance erstwhile it comes to protecting their investments. To safeguard assets from fraud, hacks and misappropriation, investors indispensable instrumentality definite measures to support full power of their assets — often considered arsenic champion crypto concern practices.

Move your funds retired of the crypto exchanges

Crypto exchanges are wide utilized to purchase, merchantability and commercialized cryptocurrencies successful speech for a tiny fee. While different methods, including peer-to-peer and nonstop selling, are ever an option, higher speech liquidity allows investors to lucifer orders and warrant nary nonaccomplishment of funds during the transaction.

The occupation arises erstwhile investors determine to support their funds successful wallets provided and owned by the exchanges. Unfortunately, this is wherever astir investors larn the acquisition “not your keys, not your coins” the hard way. Cryptocurrencies being stored connected exchange-provided wallets are yet successful possession of the owner, which successful the lawsuit of FTX users, was misused by SBF and associates.

Evading this hazard is arsenic elemental arsenic moving the funds retired of the speech to a wallet with nary shared backstage keys. Private keys are unafraid encryptions that let entree to the funds stored successful crypto wallets, which tin beryllium recovered utilizing a backup operation successful lawsuit of misplacement.

Hardware wallet: The safest stake for storing cryptocurrencies

Hardware wallets connection full ownership implicit the backstage keys of a crypto wallet, frankincense limiting the funds' entree lone to the proprietor of the hardware wallet. After procuring cryptocurrencies from an exchange, users indispensable voluntarily transportation their assets to a hardware wallet.

Once the transaction is completed, owners of the crypto speech volition nary longer beryllium capable to entree the fund. As a result, investors opting for a hardware wallet volition nary longer hazard losing funds to frauds oregon hacks happening implicit the exchanges.

Related: What is simply a Bitcoin Wallet? A beginner's usher to storing BTC

However, portion hardware wallets adhd to the wide information of funds, cryptocurrencies stay astatine hazard of impermanent losses erstwhile a token’s worth goes down unrecoverably. Hardware wallet providers person witnessed a crisp summation successful income arsenic investors dilatory determination distant from storing their assets implicit exchanges.

Don’t trust, Verify

In each the crypto crashes that happened this twelvemonth — including 3AC, Terraform Labs, Celsius, Voyager and FTX — breaking of investors’ spot was a communal and evident theme. As a result, the motto of ‘Don't Trust, Verify’ has yet resonated with some caller and seasoned investors.

Popular crypto exchanges, including Bitfinex, Binance, OKX, Bybit, Huobi and Gate.io, person taken proactive approaches to showcase their proof-of-reserves. The exchanges provided wallet accusation that allows investors to self-audit the beingness of their funds wrong the exchange.

While proof-of-reserve shares a glimpse into an exchange’s reserves, it fails to supply the implicit representation of its finances arsenic accusation related to liabilities are often not made publically available. On Nov. 26, Kraken CEO Jesse Powell called retired Binance’s proof-of-reserve arsenic “either ignorance oregon intentional misrepresentation” arsenic the information did not see antagonistic balances.

However, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao refuted Powell’s claims by stating that the speech has nary antagonistic balances and volition beryllium verified successful an upcoming audit.

The supra 3 considerations are a bully starting constituent for safeguarding crypto assets against atrocious actors. Some of the different fashionable methods to instrumentality distant power from the crypto entrepreneurs are utilizing decentralized exchanges (DEX), self-custody (non-custodial) wallets and doing extended probe (DYOR) connected seemingly investible projects.

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