Well first, let's assess some of the key aspects the safest exchange needs to fulfill. To be able to do that we need to know the dangers out there. With the current digitalization of the whole world, nobody was really surprised when digital currencies started appearing. However, as so often with new technologies, it isn't really easy to comprehend let alone use efficiently and safely. But basically, it all boils down to one thing: losing money. Nobody wants to do that of course, so here's what you should be looking out for on your quest to find the safest exchange.

Losing access

Well, what good is having millions in your bank account if you simply can not access it? Many people experienced a quite similar thing with the rise and fall of so many exchanges. People trust in exchanges like they put trust in a bank. The key difference, however, is that banks are heavily regulated by different governments and are mostly backed up by insurances while exchanges are many times small offshore companies in a completely unregulated environment. This isn't necessarily a bad thing by itself but rather a direct consequence of the technology being newer than the law covers.
Losing access to the money you deposited in an exchange is a real possibility, especially if the exchange gets hacked, receives an official warrant against some accounts or if it's simply down for maintenance. If any of those cases happen it will lead to you being unable to withdraw your funds. So the safest exchange needs to guarantee instant access to all your funds. The safest exchange must not be able to hold your funds hostage. The safest exchange must force you to hold the private keys.

Fraud

Of course, if there's money fraudsters will appear. It's pretty easy to create a fake website offering awesome conditions with a guaranteed return on investment. As the old German saying "Papier ist geduldig" (paper is patient) already states, paper will hold whatever you write on it. The same is true for websites, anybody can come and create a website, giving it the look and feel of a real exchange and just scam everyone that falls for it. The biggest fraud most often appears to be one of the safest exchanges, at least they try their hardest to appear to be. Therefore the safest exchange needs to have a community that confirms that it's working. People like you and me writing about an exchange and confirming first hand that it's working.

Double "spending"

Many exchanges operate completely off-chain, basically allowing them to collect funds from many people and assign it however they want. As long as everybody keeps the money on the exchange they can just assign some numbers in their database without actually holding the value backed up in real coins/tokens. This is the method of choice of many ponzi scams like those "free" cloud mining sites that suddenly appear out of nowhere. They operate as long as more people deposit money than there are people withdrawing. This just means that the safest exchange cannot be one that has the possibility of doing this. So the safest exchange needs to be one that does not allow deposits into accounts.

Losing money temporarily

Well, how can you lose money? The safest exchange definitely needs to prevent this. What I mean is that if you're unable to trade at the exact instance when the price is perfect, you don't profit off the best rates possible and end up paying more or getting less. Which is pretty bad. The problem with exchanges is that they have an order book, meaning there needs to be someone to match your order for you to be able to trade it. If that is not the case your order will just wait for better times. This is something that should not happen on the safest exchange. Decentralized and standard exchanges both face this exact same problem, so the safest exchange can only be an instant exchange, allowing for direct and instant trading with the platform itself.

Summary

To sum everything up, the safest exchange needs to be fast, have no control over your money, does not put your funds at risk in case of an attack and of course it needs to have an active community or support. If you're able to talk to the support and they respond quickly it's perfect because this ensures quick help should there ever be a problem.
This basically rules out most exchanges for the place of the safest exchange. The only ones meeting all those criteria above are instant exchanges, but they're hard to find. The big 3 competitors are Flyp.me, shapeshift.io, and changelly.com. Changelly requires the creation of an account and shapeshift.io does heavily track its users and provide support and information to law enforcement. Considering those points could put your personal safety at risk, I'd have to go with flyp.me as the safest exchange. Keep in mind that this might change at any point in time, so reevaluating the safest exchange needs to be done permanently. This is just my opininon but I'll update y'all as soon as I discover new things about the safest exchange out there.

Disclaimer

I am in no way a professional and this should not be considered financial advice. Do the proper research before investing.

The sponsor of this article requested completely "unbiased, reasoned and independent" content about the safest exchange which I try my best to provide. In case there are any mistakes or wrong assumptions, please let me know so I can correct them.