IMPORTANT- Do Not Hold Funds on Exchanges!
Hello Steemers and Steemettes,
Hello everybody! It has been a little while since I have posted, so I have decided to post a little piece of advice to those still holding any Cryptocurrencies or funds of any kinds on Exchanges. Please don't do it. I havnt held any Bitcoin on an exchange for a long period of time since the Mt. Gox ordeal happened. Things like that are possible and scenarios like the following happen in rare occasions..
https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/4w9gqq/my_friends_kraken_account_was_just_hacked_please/
Be safe and Take precautions with your funds. I am involved in both Bitcoin and Ethereum. I make sure to have all my keys backed up onto a few USB sticks and also write down my passwords and put them in a safe place. Also when it comes to my Ether, I never hold them on an Exchange, I keep them on my Mist wallets. Exchanges get Hacked, It's better to be safe then sorry.
Something else I would like to advise anybody involved in Bitcoin and/Or Ethereum at all, to look into the Ledger Nano S. When it comes to being safe with your Bitcoin and Ether, this pretty much is as good as it gets.
https://medium.com/@Ledger/ledger-nano-s-secure-multi-currency-hardware-wallet-65b0574cfaa1#.g0b2gxiqz
https://www.ledgerwallet.com/products/12-ledger-nano-s
Computers have certain vulnerable aspects no matter how safe you are, so when it comes down to it, if you can store you Funds offline on something like the Ledger Nano, it is good to do so. Paper wallets too are good. If somebody gets access to your computer, you are still safe with an offline wallet and it's also an ease of mind to have. Same thing with your Steem and Steem accounts, backing up your keys are always good to do and to keep those keys off of your computers in case of an intrusion of your device.
But Steemit has become a lot more secure then it was a month ago. New security protocols, Password resets working beautifully now, I am so happy to see everything's moving so smoothly now. Steemit is a beautiful tool, I truly hope to see it excel and move upward from here. Everybody stay Steemy!
Much Love,
-decryptson
Thanks <3
I've had so many warnings. Mt.gox/cryptsy/bitcoinica and other exchanges getting hacked. This time i got to be a victim myself (not a big loss since most of my funds are in cold storage), but for now i've also put alot of alts in cold storage aswell. Guess i had to learn it the hard way.
For those who do, keep in mind that usb-sticks and hard-drives could get failures so make sure to make multiple backups.
I was thinking about copping the nano because I am over these hacks. It only takes one and then it's too late. Back in January I held 500 ether, which at the time wasn't worth much and I kept it on an exchange. Worse than that, I was lazy and since ether wasn't as valuable as it is now I never enabled 2FA on the exchange I had it on, I'm sure you can guess the rest. Unfortunately it is impossible to trade crypto without having your coins on an exchange. I trade off the 240 min chart so I take positions for quite some time. Sometimes it takes months for me to hit my target or get stopped out. How I deal with this is I only keep 50% of my crypto holdings on the exchanges I use at a time. I know it seems like a lot but I spread my assets across many different exchanges in case one goes down to minimize risk. That is also what I can afford to loose so thats how I deal with it.
Luckily I knew Bitfinex was a scam exchange and took my coins off Bitfinex after the first hack. When they were powering down their servers during huge rallies and dumps and admitted to trading on their own exchange I tried warning everyone and even twittered them calling them out. Unfortunately my warnings fell on deaf ears and I have no sympathy for those who neglected to listen to my warnings.
If you are looking for ultimate security for your stored coin, you need a good "cold storage" wallet. One of the best sources of entropy/randomness for generating your private key/address for that storage is >>ordinary dice<<.