What’s the safest option to hold BTC ?

[tequilla_sunset]

Yeah, that is one of the safe methods. But there are some other safest methods such as securing it with a steel washer by writing the seed phrases on it and storing it somewhere safe. There is a tutorial on another forum where a veteran forum member explained how you can do it yourself. If you have a large amount of money, you should be careful with your money. Writing it in a piece of paper is a good idea as well, this is most used method I guess.

Yeah, and paper may be gone in no time / eroded with time, so it's a no-no if you have the funds for better options.

Thanks for the tips nevertheless, though! Appreciated.

[Z-tight]

So, even a hardware wallet is not safe if you do not have basic knowledge and don't know how to maintain it. Never ever put your seed phrases anywhere.

It is true, you can't have a hardware wallet and have a bad opsec, chances are high that you will lose your funds. I have met someone in real life, who actually believes that unless his device is stolen, he cannot lose his funds, then i asked him what he thought his seed phrase was for and he couldn't give a correct answer. He is lucky i explained things to him.

People should understand that once you expose your seed phrase, be it online or offline, you lose your funds, it is that simple.

[tequilla_sunset]

It is true, you can't have a hardware wallet and have a bad opsec, chances are high that you will lose your funds. I have met someone in real life, who actually believes that unless his device is stolen, he cannot lose his funds, then i asked him what he thought his seed phrase was for and he couldn't give a correct answer. He is lucky i explained things to him.

People should understand that once you expose your seed phrase, be it online or offline, you lose your funds, it is that simple.

Yep, so that's why the phrase should be kept off the chain and off the web, ideally.

[God Of Thunder]

It is true, you can't have a hardware wallet and have a bad opsec, chances are high that you will lose your funds. I have met someone in real life, who actually believes that unless his device is stolen, he cannot lose his funds, then i asked him what he thought his seed phrase was for and he couldn't give a correct answer. He is lucky i explained things to him.

People should understand that once you expose your seed phrase, be it online or offline, you lose your funds, it is that simple.

LOL, yeah. Some people do not understand these things and do not even bother to learn.
If it wasn't possible to access the funds without the hardware wallet, people wouldn't even buy this hardware wallet because they could lose it somewhere or it could be stolen. There is a possibility the hardware wallet won't work anymore, and you can't repair it. Then how would you get your funds? Of course, using the seed phrases. If people are dumb to think that funds cannot be stolen without their devices, these people are likely to get scammed.

[dave_strider]

LOL, yeah. Some people do not understand these things and do not even bother to learn.
If it wasn't possible to access the funds without the hardware wallet, people wouldn't even buy this hardware wallet because they could lose it somewhere or it could be stolen. There is a possibility the hardware wallet won't work anymore, and you can't repair it. Then how would you get your funds? Of course, using the seed phrases. If people are dumb to think that funds cannot be stolen without their devices, these people are likely to get scammed.

Ignorance.

It's getting people drained more than most things out there.

[ZAINmalik75]

Storing assets in a personal hardware wallet is the best option, but if you want to use an Exchange then choose the best ones like Bybit and Binance in my opinion, and indeed Bybit is fully responsible for the lost funds so this adds to the trust in Bybit.

I own some assets on Binance and Bybit exchanges and of course it is still safe, only for trading and the profits will also be sent to my hardware wallet, so it will be safer.

You are doing great if you send your profits to your hardware wallet because you plan to preserve them for longer period of time and wants to make more profit because if BTC really make it to $1 million which many big investors like Michael Saylor or BlackRock has predicted, then it will make people very rich.

I still trust Bybit but still my first choice is Binance and Coinbase, Bybit, Okx I found these exchanges reliablebut my rule is also same as yours that to hold for long term we must prefer non custodial wallets.

[God Of Thunder]

I still trust Bybit but still my first choice is Binance and Coinbase, Bybit, Okx I found these exchanges reliablebut my rule is also same as yours that to hold for long term we must prefer non custodial wallets.

I thought Coinbase stopped accepting users from Pakistan. Do you still use Coinbase? I guess I used it back in 2022 or 2023, but then they started closing the accounts of Bangladeshi users. Anyway, holding your funds on exchanges is not recommended at all. Being a veteran forum member, I believe you have heard this hundreds of times so far.

I use Electrum to receive my funds and it uses it as a hot wallet. If I want to sell my Bitcoin, I use Binance, Kucoin, and other exchanges as well. But to hold for a long time, I am using a hardware wallet.

[ZAINmalik75]

I thought Coinbase stopped accepting users from Pakistan. Do you still use Coinbase? I guess I used it back in 2022 or 2023, but then they started closing the accounts of Bangladeshi users. Anyway, holding your funds on exchanges is not recommended at all. Being a veteran forum member, I believe you have heard this hundreds of times so far.

I use Electrum to receive my funds and it uses it as a hot wallet. If I want to sell my Bitcoin, I use Binance, Kucoin, and other exchanges as well. But to hold for a long time, I am using a hardware wallet.

They have stopped users from Pakistan and that's correct information, but in order to use the exchange we don't have to be in USA, if we have some friend or relative there we can use there accounts, it is not that hard but I am not using it at the moment, I said the reliable one is this, does not mean I am using it too.

I also used electrum but for now I use exchange because I have to do regular p2p and it is easier to do p2p on Binance here. Hardware wallets are the best choice for long term but electrum alone is also enough or some airgapped wallet.

[dekafee79]

Storing assets in a personal hardware wallet is the best option, but if you want to use an Exchange then choose the best ones like Bybit and Binance in my opinion, and indeed Bybit is fully responsible for the lost funds so this adds to the trust in Bybit.

I own some assets on Binance and Bybit exchanges and of course it is still safe, only for trading and the profits will also be sent to my hardware wallet, so it will be safer.

You are doing great if you send your profits to your hardware wallet because you plan to preserve them for longer period of time and wants to make more profit because if BTC really make it to $1 million which many big investors like Michael Saylor or BlackRock has predicted, then it will make people very rich.

I still trust Bybit but still my first choice is Binance and Coinbase, Bybit, Okx I found these exchanges reliablebut my rule is also same as yours that to hold for long term we must prefer non custodial wallets.

I agree with you non-custodial wallets are safer to store our crypto assets if we want to hold them for the long term, I do that too.
and for the short and medium term when I trade I trust binance more, because so far binance wallets are quite safe.
Maybe I haven't tried other exchange wallets because I focus more on trading on binance and local exchanges.

[Trongduy]

- Even though Dexe's platform is not perfect, it is really up to us to choose which one we will use as well as the Cex platforms. That is why as a user of exchangers we must be critical before we come to the point of entering funds into their platform.

Then as a user or trader we must accept to ourselves that the funds we will enter are ones we are ready to lose because of the risk that we may face in the future, that is really because we are entering the crypto trading business.

I'm not a fan of this whole idea that DEXs are safer and better than CEXs, because we've seen so many DEX protocols get hacked, and users took a bath in 2021-2022, it was a total hack-season. Hundreds of millions of investors are still using CEXs, they're not dummies, they have their reasons for sticking with CEXs for the long haul.

Self-custodying crypto sounds safe and all, but look at what PlanB did, he switched all his BTC to a spot ETF, because he felt it was safer than managing his own private keys. Regular investors will always choose convenience, and they'd rather hand over their assets to big institutions than hold their own private keys.

[dekafee79]

- Even though Dexe's platform is not perfect, it is really up to us to choose which one we will use as well as the Cex platforms. That is why as a user of exchangers we must be critical before we come to the point of entering funds into their platform.

Then as a user or trader we must accept to ourselves that the funds we will enter are ones we are ready to lose because of the risk that we may face in the future, that is really because we are entering the crypto trading business.

I'm not a fan of this whole idea that DEXs are safer and better than CEXs, because we've seen so many DEX protocols get hacked, and users took a bath in 2021-2022, it was a total hack-season. Hundreds of millions of investors are still using CEXs, they're not dummies, they have their reasons for sticking with CEXs for the long haul.

Self-custodying crypto sounds safe and all, but look at what PlanB did, he switched all his BTC to a spot ETF, because he felt it was safer than managing his own private keys. Regular investors will always choose convenience, and they'd rather hand over their assets to big institutions than hold their own private keys.

I think CEX and DEX have the same risk, in terms of security we should choose the best and most trusted CEX. I rarely play on DEX because I focus more on binance in making transactions and trading.
Everything will be safe if we can protect our wallet and not carelessly click on links that we don't know the truth.

[Mr. Magkaisa]

Following the recent situation surrounding some exchanges, it seems BTC is not safe to be held in CEXs wallet anymore. Take for instance, the recent Bybit hack which happened unexpectedly, billions of Ethereum was moved even though it was able to recover it through reserves and institutional loans.

This would have been another story entirely if the hack had been done to a Bitcoin reserve but in order to avoid future losses, i’ve been curious to know what the safest option to store BTC could be.

       -       We know that on cex platforms our assets are not your key, not our assets as well, they control everything, even if we know our password and email they can freeze our account anytime they want, most people here know that.

So the best way to store bitcoin is still non-custodial wallets, like Electrum, Unstopable, even the phantom wallet also has a btc segwit wallet, at least in these wallet apps we actually hold it and we have full control over our bitcoin, unlike cex.

[dave_strider]

       -       We know that on cex platforms our assets are not your key, not our assets as well, they control everything, even if we know our password and email they can freeze our account anytime they want, most people here know that.

So the best way to store bitcoin is still non-custodial wallets, like Electrum, Unstopable, even the phantom wallet also has a btc segwit wallet, at least in these wallet apps we actually hold it and we have full control over our bitcoin, unlike cex.

It's mostly about how much you hodl and where do you get your BTC's.

If these factors are big / shady, then surely, you do need your custody to stay with you.

Otherwise, of course, the risk there, but it's minimal due to the amount of funds in question.

[bitbit97]

       -       We know that on cex platforms our assets are not your key, not our assets as well, they control everything, even if we know our password and email they can freeze our account anytime they want, most people here know that.

So the best way to store bitcoin is still non-custodial wallets, like Electrum, Unstopable, even the phantom wallet also has a btc segwit wallet, at least in these wallet apps we actually hold it and we have full control over our bitcoin, unlike cex.

What about security measures? Who is more secured, a single user who has an antivirus program, and a brain, that (I hope) will send signals and prevent from doing stupid steps. Or an exchange who has more advanced security than user. That does not mean that non-custodial or cex are preferable and are the only place where to hold funds, but each option has its pros and cons.

People like to scare everyone with "not your keys, not your crypto" or with "exchange will take your funds and you wont be able to do anything about it". Lets take a top exchange, Binance for example, how many real stories when Binance took someones money for nothing, scammed or disappeared with funds we know?

[omori]

What about security measures? Who is more secured, a single user who has an antivirus program, and a brain, that (I hope) will send signals and prevent from doing stupid steps. Or an exchange who has more advanced security than user. That does not mean that non-custodial or cex are preferable and are the only place where to hold funds, but each option has its pros and cons.

People like to scare everyone with "not your keys, not your crypto" or with "exchange will take your funds and you wont be able to do anything about it". Lets take a top exchange, Binance for example, how many real stories when Binance took someones money for nothing, scammed or disappeared with funds we know?

We can also say about the amount of funds in question - would top CEX, KYC or not, be interested in freezing such a minuscule amount of funds? Highly unlikely.