What’s A CryptoCurrency exchange and are any really worth the costs?
Here we are 11 years after the infamous Bitcoin white paper that ostensibly ushered in the brave new world of the block chain as immutable ledger for transactions and storage of information. But, are we really any closer to or safer with these on and offline transactions? Let’s take a look.
Today, November 4, 2019, anyone who has spent any time studying block chain systems is wary at best when people bandy about Bitcoin as a store of value or now 1000’s of other cryptocurrencies — each of which are one form of block chain asset or electronic property. It is estimated that there are about 41 million people worldwide who have had some form of dealings with a crypto asset most notably Bitcoin or BTC. And most people have had some form of dealing with a crypto currency exchange and an electronic wallet.
So, what’s a crypto currency exchange? Just like it’s tag, it is most often an online digital platform where one form of crypto asset can be traded for another. From the early days, these exchanges have facilitated trading anywhere from a few crypto assets to now 100’s — generally against the values of bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin or doge and usd as being the most popular to trade. And are exchanges safe? Not very as it’s important to note that these exchanges have also been plagued by fraud, theft, greed, corruption and hackers just to name the most common pitfalls to investors to this day. And centralized exchanges are certainly not any better and just bigger targets. Founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, stated, “I definitely hope centralized exchanges go burn in hell as much as possible.”
So, the best investors can do is hold their own crypto assets offline with wallets (do research) and keys that they hold privately. And if people are interested in exchanging their crypto assets research thoroughly (do due diligence) before entrusting their crypto assets to any exchange and then remove their assets once accomplished. I hope this helps others because in my experience trading on various exchanges has consistently been a challenge.
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