The addresses of the exchange are known and everyone can see the money that goes in and out. It would be quite difficult to actually steal the money.
would it? what keeps them from just making up a new address and stealing the $? and then transferring that cash to some anon coin? (genuine question; not versed in this at all.)
Sending to that new address would be public.
Yeah, but it's hard to say whether the transaction to the new address was done by a fraudster or the exchange.
They can claim their private key was stolen, and it wasn't the exchange's owner, but we have no way of knowing for certain.
so? Sending to an exchange and then selling it for a discount - what exchange would say no?