Comment by Al-Khwarizmi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Al-Khwarizmi | Hacker News Reader

I had been following Nano (previously Raiblocks) since it was at around $0.5 (now $10). I was convinced it was going to go up due to the promising tech compared to other cryptocurrencies. But I didn't buy due to exchange risk, as the only exchanges carrying it were Bitgrail and Mercatox, both small exchanges that didn't give me much trust.

I was a bit regretful when I saw how it skyrocketed in price, but now I know I made a reasonable choice... of course, perhaps I would have sold some time ago already and my money would be out of Bitgrail by now, multiplied by 10 or so. Or maybe not. But the risk was very real all along.

To me, exchange hacks and exchange risks are the biggest problem for crypto to be accessible to the mainstream. While we can't buy and store coins in a safe and trusted way, it won't be ready for the average (even reasonably tech-savvy) user.

How exposed are Nano/Raiblocks lost from the hack? As of now there are many exchanges https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/nano/trading_exchanges including major ones like Binance.

This is also why i decide to hold coins that i know i can hold with hardware wallets. Yes I wont make much gain speculating on altcoins, but i know i wont lose money due to risk as such

You can store them in a safe.

Yes, if I had bought, I would probably have stored them in a local wallet. But anyway, they must be on the exchange at least for the necessary time to make trades, which is often more than one thinks as withdrawals tend to take time, etc. And if the hack/scam/etc. hits precisely on the day that you're trading or pending a withdrawal, you're out of luck.

Probably some Bitgrail users were minimizing the time their money was on the exchange, but they were unlucky enough to have it there at the wrong moment.

And anyway, this is not the kind of thing people should need to think about if we want crypto to become mainstream. If I place an order on my bank to buy some shares, I don't need to be thinking that I should go to the bank as soon as possible and request the original paper version of my shares (does that exist anymore?) to store in my safe because it could get stolen from the bank any day. The risk of that is so minimal no one but the most paranoid would worry about it. Having significant risks of that kind totally kills crypto (or at least all but the largest coins) as a mainstream option.

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