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Comment by RealityVoid | Hacker News Reader

This is a common claim in crypto circles, but my experience rings the other way. Sure, some crypto exchanges have fallen, but there have been many many people that stored their funds on their own, improperly, and lost them. I had a friend that kept the keys in plaintext in google drive and lost them.

IMO, the average user has weak opsec and is safer to keep crypto on exchanges. Get a good reliable one and use 2FA and you should be fine.

I did pretty much all options. Kept the cryptocurrency on paper wallets, multiple exchanges and now on a HW wallet( I use a Trezor) but I don't advise this for all.

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You are 100% incorrect. Not your keys, not your coins. Any meaningful amount of Bitcoin out to be stored on a hardware wallet.

If user can't be bothered to learn anything or read anything or accept months-pending Windows update, he should not touch cryptocurrency.

So, for the "average user", the answer is not storing on an online exchange, but to never touch cryptocurrency in the first place.

I really don't see why crypto will end up different than the banking sector in the long run when it comes to this. They're still my dollars even if Bank of America technically has possession of them.

Nobody argues that the only safe place to keep your money is in a safe in your basement, what's up with the crypto world where the advice is reversed?

IMO, this comes from the origins of bitcoin, they were used and developed by a bunch of cypherpunks and privacy enthusiasts. For them, key handing is paramount! They then created this mythos and sets of advice that were handed down.

But it can be used wither way. What matters is the freedom to chose.

> You are 100% incorrect. Not your keys, not your coins.

Yes, I know the theory but saying this 10000x times does not change the fact that for some use cases, it might be the wrong decision. I feel the crypto community is WAY too dogmatic about this.

The beauty of the way cripto is working is that it can be both ways. You can control your keys as much or as little as you want.

If things were the way you say, crypto would not be what it is today. Simply wishing that things were this way or say that they're "using it wrong" feels silly to me.

Do you have any preference towards a Ledger, Trezor or other?

I believe Trezor is fully open source, while Ledger is not. Both obviously have a good track record though, and have been around for a while. Personally I feel safer with the Trezor, I think the biggest risk to these things is that the key generating algo or hardware is flawed and the key is guessable, which seems less likely for an open source device with many eyes on it.

Lots of shenanigans going around recently as almost all of Ledger’s purchaser history was leaked:

https://old.reddit.com/r/ledgerwalletleak/

Doesn’t help that almost everyone recommended buying direct as the safe choice to avoid fraudulent devices and/or unscrupulous vendors leaking their buyers...

oh christ, I guess time to get a new phone number?

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