Who do you trust with your investments?

in #bitshares5 years ago

Investors in the US markets have a pseudo-government agency that has their back, the SIPC. If a broker takes their investors' money, this "insurance" makes them whole.

Contrary to some conspiracy theorists, I believe the US government is not going anywhere. So I would say that SIPC is more trustworthy than many other account insurance schemes, with the exception of FDIC.

Such insurance is not available from a trustworthy source on most (all?) Bitcoin exchanges. Stop and think of where your cryptocurrencies are, and who holds the keys to those funds.

If you hold your keys to your Bitcoin wallet, great. You are your own bank, and should protect those keys the way a bank would protect their teller drawers.

But with all of those precautions, what if you want to do more than just hodl BTC? Sending those coins to an exchange is like giving your funds to someone else to invest in your behalf. What if they simply walk away?

One way to limit exposure is to only put part of your funds at an exchange. You can also diversify across multiple exchanges, although some would argue that increases your chances of getting robbed.

Why not use an exchange where you own your funds, you have the key, and you can trade multiple currencies? THIS is what I love about BitShares.

What would it take for someone to "exit scam" an entire blockchain? In the DPoS world, they would have to be all "witnesses" on the network, or collude with them. I rank that chances of that occurring at about the same level as a successful 51% attack on Bitcoin. Theoretically possible, but highly improbable.

I will certainly agree that the BitShares network is not as well backed as the FDIC or SIPC. But I do trust that my coins will be there, under my control. I have wallets on most major blockchains. I have the keys. I control the funds in those wallets. If someone wants to pull an exit scam, they will have to take the entire chain.

When it comes to moving coins and tokens around, I use BitShares.

Stay cautious, my friend. And as always, I welcome your comments.