Some things never change do they? We have seen the biggest ever exchange hack in Japan in January 2018, yet there still must be many people, new and experienced investors who leave their funds on exchanges for extended periods.
It is tempting to park your coins on your favorite exchange just in case there is breaking news of an Altcoin, or even Bitcoin starting to surge in value. A classic case of FOMO or just missing the boat.
Speaking of boats, the Chinese were reputedly the inventors of insurance as we might know it today. Their method was to spread their goods across many boats to minimize losses in the event of theft or accident.
It is such a simple philosophy, and the takeaway from this is for us Steemians and Crypto-traders to do the smart thing and minimize the time we leave our coins on an exchange. It may be slower, but it is always good policy to secure your wealth in a hardware wallet such as a Trezor, Ledger or even a Keepkey. Some people are using the Exodus desktop wallet which enables you to trade coins without going to an exchange. The list of available coins is growing, and at the time of writing this article, they have two dozen coins available.
When it is time to visit an exchange when a coin is starting to rise in value, or when there has been hype around a newly listed coin which is going to "moon" you will have a choice of either using a more conventional exchange which allows you to convert fiat, or local currency to Bitcoin or Ethereum. If, however you already have a crypto stash, you could go directly to Binance, who in less than 12 months have become the world's biggest.
They are a Chinese-based company who, very wisely, have set up a branch in Tokyo Japan.
Japan is arguably the most crypto-friendly nation on earth. This is a very intelligent move as they don't have to deal with the stringent regulations that exist in China for "KYC" or know your customer rules. This usually involves photo and document ID processes.
Binance differs from many other exchanges in that they only deal with crypto to crypto. No cash allowed.
They have different account levels. Accounts that have no verification are classed as Level 1.
That means you can withdraw upto 2 BTC each day. For a verified account, daily withdrawal limit is 100 BTC.
Level 2 accounts also require 2FA to be enabled. For this you can choose SMS notification, Google Authenticator, or our favourite Authy. Google is mobile only, while Authy is more flexible with a desktop option.
In summary, we should use the Chinese wisdom of the boats and apply to our modern environment, by putting the bulk of our investment or trading capital on a hardware wallet. Next down the ladder is a good desktop or mobile wallet. A web search or YouTube review will reveal the most popular, and their numbers are growing.
The next evolution of trading will most likely be the growth of decentralized exchanges and 2018 and onwards may even see them replacing conventional exchanges as we know them today. Coinomi is already growing in popularity and the Swiss-based Eidoo promises to take this technology further. Their own coin, EDO listed in October last year and is starting to appreciate in value. Eidoo promises to take on the go trading to the next level.
Please do your own research and learn as much as you can from YouTube and Twitter as well as listening to gurus like Andreas Antonopoulos, who has also written some great books on Bitcoin and the blockchain.
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Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.