Brain Dump | Morning Musings

Indodax was hacked and they lost $22M more than 19 hours ago wasn't on my bingo card. For anyone who doesn't know what indodax is, they are the oldest exchange operating in Indonesia and have hive listed too for more than a couple of years by now. Their Hive liquidity isn't significant but there's always something over there and people trade Hive from time to time. Somehow, I might be biased but I trust their track record enough and that they have enough reserves to cover the losses. Though this incident is quite big compared to their usual problems and maintenance.

Yesterday, I did a few trades around 2-3 AM and the site was still operating as the usual. Interestingly, the next morning I read they were hacked and the site stopped operating. It sends shocks to most people as they were afraid that the site is going to stop operating and it will happen like FTX. Honestly I doubt so because first, they are in bed with the government. You can't really run an exchange without government approval. They are also registered in the country. Second, they have enough cash reserves and their owner isn't somebody that goes around jetsetting. They are pretty responsible and having headquartered mostly in Bali, it's not that hard to find them. I guess the part that that makes it different with FTX is the degen part, the owner has family and isn't so active on CT but he's active on instagram to talk about various short form contents on politics, culture and what nots. He's not degen at least.

Honestly, my alter ego would never registered to these CEX's but somehow, Indodax was the lesser evil of them all.I went to their office when it was still tiny and just located in a sketchy shophouses in Bali almost 10 years ago. You wouldn't really know it's a crypto exchange operating there 😂 now, they have a big office with pretty cool sign too.

I never have any problem with them. Their service is fast and I know, their fees is pretty huge but it was worth the convenience. Around 2021, I heard many indonesians migrate their funds to TOKO Crypto, a part of binance that has just gotten license but they are as difficult as Binance. Some indonesians prefer the place because their low fees and more coins/tokens to trade on. But lately, indodax tried to match the tokens that are also listed on Binance.

Anyway, this kind of hack is just another reminder to always store your wealth away from CEX and just use cold hard wallet. Diversify as always cause it feels a lot less sting knowing that you don't store too much over there 😄