Hey Steemit Friends,
The security of crypto assets concerns me and I think the overall sentiment is fairly negative in the global opinion. When older people ask you is your money safe? How is it secure? Can't hackers just take it? How do you actually answer it? Even in discussion with a fellow crypto fanatic how do you answer it correctly?
Common answers seem to be:
(a) Move them off the exchange to a wallet
(b) Enrypt/develop seed/good password
(c) Copy down private key and store safely
(d) Optional - Paper wallets
(e) Optional - Store on computer not connected to the internet
This is standard practice and for some reason everybody seems to be OK with this? Let me tell you, when I buy shares through a stock broker, I don't take the digital footprint for these shares to my personal 'share wallet' and then encrypt it and write down a private key to store in a binder under my desk... No, I trust that when I buy shares, they are safe in my account and assuming the company is still there 15 years later, these shares will still be there too.
As we saw today, apparently not even the wallets are 100% safe ($32 Million Stolen). Those people did everything right and still got burned. Doesn't anybody think that it's a bit of a cop-out that you can have accounts on these exchanges, but if you're in for the long term it's better to use cold storage.
On top of this we constantly see stories of people whose money and crypto is in limbo for weeks at a time while the exchanges try to get their shit together (Poloniex cough cough). This will not create confidence in the eye of the general public.
If I buy crypto assets I would like to think that I don't need to worry about a rouge hack or an exchange scamming off with everything in the future. Is exchange and wallet regulation something that may need to be brought in? Is insurance on the cards for exchanges, so they can pay out users in the event where funds are lost?
I really want your average Joe investor to consider crypto as an asset in their portfolio but I don't see how that can happen in this climate. I want worldwide adoption of cryptocurrencies, but first there does need to be security improvements.
Now I am not a firm believer in do not buy and store cryptocurrencies. I personally own a lot of cryptocurrencies. I am just worried about the future.