[quantdev]

I, too, have had terrible past experiences with Coinbase and I no longer use them. I now buy on Gemini for fiat -> BTC and use other exchanges for altcoins. That said, I no longer keep any crypto on any exchange, including Gemini. The whole point of Bitcoin is that you are your own bank via ownership of your private keys. By giving them to Coinbase, you centralize the system, concentrate the risk, and create honeypots for hackers. Remember, the government doesn't insure Bitcoin balances like it does with USD in banks and so much Bitcoin has been lost via exchange hacks in the past few years.

Don't let centralized authorities keep your private keys.

[aianus]

If you're an above-average HN reader who knows something about security, then absolutely you should hold your own coins.

But for the average person the chances are much higher that they will get hacked or lose their keys than losing their coins on Coinbase.

[mcherm]

> The whole point of Bitcoin is that you are your own bank

There are several important differences between Bitcoin and traditional currencies. This may be the most important one to you, but it is not to everyone.

[hentrep]

Given the high profile attacks on crypto exchanges over recent years, how much trust do you place in Gemini securing your SSN, proof of ID, and proof of address?

[quantdev]

Not very much, but only because those are byproducts of a cryptocurrency hack. If they didn't control centralized private keys and thus implicitly have one of the biggest bug bounties, I would be less worried about people hacking my SSN, ID, etc. from Gemini.

That said, I also don't care as much if those get hacked as I can recover from stolen identity, while it's impossible to get back stolen bitcoin.

[finnjohnsen2]

They are so convenient though :)