Should I trust cryptocurrency exchanges and sell or buy Bitcoin on them?

How reliable are cryptocurrency exchanges? Is it worth storing Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies on cryptocurrency exchanges? Or maybe it’s better to use the services of reliable Bitcoin Exchangers – to sell and buy Bitcoin coins and receive rubles to any bank card at a favorable rate? Below is a clear example of what can happen to a crypto exchange and your money! The end of the year turned out to be unsuccessful for Russian-speaking cryptocurrency exchanges. On December 21, Exmo was hacked, and on the 25th, Livecoin stopped working, explaining this as a “carefully planned hacker attack.“ Livecoin reports on its website that the attack was carried out on the night of December 23-24, after which the exchange lost control of all its servers and infrastructure. The exchange urges customers to stop all operations with the platform, but asset withdrawal and trading are already closed. The exchange‘s information channels were also compromised. Livecoin specialists posted a warning for users on the main page of the exchange‘s website, as employees could still control the web interface. Livecoin said it is making every effort to regain control of its servers. The management of the exchange promised to provide a security updаte in the coming days and announced the involvement of law enforcement agencies. According to the exchange, hackers “managed to hijack the Livecoin infrastructure and change prices on the exchange to abnormally high values.“ The creator of the YellowBlock cryptocurrency portal, known under the pseudonym “Cryptorangutang“, announced on Twitter that the last bitcoin exchange rate exceeded $320,000. However, most likely, the traders themselves “lifted“ the prices, trying to escape from the sinking ship, despite the losses. At the time of publication, the Livecoin website remains inoperable, displaying only a hacking warning. It later became clear that the Livecoin staff had stopped contacting through all channels. Livecoin trading volumes are no longer available on the CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap aggregators. All this suggests that the disappearance of the exchange owners with the remaining user money is behind the “hacker attack“. Livecoin was launched in April 2015 and developed rapidly in the early years, but later began to lose ground. As of December 24, 2020, the platform was ranked only 173rd in the ranking of cryptocurrency exchanges, and its daily trading volume was about $16 million. This week, the Russian-language EXMO exchange also suffered from a hacker attack. The attackers stole over $10.5 million worth of BTC, ETH, USDT, XRP, BCH and ZEC. However, the exchange promises to reopen all operations in the coming days and compensate users for losses. The story of Livecoin is in many ways reminiscent of the collapse of MtGox, Cryptsy, Cryptopia, WEX, QuadrigaCX and other failed exchanges. At first, it all started the same way in rumors, then there were difficulties with the conclusion. And finally, the moment of truth came in the form of a complete closure of the exchange, usually with reference to a hacker attack or other external factors. But in most cases, the reason for the ruin of cryptocurrency exchanges is the incompetence or outright fraud of their founders. It is likely that the same fate befell Livecoin. The “hole“ in the exchange‘s budget could have appeared a few months ago, when the first complaints from users began to appear. And the sharp increase in the exchange rates of cryptocurrencies only accelerated the decoupling, since it is much more difficult to close the gap in a constantly rising asset than in a stable or falling one. Do not trust or store Bitcoin on cryptocurrency exchanges! As history shows, cryptocurrency exchanges are the most unreliable way to store your own funds!