Binance CEO Under Fire For Encouraging Crypto Storage Directly On Exchanges

By Prashant Jha

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, or CZ as he is known as, has received a great deal of flak for apparently encouraging users to store their crypto holdings directly on exchange. He recently took to Twitter to (as he later clarified) to promote BinanceDEX but his tweet came across as one mainly encouraging crypto storage on an exchange.

He had written:

Store coins yourself. You fight hackers yourself, and guard from losing wallet yourself. Computer breaks, USBs gets lost.Store on an exchange. Only use the most reputable, proven secure, exchanges.Or move to DEX, disrupt ourselves

From his tweet, the main takeaway that his followers seemed to have had was the second point about choosing one of the top cryptocurrency exchanges to store one’s coins.

This post ended up sparking an outrage as most felt this would be akin to handing over the keys to one’s holdings to hackers. Secure crypto storage is a big deal and simply storing them on exchanges might lead to breaches that play directly into the hands of hackers.

At a time when cryptocurrency scams are rife and concerted efforts are being made to promote secure storage, Zhao’s comments were seen as taking a step backwards.

You May Also Read: How To Secure Crypto Wallets?

Many members of the Twitteratti poured out their skepticism in varying degrees of politeness. While some were apparently polite, others were downright scathing. Let’s take a look at some of them.

@WhalePanda said:

There’s always a way an exchange could get compromised. If you’re 100% confident you’re a scammer.

@ArminVinBitcoin said:

When Binance gets hacked, this tweet will become a meme.

Scathingly, he added:

PS: Not if… when

@satoshireaper asked:

Why don’t you promise insurance if you’re so confidence with your exchange?

However, some users stood by Zhao, like Adrian Redman, who tweeted:

As a rule I would normally never keep my coins on an exchange but Binance is probably the only one I would consider doing so on.

However, following the backlash, Zhao once again took to Twitter to clarify that he did not mean to downplay the importance of secure storage. Instead, he had hoped to promote it better, with the coming of BinanceDEX.

He wrote:

Some people seems to misread this tweet. It lists 3 options. It does not say which option is better than another, as that depends on each persons security skill, preference, fund allocation, etc.Most importantly, it is an ad for the #BinanceDEX. My bad for not making it clear.