Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance crypto exchange, commented on an incident in which CEO of Euro Pacific Capital Peter Schiff lost access to his mobile bitcoin wallet.
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According to Zhao, centralized exchanges are the best way to store cryptocurrency. In particular, he cited the example of Binance, which through the SAFU fund provides insurance of client funds.
Many hardcore crypto ogs advocate storing your own keys. But the truth is, today most people are not able to secure a key even from themselves (losing it). A trusted centralized exchange is #SAFUer for most people. The numbers speak for themselves.
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) January 19, 2020
Need to work on wallets. https://t.co/bsX3Ea5WCD
However, the words of CZ were met with a degree of skepticism: many remembered the repeated episodes of the site hacking.
This is a really Bad take.
— Javier Bastardo 🏴☠️ (@criptobastardo) January 19, 2020
Specially because Binance have been hacked in the past.
Remember the roll up, @cz_binance
In turn, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said that part of the responsibility for the safe storage of funds lies with the wallet developers.
Disappointed at people replying to this with "crypto is what it is, it's your job to be super-careful and write down backup seeds in three places". We can and should create better wallet tech to make security easier.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) January 20, 2020
Eg. here's a social recovery ERC WIP: https://t.co/tuSbHhXKgd https://t.co/hCBAJKbK41
As a solution to the problem, he proposed to distribute parts of the key between proxies.
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Recall that Peter Schiff’s wallet was compromised on January 19 - the password for the wallet was invalid. The reasons for the incident are unclear.
Later, ShapeShift cryptocurrency platform CEO Eric Vorhes said that it was he who helped Schiff create a mobile wallet in 2018. He emphasized that Peter Schiff did not write down a password or a key phrase.