Not Your Keys - Not Your Crypto

Still holding your tokens on an exchange instead of in your own custody? Then this article is for you. Read further for a guideline of what you should do and what your options are.

With the recent meltdown of FTX and the general turmoil in the industry we need to take a good hard look at the ways you can manage your tokens.

Having your tokens on a Centralized Exchange switched really fast from a pretty safe option to being reckless with your hard-earned funds.

Except two, no CEX has shown auditable merkle tree proof of reserves for their actual treasury, which brings an immense risk that these exchanges actually don’t carry all the funds they owe their customers.

This gets to an even more extreme level when these Centralized Exchanges actually trade leveraged products with your tokens. What happens if this goes wrong can be seen live in the ecosystem right now.

In the aftermath of the FTX fall out, it came to light that FTX lost over $8 Billion of user funds and a large amount of VC money.

After the fall of 3AC, this is another breakdown of a big institution which sent heavy shock waves through all cryptocurrencies, where we haven’t witnessed the end yet.

So what can you do to help bring crypto to a more stable place? Get. Your. Tokens. Off. The. Central. Exchanges. Use a wallet. Trade on DEXs. Only use CEXs as a way to on- and off-ramp.

Our Polkadot ecosystem has multiple great solutions to take control over your tokens and get them away from CEXs. Additionally, we are blessed with tons of DEXs as well.

Here are some Polkadot native non-custodial wallet options you should check out.

Desktop: Talisman is a web3 browser wallet built for Polkadot and Ethereum. Multi-chain by default, Talisman works with 100+ networks and 130+ tokens by default and features the best portfolio management in Polkadot. It's non-custodial, audited and supports Ledger devices.

Mobile: Nova Wallet​ is a secure & open-source iOS/Android application for the Polkadot & Kusama Network ecosystem which provides the ultimate self-custodial mobile wallet experience!

Nova supports over 65 networks, NFTs, extensive DApp support (for Substrate & EVM), crowdloans, governance support, staking functionality, and over 200 cross-chain transfers possibilities

If you choose to take care of your tokens yourself you have the possibility of putting your tokens to use in our staking-based ecosystem. Many chains offer staking options for interested users to secure the network and gain tokens through their commitment.

Another option is providing liquidity in the multitude of DEXs the Polkadot ecosystem has. This can yield higher rewards, but will bring higher risks as well.

So don’t wait too long and risk losing your funds on the next FTX. Get back in charge of your money and transfer your tokens into your own custody.