How safe is BTC?

I always see these discussions about MtGox and how exchanges can pull out anytime and steal everyones money. How can bitcoin prove to be safe when you can't trust exchanges which BTC depends on! here is just one example:

http://www.reddit.com/r/BitcoinMarkets/comments/2m6rp7/hitbtc_about_to_go_mt_gox/

this is why i don't keep too much BTC on one exchange, I think BTC lost all it's hype >.>

 

pretty safe to me tbh. Also at a steady rate most of the time

 

Don't use an exchange. Use bitcoin.

 

It's relatively safe but be careful with rate changing.

 

If you go through a credible exchange, it is quite unlikely you'll have a problem with it. Don't deal with sketchy sites, you shouldn't have a problem.

If you are buying BTC though, be sure to buy more than you actually need (I generally do about 5%) to account for the continually fluctuating prices; but from the sounds of it, you already own some BTC.

 

Bitcoin in it of itself is very safe and secure. A financial institution running away with peoples money doesn't really discredit it in any way, the same could happen with any kind of money. Any new major exchanges will need to prove that they're secure in order for people to trust them with their btc.

It hasn't lost its "hype." It continues to be used in more ways than ever and be accepted by many businesses.

 

But how do you know what a safe and reliable exchange is? Mt Gox was safe and reliable and #1 at the time and look what happened? It's not the only exchange, this has happened many times!

A financial institution running away with peoples money will discredit it - the people will not use BTC again. Exchanges should ALL be safe and somehow monitored because it is a key point in BTC and if no one can trust them it's doomed

 

Exactly, they'll need to provide assurance that they're legitimate and have multiple failsafes in place to ensure absolute security. If they cannot provide that for their customers someone else will - and they'll come out ahead and have more business.

Bitcoin is an excellent means of exchange. If a bank ran away with USD, or gold, or whatever that doesn't really say anything about the currency itself. The exchanges will evolve as time passes.

 

I personally use an exchange that upon payment sends the bitcoin within three minutes to a specified address. No balance necessary (dutch banking systems ftw).
Selling btc to them will have it on my bank's balance within 24h. I had my bank's balance decrease from 5k€ to 500€ due to an incredibly active weekend. I called the director of the exchange, and he manually counted up all the standing transfers that would've come in after the weekend, and made a manual payment to wire me around €2700 instantly so that I could continue trading.

Just an example of not all exchanges being bad or having bad service.

I'd recommend finding one you like working with, for whatever personal reasons.
I would not recommend keeping too many bitcoins in a wallet outside your own computer as they might be lost.

 

What exchange do you use Sebas?

 

One only accessible if you're dutch. Doubt you can use it for that reason.

 

I keep some of my BTC on an exchange, BTC-E is where I keep mine. Sometimes I heard of BTC-E do shady stuff, but most people keep them on an exchange right? If another huge exchange ran off it would hit BTC even harder

 

The safest would be to keep them on a local wallet on your PC.

 

The problem with BTC right now is that many businesses are operating without guidance or oversight. Financial companies in the United States and abroad are audited by third parties to ensure that the operators of said companies are behaving ethically. Their financial records are audited as well, and in the majority of cases this prevents misuse of consumer funds.

Sites like MTGOX operate just like a financial institution, but lacked any of the oversight seen at financial institutions. This allowed them to lose / steal their customers' money, possibly over the course of years without being noticed. Personally, I think MTGOX was running a Ponzi scheme for a very long time. This would likely have been noticed by auditors very early on.

Fact is, most BTC companies are run without oversight today. I would say that certain companies, such as Coinbase, are likely subject to more oversight than others on the market. Therefore, if you do your research, you can find companies which are more trustworthy than others. BTC-e has been around a long time, but really has only been a high volume exchange for about 2 years. In the Bitcoin world, this may seem like a long period of time, but in the business world it is not. BTC-e also lacks transparency on their ownership.

Bitcoin at your own risk. Nothing beats the security of a well-defended computer with your own Bitcoin wallet.

 

Ew, Reddit links.

 

BTC is generally safe if you know what you're doing. If you don't I would recommend researching beforehand.

 

Bitcoins are pretty safe, thinking on investing.

 

You're more commenting on the security of sites that use Bitcoin opposed to Bitcoin itself. A bank could easily run off with all the money they have, but they'd face far more extreme consequences.

 

It's best to use a variety of bitcoin wallets from different providers. That decreases the risk of all your BTC earnings being stolen.

 

I'd suggest you to use the blockchain wallet and you'll be safe enough.