Even though many of us have no other way of moving money from Fiat to Crypto we should still stay away from centralized exchanges and avoid them like the plague. All of them are owned by greedy bastards that couldn't care less about decentralization and you as their customer.

The Not So Innovative Innovators

I'll start off by stating that most CEX owners are getting more recognition than they actually deserve. CZ Binance, Brian Armstrong, and Samuel Bankman-Fried are constantly represented by the mainstream media as innovators in the crypto space but what innovation did they really bring to the industry?

I traded forex a bit before crypto was a thing and anyone that had the same privilege will tell you that trading looked exactly the same then as it does today... You can't really innovate the order book. It is a perfect concept that Sam, Brian and CZ all copied and pasted into the crypto world. Margin trading was also invented way before their fingers touched the keyboard. So what innovation did these people bring to the table exactly?

The only thing I can think of is the personal wallet(s) that is assigned to your account when you register. That's it... That's the only thing they had to do differently. Everything else was built before them so they just started copying each other's work and capitalism did the rest.

But what about Solana and Binance Smart Chain?!?!

The Stupidity of CeDeFi

I still remember listening to a stream in 2020 where CZ shared his thoughts on DeFi and how CeDeFi, a term he seemingly pulled out of his ass, will be complementary to decentralized finance and not a competitor...

To see how stupid this term really is you should know that it literally means Centralized Decentralized Finance. Don't even try to make sense of it because it is impossible. A centralized blockchain can never host a decentralized application on top of it. You don't have to be a genius to figure that one out.

Two years later we can see both Binance Coin and Solana in the top 10 crypto projects and to be completely honest it makes me want to puke. Not because they made it to the top 10 but because people still try to justify their existence.

Solana is the only blockchain in history that went down for maintenance. In January 2022 it was down six times. SIX TIMES. A blockchain was down six times in a span of just 30 days... Do I need to say more?

Binance Smart Chain launched with 21 validators. And before you ask, yes, all 21 were controlled by Binance... CZ launched a spreadsheet secured by 21 validators and boasted for months about how BSC has cheaper fees than Ethereum. Not such a hard goal to achieve when you control every single thing on that blockchain.

Some changes have been made since then but BSC is still a heavily centralized blockchain, if we can even call it that.

Too Many Revenue Streams

The only department where our innovators seem to be innovative are revenue streams.

They are experts at squeezing as much money from you as possible which is staggeringly simple in crypto. Even though all of them charge very significant amounts on trading fees it doesn't seem to be enough. Instead, they came up with a genius idea of exploiting withdrawal fees and blaming it on "network congestion".

Binance was called out numerous times for using this as an excuse to completely disable ERC20 withdrawals while BSC withdrawals always worked like a charm. And when they would reenable ETH withdrawals they would slap a 50%+ premium on the fees simply because they can.

But if you are looking for the absolute scum of this Earth then look no further than KuCoin. These geniuses charge 1 EWT for Energy Web withdrawals.

For those that are out of the loop, Energy Web has no transaction fees currently. Even when they are enabled they are hardly a fraction of a penny but for some strange reason, Kucoin needs $5 to process your withdrawal.

Shady Business

I have heard a lot of shady stories regarding Binance in the past. Redditors always shared the now-deleted post from CZ where he explained his experience at OKCoin, how the owner used wash trading bots to fake volume, and all that stuff. It's funny that people expected Binance to be any different considering that CZ isn't a very moral person. I was glad to run into a website called Scam Binance recently and it seems that someone is keeping track of all the shady stuff that is going on in paradise.

Coinbase insider trading was also a big story yesterday. Apparently, a few wallets were found buying shitcoins before they get listed on Coinbase and then selling them for insane profits. If you ever wondered why Coinbase is willing to add so many dead shitcoins to their exchange now you know.

Centralized exchanges are not your friend and as soon as regulators come knocking they will not hesitate to freeze or even confiscate your funds. Keeping your money on a CEX is probably the worst thing you can do for yourself and your savings so make sure you invest in a cold wallet and do some research on self-custody. It's really not that hard.

Rant over.

Posted Using LeoFinance ^Beta