NOT YOUR KEYS NOT YOUR COINS, BUT...
Earlier today I got a scare through a bitcoin key at a coinbase account. I did my best to teach her the great value of crypto currency. I took my time to really explain to her the importance of owning your own address. So I copy and paste the address I got from coinbase. I gave her a link through another explorer where she can see the traffic from that particular bitcoin address.
Everything went great for couple of days. Earlier today the address was cleaned up of all bitcoin. At first I was cool but frightening to see all bitcoins gone from that address. I could not check it through Coinbase itself. Finally I checked it from the explorer and then from Coinbase. Now I see the value of not your keys, not your coins.
For a newbie, they do not care about of the spec and the headache associated with
having your own keys, public and private. The knowledge is very important to acquire.
When I dig deeper, Coinbase creates more bitcoin addresses for the end user. It has to do with safety and security reason.
I learned today not to think about the address when you deal with coinbase even though it belongs to you. Secondly somehow they withdraw the funds or use it. You will see the value the same in your pseudo wallet. Taking into account how techie it is to think about keys in crypto, I wish all blockchain adopts the way #hive does it by using a username and hide your actual public keys to the public.
Lessons learned. You have a piece of mind knowing they are doing anything to saveguard your tokens. It comes with an hefty price. Hope they never charge like a bank to hold the tokens. Time will tell when bitcoin value is going through the roof. It could be safer to have centralized exchanges shared the responsibility. Right back at you with the trust factor. Right now stack your satoshis high.
nb: The source link is my referral link from Coinbase where you can earn free crypto by learning and purchase for $100.
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