Finally got a close friend to take his BTC off an exchange. Took over a year

I won't name the exchange because it literally DOES NOT MATTER. If your coins are not in proper wallet that you hold the only keys to, then you don't own anything and you don't really care about losing anything... Period. There will be droves of people who read this post and STILL don't give a crap about the fact that they could lose their entire holdings overnight. Its beyond lazy at this point, its downright self-destructive.

You name any exchange and no, its not safe to hold your coins there. At this point people who are not taking steps to secure what is actually theirs WILL lose it all at some point. Its not an "if" kind of thing, they are literally ALL uninsured and when push comes to shove they will send you an email and that will be the last time you had access to anything you've accumulated thus far.

My friend watched my shitcoins go up in smoke on Voyager and knew I took my BTC off just in time and still waited over a year to actually get a wallet and bring his BTC to safety. Now he can't believe how much of a risk he was taking by not doing this earlier. He also felt pretty dumb to find out that he did it in about 15 mins. Probably secured $2-3K in a matter of minutes.

I'm not sure how people sleep at night with stuff on an exchange but it boggles my mind how easy it is to avoid it. And if you are chasing a measly 3 or 4% interest for an asset that averages over 50% appreciation every year, then maybe you are not even smart enough to grasp this concept and you'll end up losing it all anyway. You'll will become liquidity for people who are making a killing of others just like you... unless you take 20 minutes and decide you want to actually own BTC for the first time

I digress :) Happy stacking and happy halving in 2024 peeps!