I listened with intent to Chris Coney (CryptoVerse, @marketingmonk) excellent coverage of a new Security Rating's report that has come out, as reported by news.bitcoin.com
This brings me back to when I first started in crypto. I was very hesitant to put my money on the exchanges, but I also like money. I wanted so badly to trade, and I can't do trading unless I put my money or crypto on the exchanges, so I needed a way to feel more comfortable. So I, too, did my own security roundup and came up with a "ratings" of sorts.
To me, exchanges needed to be secure. Secure like, say, a castle. Like this one:
I'm a coder, so I write scripts.
This particular script happened to be written in "Python."
| Person | Quote |
|---|---|
| Cryptokeeper: | What...is your name? |
Binance:| Sir Binance of Camelot.
Cryptokeeper:| What...is your quest?
Binance:| To displace the UnHoly FIAT.
Cryptokeeper:| What...is your favorite color?
Binance:| Blue.
Cryptokeeper:| Right, off you go.
The next one who came up was a little too sure of himself. I had already tested everyone's social engineering, network defenses, DDOS vulnerabilities, and even whether or not they let the user show API secrets easily or not. Is their multi-factor authentication up to snuff? Are they on top of wide-spread trading anomalies? Let's see...
| Person | Quote |
|---|---|
| Cryptokeeper: | What...is your name? |
Huobi:| Huobi of Camelot.
Cryptokeeper:| What...is your quest?
Huobi:| I seek the displacement!
Cryptokeeper:| What...is the capital of Malta?
Huobi:| (indignant) I don't know THAT!! (An unseen force whisks him up and over the side.) AAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHH!!!!!!!
This continued for a while, as I interviewed those who knew their bitcoins from their bitconnects and their security from their security tokens. If they didn't know the difference between a token and a coin, I chucked them out.
| Person | Quote |
|---|---|
| Cryptokeeper: | What...is your name? |
Coinbase:| King Coinbase of the Adopticons!
Cryptokeeper:| What...is your quest?
Coinbase:| I seek the bridging of Holy Blockchain and FIAT!
Cryptokeeper:| What...number of bits is the checksum of a bitcoin public key?
Coinbase:| (brief pause) What do you mean, an Base58 checksum or Base64 checksum?
Cryptokeeper:| (confused) Well...I don't know...AAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH!!!
Thomas Lee:| (crossing behind Coinbase) How do you know so much about checksums, sire?
Coinbase:| Well, you have to know these sorts of things when you're a king, you know... (footnote 1)
I eventually was able to judge which exchanges were safe enough for me to trade on.
(Footnote 1) Besides, the answer is the same either way - and it's measured in bytes, not bits, but I just wanted to show him who was King.