Not your keys, not your coins
Not your keys, not your coins. This is a simple truth that every crypto owner needs to know and that I know too. I have also adhered to it and have already written several times that I do not hold coins on centralised exchanges. And yet I had to make a painful experience. You probably know about the CoinFLEX exchange disaster. I have often used the exchange to convert BCH to SmartBCH and vice versa. Sometimes I used the spot market there because the price between BCH and FlexUSD was sometimes better than on the decentralised SmartBCH exchanges, but I never held my funds there for long but always withdrew immediately.
Sometime in April this year I think, I transferred some FlexUSD from SmartBCH network to CoinFLEX and exchanged it into BCH, then I wanted to withdraw my BCH. My withdrawal didn't work immediately, but I was used to it sometimes taking a while. When I still didn't have my BCH the next day, I was a bit unsure. I asked ConFLEX and got an answer that all withdrawals were temporarily suspended but that they were working on resuming them soon.
You know how it turned out, I waited and waited and eventually I was able to withdraw 10% of my BCH. The rest is still on CoinFLEX today. It was converted into LBCH and 1 LBCH is only worth 0.16 BCH. I can convert LBCH to BCH at this rate and then probably withdraw, but I won't do it. I'll wait and see how it goes, maybe I'll get all my BCH back at some point. Maybe I'll lose everything. Today, if you want to transfer BCH from the SmartBCH network to CoinFLEX, you are warned, but back then I was not warned. Was that fair? Of course it was unfair, but it's my own fault. I trusted a centralised exchange. Maybe I was just unlucky, but if I hadn't trusted a cenralised exchange and its stable coin, it wouldn't have happened.
I still have BCH on the SmartBCH network but I am waiting for the decentralised SHA bridge. I will definitely not use centralised bridges in the future. I am also very sceptical about the use of stable coins. The Luna debacle should have been a warning for me and I should have parted with FlexUSD earlier. It is not worthless now, as was the case with the LUNA stable coin, and maybe CoinFLEX will guarantee the rate 1:1 again at some point, but I doubt that I will use centralised stable coins again at some point. Maybe there will be something like the Detoken again. Detoken was decentralised and I could use it without hesitation. There was no third party. Just algorithms and me.
What have I learned from this? I must not trust any stock exchange and any centralised coin. Is CoinFLEX a scam? Are all centralised exchanges scams? No, neither all exchanges are scams, nor is CoinFLEX a scam. I am sure that they all, or almost all, want to function properly and provide good services. But exchanges are run by people and people make mistakes. Exchanges can be hacked, they can go bust, and they can also be real scams. I hardly used central exchanges, now I won't really use them at all.
I also have BCH stuck in CoinFlex and I haven't done the 10% withdrawable.. at the current rate it is not worth much, maybe I'll just wait for the right time or maybe lost all of it. I agree that CEX wants to function properly but people managing it made mistakes, although they don't want to harm their users there are a lot of factors that cause them to make such mistakes. Except for intentional such as scams.