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With great power comes great responsibility.  It's true that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies give us freedom and for the first time in history, we are able to break away from the elite globalist banking system. 

It is also true that cryptocurrencies are superior to our traditional fiat currencies in a ton of ways which is why banks frawn at them. However, there is one thing the banking system offers us that is absent in the crypto space, and that is ultimate security to our funds.

 Take for example, I can just walk into any bank, register an account with them, deposit some money with them and boom I can go home and relax with a cup of coffee cos am rest assured that nothing is gonna happen to my money as it is entrusted in safe hands. 

However, it's not so when it comes to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin steem and other alt coins. In the crypto ecosystem, you are your own bank,which implies that you are solely responsible for safeguarding your wealth from theft in any way possible. 

Also,your are responsible for ensuring that your funds don't get lost cos you don't have anyone to blame or hold responsible for a mishap. That's why the most important lesson you will ever learn about cryptocurrencies is how to safeguard them and also how to keep them at reach to avoid losing them as well. Although am new to the crypto world, I have also taken a great deal of time to do some research on how to safeguard your crypto tokens against theft as well as how to keep them in reach to avoid losing them altogether.so sit back, grab a bucket of popcorn and let's begin. 

1:Never declare the amount  your crypto portfolio is worth in open forums chat rooms or even on your social media walls. 

2:Never leave your tokens on an exchange 

3:Always use cold storage for long term storage 

4:Do not give ANYONE your private key.

5:Always back up your wallet. 

6:A step to securing your steemdollars against hackers on the steemit platform. 

Never declare the amount  your crypto portfolio is worth in open forums chat rooms or even on your social media walls. 

This is one major mistake I see both new and vetran peeps in the crypto space make all the time,Both on facebook, different forums and other social media outlets. 

Hackers don't just wake up and start hacking random stuffs like crazy to get to your wallet token if they don't have any information what's so ever concerning you that's why they mostly attack exchanges because they know their time and risk is worth it, but when you as an individual start declaring how much you are worth openly anyhow, it's just a perfect invitation for hackers to come for you personally .

  For example I constantly see people coming to  facebook public groups to talk about how much they've invested in bitcoin or other altcoins and how they are making gains or loss bla bla bla... The point here is that there is always someone listening and seeking out flaws on how to capitalize on your mistakes and lay their hands on your precious tokens.

 You coming out to public forums or group chats to declare that you have tens of thousands of dollars in crypto totally makes no sense. You are just indirectly inviting hackers to come test your out and believe me, the end result is always nasty so you wanna keep your crypto portfolio as low key as possible.

Never leave your tokens on an exchange .

This point cannot be overemphasized. Any person that has a good understanding of how cryptocurrencies work will know that exchanges are never a safe place to store your tokens and here is why. 

It's true that cryptocurrency network itself is hacker proof but that does not stop a hacker from sneaking up into your wallet and making away with your tokens if he has the right data he needs. So just like I mentioned above 👆👆about keeping your crypto portfolio low-key, same reason is why cryptocurrency exchanges are always under constant attack by hackers cos they know that once they breach in, there is a lot of rewards for their hard work. 

So if you happen to be under the constant habit of leaving your tokens on exchanges, there is a 95% probability or chance that one day you may lose all your crypto assets to hackers.

So, your best bet is to create a separate wallet for tokens in which you are in control of the private keys, so that after trading on an exchange, you can safely transfer them back to your personal wallet. 

Always use cold storage for long term storage .

Even if you don't leave your tokens on exchanges, there is still a risk to storing all you crypto tokens on a hot wallet for a long periods of time. as hackers can easily stumble upon them and make away with your tokens.

So,the best way to making your tokens hacker proof is by going Cold.

Methods of cold storage include keeping bitcoins:

On a USB drive or other storage media

On a Paper wallet

On a bearer item such as a physical bitcoin.

Use an offline Bitcoin Hardware wallet

Do not give ANYONE your private key.

This means - do not use any of these wallets:

Online web wallets, like blockchain.info, Coinbase, etc. In generally, all wallets which keep the private key on their servers.

Always back up your wallet. 

This means generating recovery pass phrases for your wallet and storing them in an encrypted text file in which you have the decryption key to (password).

Also make sure to do the same with your private keys as they are one of the major ways to recover your funds if anything happens to your device or maybe it gets stolen. 

A step to securing your steemdollars against hackers on the steemit platform. 

Now this is a new trick I learnt while watching steem related videos on YouTube. 

Instead of leaving your money in steem or steem dollars in your steemit account, it is advisable to transfer your steemdollars to the savings account in your steemit Wallet. 

Why use this procedure? It's because it takes approximately 3days to withdraw your steemdollars from the savings account. 

This acts as an action trigger, so that when a hacker gains access to your steemit account he cannot withdraw your funds right away cos you'll be alarted,and this will give you time to react accordingly and secure your account and funds by changing your steemit password before the rouge gets away with your funds. 

Please upvote 👆and resteem if you find this article helpful 

Yours truly steemian 

@ugwucollins