I am posting about it to alert new users, I have read multiple times today the catchphrase "be your own bank", which calls for people to hold their own coins in their own wallets, preferably paper wallets. If you have been around for a time long enough you may already get the point I want to make, who never lost their keys??
When claiming that catchphrase, people don't take into account the costs of being your bank.
Let me be clear, from a personal experience, of course, so nothing scientifically proven (some study about it may come up in the future), I know more people, including myself, that have LOST cryptocurrencies they held themselves, than I know people that got hacked, scammed, or were customers of an exchange that closed.
Matter of fact, there is a brazilian crypto exchange called "Braziliex" that is closing right now, but they have warned us weeks or months before that they were going to close, and are honoring and trying to contact every user. By the way, if you are a user of Braziliex, you still have time to withdraw.
However, on the other hand, I do know about exchanges that have been hacked, but they have honored their deposits, for example, the very famous Binance hack, or the most recent Kucoin hack, where the exchange did all the security, financial and technical work, and somehow managed to pay everyone.
Also, exchanges manage forks for you, you can stake without fees, the advantages goes on... And for much cheaper than doing it all yourself.
Talking about fees... There is DeFi... Defi is great if you want to lend, however, you are succeptible to vulnerabilities in the case the smart contract has a bug, and if the fees of Ethereum go high, to the point your volume makes it inviable to profit.
The fees are such an issue, that there are DeFi protocols that work by you lending your coins, and someone else managing where they are allocated, such an example is Harvest Finance.
But wait, does it sound familiar? Lending your money for someone else to manage? Of course, exchanges also do that! You can deposit and let the exchange earn, and pay you some interest on what you hold, while still being liquid.
The whole point of the post is, there is a reason why banks and exchanges exist. You don't see movements calling for you to be your own delivery guy, nor, at least typically, go to a restaurant to be your own chef, or your own doctor (well, there are the anti-vaccine guys but you get the point).
So, if you want to be your own bank, you are free to do it, and it is perfectly fine to teach people how to do it. But don't do it for the cult, and don't hide the risks, know the advantages and disadvantages.
If an exchange gets hacked or goes does, yes you may lose your coins, that is a fact, but so would you lose if you lost your keys or got hacked yourself, and I don't know about you, but personally I do not have a team of devs taking care of my security, the exchange has.
If you want to control your keys, know the risks, and try to understand why do exchanges exist, they allow for quick and easy liquidity, and lower fees for lending and trading.
I have friends that found old accounts on old exchanges and manage to recover the access by reseting the password. I also know people that had wallets but did not save the key properly and either lost the key, or "saved too much" and someone stole their coins.
Trust me, it is sad to look a wallet you know you owned, but you know there is no way to recover the keys.
DeFi is great, but as someone once said, with great powers come great responsibilities. And costs.