Feds arrest married couple, seize $3.6 billion in hacked bitcoin funds

[localroger]

18. Not really. You can use bitcoin without using an exchange.

I have had about a quarter of a bitcoin donated to me through the tip jar on my personal website (obviously, long before it got so stupidly expensive). I have cashed nearly all of it out by buying gift cards from eGifter, which uses a service that directly accepts bitcoin for payment. The people who get wiped out in hacks are day traders who keep their "bitcoin" fluid by keeping an exchange account that lets them move between BTC and $$$ to take advantage of momentary price shifts. It's not necessary to do this, and if you use Bitcoin directly through a client like Electrum, you are using a method that has never been hacked. If I had more Bitcoin and wanted to do something larger like buy a house, I'd use the exchange to convert the BTC to $$$ and then immediately transfer the balance to a real bank. As far as the other direction I'd never do anything as stupid as paying $$$ to buy bitcoin myself, but if for some reason I went mad and wanted to, I'd have the exchange transfer the BTC to a wallet under my control immediately to reduce my exposure to the hacking problem.