CZ says exchange custody may be safer than self-custody for crypto

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao said storing crypto on exchanges may be statistically safer than self-custody for many users, citing Willy Woo's figures showing about 1.57 million BTC lost through self-custody versus roughly 1.51 million BTC lost on exchanges. Zhao said the comparison challenges the long-running "not your keys, not your coins" ethos, though he stopped short of declaring either model universally superior and instead backed a balanced approach based on user experience and risk tolerance. He also pointed to Binance's Secure Asset Fund for Users, or SAFU, which was established in 2018 and holds about $1 billion, saying exchange custody has evolved since the Mt. Gox era; Binance used the fund after its 2019 hack to cover the full loss of roughly 7,000 BTC. The debate has gained urgency as investors weigh the trade-off between individual mistakes in self-custody, such as lost keys, inheritance failures and phishing, and the concentrated risk of exchange collapses that can affect large numbers of users at once.