I just read this sobering tale about a guy who lost $8,000+ worth of cryptocurrency after being hacked. I’ve said it before, but this bears repeating: don’t trust anyone to hold your cryptocurrency for you. Online exchanges aren’t banks, and leaving your digital currency under somebody else’s control leaves you vulnerable to hacks like this one.

I wrote a wallet security guide a few years ago, and the basic principles are the same today: keep your coins in wallet addresses that you control, back up your wallet keys, and store multiple copies offline. If you don’t want to deal with manually securing your keys, you may want to invest in a hardware wallet (like the Trezor or Ledger Nano S—both support BTC, LTC, ETH, and other coins).

The author of the story that prompted this post offers some additional pieces of good advice, such as not making it obvious that you hold cryptocurrency on social media, and using a separate secret email address when dealing with exchanges.