One of crypto investing’s biggest hurdles is convincing investors that it’s safe. Safety is especially relevant for investing in bitcoin and other crypto assets, which are by nature bearer assets with varying degrees of anonymity. There are four other complicating factors:

• The education curve for crypto can be steep
• Most investment advisors and brokerages do not yet offer crypto investing support forcing the “crypto curious” to validate investment opportunities, identify trading platforms and manage assets on their own
• The exuberance that can come from the volatile nature of the space may lead to FOMO (fear of missing out) in opportunistic investors, which could lead them to drop their guard when it comes to trusting platforms and “helpful hands”
• As more decentralized applications come into existence, opportunities abound for bad actors to either manipulate these protocols or take advantage of security vulnerabilities in the forms of bugs to siphon or steal funds.

According to a February 2023 report from Chainalysis, a crypto forensics firm that tracks illicit activity on blockchains, 2022 was the biggest year ever for crypto hacking, with $3.8 billion stolen from cryptocurrency businesses. In fact, October became the biggest single month ever for cryptocurrency hacking, as $775.7 million was stolen in 32 separate attacks.

Full story : Crypto Security: A Beginner’s Guide.