In the history of cryptocurrency of the past 15 odd years, there's

been plenty of cases where crypto exchanges have done

the wrong thing and next thing you know, you wake up one day

and all your crypto and Bitcoin has vanished. Understanding and

monitoring exchange security practices. So this is

where you're going to be doing your Bitcoin and crypto transactions. If

you want to protect your Bitcoin, make sure you don't

use public Wi-Fi. Never, ever engage with

strangers who claim to help recover lost crypto. And

I can tell you one of the other big ones is there's so many scammers out

there now who are using. I know a lot of people find this boring, but it's

how to protect yourself in the crypto world. I'm Matthew Fraser and

this is Crypto Collective. After making millions with Amazon

and e-commerce, I realised that if I was starting again

today, crypto would be my first choice. I'm here

to help you take your first steps and build real wealth. Ready

to set yourself up for life? Let's go! Hey

guys, welcome to this episode of Crypto Collective. My name is Matthew Fraser. Today,

we're going to be talking about something that's so important. I

know a lot of people find this boring, but it's how to protect yourself in

the crypto world. Let's jump into it. So guys, I know if we jump

into the how do you protect yourself in the crypto space, but

I can tell you from my personal experience of

how easy it would be to fall prey to the

scams and the pumps and the dumps in this space. I

know people firsthand who have lost a ton of money. I'm

talking tens of thousands of dollars to things

that they just didn't know about. So the whole purpose of

this video and my whole community is to make sure

that you are protected at all times as much as possible. And

so I'm going to give you, not just in this video, but in my community as well, a lot

of tips and tricks on things that you need to look out for or have

or utilize in order to protect your wealth into

the future. Okay. So the first one, this is going to seem like the most obvious

one of all time, but it's to secure your private

keys. Now, what are your private keys? It's essentially your password or

passwords to your Bitcoin stash.

Okay. So the fundamental thing is never share your private

keys or your recovery phrases with anyone.

Now, this is one where some people give it up because they

think they're being contacted by someone from, for example, if you use

like a Trezor cold wallet, Someone from Trezor might

contact you. Of course, it's not Trezor. They're never gonna ask you

for these recovery phrases or your private keys, but

you fall prey to it and then you give them up. Next thing, all your Bitcoin

or crypto is gone. So never fall for that one. So, and

then it's storage. Don't store your private keys on

your desk, on, I've even heard of stories of people keeping

it on a post-it note on their computer of

all places. what you need to do is you need to

put it on a written down piece of paper, do

not store it on a device at all, and then you

need to keep that piece of paper somewhere secure, in a

safe, at your parents safe, in a

storage box somewhere, maybe it's with an accountant that you trust,

it could be a solicitor's office or a bank safe box, whatever

it is. If you do keep it in your home, make sure that's

also stored in a safe space as well. So

for example, what I do, not only do I keep it in a safe, but

I also keep the piece of paper in a

another box which is fireproof and waterproof. So

I've gone to the next level of degree. I also keep a

copy of that piece of paper at another location, all

right, so that I don't rely on just one point.

So I guess what they call is not one single point

of failure because you don't want anyone hacking into your device who

can then rip off your passwords, your seed phrases in

private keys and then go and utilize them themselves. That's fundamentally

the reason why. So the next thing is use a hardware wallet

or what I also call a cold storage. So when

thinking about cold storage, the purpose of cold storage

is to mitigate risk. And the risk is having your

Bitcoin on an exchange. That's fundamentally the

reason. You want to take self-custody and take ownership of

the asset yourself. Now, traditionally, when we talk about money,

like our currency, our everyday banking, we would

just be happy to put all of our money in a bank. But when

we do that, particularly in Australia, it comes with

protections. So we don't really have to worry about it. We're not worried about

the bank running off with $100,000 that's sitting

in our bank account. Now, in other countries, they do have to worry about that. But

in Australia, we don't. So the concept in Australia of using

cold storage seems a bit foreign because we don't feel

like we have to remove it from an exchange because of

theft or something. But I can tell you in the history of

cryptocurrency of the past 15 odd years, there's been plenty of

cases where crypto exchanges have done the

wrong thing. And next thing you know, you wake up one

day and all your crypto and Bitcoin has vanished. So by

self custodying the Bitcoin, you take

responsibility for yourself and you mitigate the risk of somebody else

stealing your crypto and Bitcoin. Okay, so that's the

reason why. Now, examples of cold storage

would be things like Ledger. I've personally used

a Ledger. Trezor, I've also used a Trezor. Or

SafePal. I'm also right now using another type of device called

Cold Card. All these can be found using

links within my crypto collective community. So

the next one would be regularly update your software. So

keep your wallets, your exchanges, and your antivirus

software up to date. Now I can tell you firsthand with wallets,

for example, like the cold storage wallets, they will always send

you notifications. So when you log in regularly, you'll

find that it'll do a pop-up and ask you to update. So that's a pretty easy one.

One thing that doesn't generally pop up regularly

is like antivirus software. So that is something to look at. And

the next thing that I would also encourage you to look at is having a

VPN. Now, not only do I have a VPN, but I also

use an encrypted email and browser. The

one that I use is called Brave. By having an encrypted

email and browser, it's just another defense wall rather

than just using my everyday like a Hotmail or a Google

account. It's the next level of protection. So avoid

using outdated apps or systems because what

happens is they become vulnerable to hacking. So over

time, these hackers just gnawing away at

software and trying to find how they can get

through the defenses. And eventually when they do, that's when

the software has to update to improve their system. Now,

if you don't update the software as well, you now become vulnerable

to this hacker getting into your software and potentially into

your computer and stealing your Bitcoin. The next one would be

avoid public Wi-Fi. Personally, I

never use public Wi-Fi. I don't even know anyone who uses public Wi-Fi to

be honest. I thought you just use it on like the data on

your phone. But in any case, avoid it because that is

another way that gives hackers entry into

your device. So I would never ever

use that. Now, that being said, I don't even use wallets

or cold wallets or crypto exchanges on my device.

I do not use it on my phone. I've removed it. Again, it's

another level of protection. So what I do

is I have a completely separate computer system,

which is just a laptop that is completely dedicated to crypto. So

on that completely dedicated laptop, is my VPN

with my encrypted email and my encrypted browser. That's

the level that I go to. So just in wrapping up, let's just say you are

in a place where your exchanges are on your phone and

you have everything on the phone. You're in a public Wi-Fi spot. Use

a VPN to encrypt the connection, at the very least. If

you want to protect your Bitcoin, make sure you

don't use public Wi-Fi. Hey, just quickly, if you're ready

to dive deeper into crypto and Bitcoin and build real wealth,

join my free crypto collective community. It's where

I share exclusive insights and strategies and live discussions to

help you succeed, whether you're a beginner or scaling your

portfolio. Click on the link in the description and join us today. Now

back to the episode. So the next one is verify URLs

and apps. Now, this can be tricky, and I'm happy to help

people verify those. And I've done that within my community already. The

reason why is because it's so easy for scammers to send you a

URL that looks legitimate. So double-check

URLs before logging in to avoid any types of

scams. Use official apps only downloaded

from verified sources like App Store or

Play Store. This is so important because the

risks are really high. So the next one would be understanding and

monitoring exchange security practices. So this is

where you're going to be doing your Bitcoin and encrypto transactions. Now

what I will say from the outset is you you and I

as lay people, we can't really go to the exchange and understand

all the data and security measures they have listed down.

Now, I've done this myself, and what you'll find is they'll have

things like ISO certification, XYZ, something,

something, multi-sig, yada, yada. which means absolutely

nothing to me, okay? They could have just made up that number as far as I know.

So what I would suggest you do is one, ask around to

other people, understand how long that crypto exchange has

been around in the marketplace. Do they have a strong

community presence in the sense of have they got good feedback, good

reviews of other people using them? That's probably the first thing. Now,

But the main thing I would say to you is I would, and

I don't personally, leave any amount of Bitcoin

on an exchange. So we're going to say, why even use an exchange? You

have to use an exchange to make the transaction. So

once you've made the transaction, so this is what's going to happen. You're

going to send your funds from your bank to the exchange. You're then going

to buy the Bitcoin. And then as soon as you've done that, I'm talking like

within hours, you're going to transfer your Bitcoin off

the exchange and into cold wallet storage. So you're not

going to leave it on the exchange. And the question would be, well,

why should you do that? Again, it's about risk

mitigation. what happens if the CEO of

that crypto exchange turns out was fraudulent and embezzled

money and took the money out of the exchange and went to the races and

because he thought he was going to make it big or he had some lover on

the side and he bought her a Lamborghini and all sort of stuff. These

things could happen. So we don't want to be at the mercy of

that type of activity, okay? So the best thing you can do is

remove your funds, move your Bitcoin, remove it

off the exchange, put it into cold wallet storage. All right, the next one would be

something so simple, but it would be enable alerts. So

set up transaction alerts for your wallets and exchanges. A

lot of the times, particularly I guess we

have so many notifications coming through that we tend to block certain

things. But with this, it's so important. I

want to know from an exchange or from a cold wallet

storage company if there is an issue,

particularly if someone's trying to get access to

my account. I want them to notify me immediately. So you want to make sure that you're notified

straight away so you can act on it really quickly. So

monitor activity for any unauthorized access or

unusual transactions. It will definitely pay off. The next

one would be diversify assets. Now, when I say diversify the

assets, I don't mean have Bitcoin and

have some other altcoin. If you want to diversify within

the crypto space, you can certainly do that. You could have

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Chainlink, et

cetera, et cetera. If that's your preference, that's your preference, right?

What I'm talking about is don't hold all of your crypto

on one exchange. That's the first thing. Or

secondly, even a cold wallet. I wouldn't have like one

Trezor and have $10 million on that

Trezor. I'm going to split it up. Ask yourself, someone

like Michael Saylor for example, do you think he

has something like 400,000 Bitcoin. Do

you think he has 400,000 Bitcoin just sitting on one Trezor? Absolutely

not. He's got it diversified amongst different entities. I

know he uses some banks to custody. I'm sure

he uses cold wallet storage of some measure, right? Again, he's

doing something which is called mitigating the risk. Because if something happens to

one exchange, one bank, or one a cold wallet, he's

not going to take everything under. So spread the investments across different

platforms and that will keep you in good stead. The

next one is so obvious but this one gets people

all the time and that is to avoid unverified links and

offers. Okay, so be cautious of unsolicited messages

or offers promising high returns. I've seen

this so much. I'm sure you have too. It's not even about crypto.

It happens within sort of every industry. It's just

that right now, crypto is the hot thing of the month. Now,

the other reason why scammers love crypto, you probably thought,

why is there such a big thing about scamming and crypto? It's not that Bitcoin

is the scam. It's that once you were, if you,

for example, got suckered in to send Bitcoin to a

scammer, there's no way of getting that back. So

in the banking world, if a scammer was to somehow get money

and you sent it to another bank account, there is a way for the

bank to reverse that transaction. It's not the case when

it comes to Bitcoin. So once the Bitcoin's gone to another person's wallet,

it's gone for good. So verify before clicking

on any links or downloading files. Now, I'll just tell you from

personal experience, I have the mindset all

the time that every link and every file is

a scam. That's how I treat it. Every link, every file

is a scam. So I don't click on anything, right? I don't download anything

onto my computer. And keep in mind, I use a separate computer

for all my crypto. So I'm not downloading anything on that. I'm definitely

not clicking on any links. But when it comes to my everyday computer,

I still don't even do that. So keep that in mind. If you treat everything as

if it's going to be a scam, it'll certainly help you. So the next one is

something that's come up probably in the last year, and that is social

engineering scams. And so be skeptical

of people asking for sensitive information even when

they appear trustworthy. Never ever engage with

strangers who claim to help recover lost crypto.

And I can tell you one of the other big ones is there's so many scammers out

there now who are using AI. And they're using AI

technology to make people that we all know or most people know

who are famous within the Bitcoin and crypto space, they make it

look real. So they'll have someone like, for example, Michael Saylor on

the screen talking about how if you just send us some Bitcoin, we'll

send you double back. I mean, it's the classic scam. But

unfortunately, people fall for this all the time. The next one

would be when sending crypto, test it

with small transactions first. Okay, so

before sending large amounts of crypto, you might be sending it from your exchange

to your cold wallet. Start with maybe like $50 before

you send your $50,000. So that is

simply just to make sure that the address that you've got in your

system as a receive address is the

right one that you've put in. Okay, the last thing you want is you've accidentally missed

some digits and that $50,000 has ended up

somewhere else. Because you may find getting that back could

be impossible. So this is one that I mentioned before, and that is to use

what we're calling practice safe email habits. So

what I do is I use a dedicated email for crypto related

accounts. That's of course within my dedicated crypto

computer, which is then being operated on my dedicated crypto

browser with my dedicated VPN. So be cautious of

emails asking for login credentials or personal information

as well, because that can also be tripper. Okay guys, so I

hate to scare you because I've just been through so many things that you need to consider, but

once you've got those things in place, it really is just maintaining those

into the future. So I don't really think about all those things anymore. I

just stay on top of them, right? It is a learning exercise, but

it's going to be absolutely imperative for you to learn. so that you

can make sure that your generational wealth can be protected into

the future. So if you've got anything else that you want to share with me about things that you

do to help protect your Bitcoin and crypto, please let me know in

the comments down below. Look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Take

care. Thanks for tuning in to Crypto Collective. If you've enjoyed this episode,

the best way to show your support is to leave a five-star review on

Apple Podcast or Spotify and make sure to subscribe to

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of me I'm Matthew Fraser on all