Navigating your way around the complex world of cryptocurrency security can be harder than finding your way out of the back streets of Bognor blindfold. This article explains why you can be confident your crypto – including Incent – is safe.
If you’ve ever wanted to buy or find out more about cryptocurrency, one of the things that might have made you hesitate is security. How will you keep your new crypto safe? Is it really secure against hackers? How can you be sure it won’t get lost or stolen?
You’re not alone. Security repeatedly tops the survey results for cryptocurrency users’ concerns. That shouldn’t come as any surprise. Cryptocurrency is built on some complex technologies.
Fortunately, just like you don’t need to know what’s going on inside your iPhone to know what the celebrity of the moment has just eaten for lunch, you don’t need to understand Proof of Work or strong encryption to use crypto. All the same, it’s reassuring when your money is on the line to know that your funds are protected by the laws of maths.
Public key cryptography
One of the critical technologies used by cryptocurrency is public key cryptography. You can find out as much as you could ever want to and more about this on the web, but the short version is this:
You create a unique key. Using this key you create a unique address. Some clever maths means it’s impossible to recreate the key from the address. This means you can give the address out publicly. Now, anyone can make payments to your address, but only you can send funds out of that address.
Public key cryptography is a little like a padlock. Anyone can snap an open padlock shut, but only the person with the key can open it again. Or, for this example, it’s like the front door to your house. Anyone can post cash through the letterbox, but only someone with the key to that address can open it to take the money.
There’s a few things we should clarify here:
- A chain is only as long as its weakest link. When you entrust your crypto to an exchange or other third party, you are trusting your money to their security processes (and often honesty).
- Bitcoin itself, and public key security, are incredibly robust – they have never been compromised. The problem with crypto has always been human error and fraud: phishing, malware, scams and dishonest exchanges. (Fortunately, with greater regulation, that’s changing fast.)
- If you keep your keys safe, cryptocurrency is incredibly secure. In fact, the passwords used are so strong that if you covered the surface of the earth with the most powerful supercomputers ever developed, they wouldn’t stand a chance of cracking one within the lifetime of the universe.
When it comes to Incent, you have two choices. The simplest, and default option, is to keep your crypto on our platform. Incent is registered with AUSTRAC, and complies with Australian Government AML/CTF obligations. We maintain ‘best practices’ for the industry, and provide robust security and encryption on a par with the banking sector in Australia. Alternatively, you can withdraw your Incent to your own cryptocurrency wallet and look after it yourself.
In short, if you trust us to manage your crypto, we’re happy to do that. If you’re confident about managing your crypto yourself, we’re equally happy for you to do that too.
Incent is live! Australian users can access rewards in Incent tokens on every spend they make. To find out more, visit www.incent.com.