NOT YOUR KEYS, NOT YOUR TOKENS

Crypto is in uncharted territory right now, and the past few weeks have been a rollercoaster due to key industry players being shaken off in the view of uncertain macro factors.

Some highlights:

• The LUNA ecosystem collapsed and tens of billions of dollars in value was wiped off the market.
• The aftermath of the above resulted in Three Arrows Capital, one of crypto’s biggest funds, collapsing completely. They used to manage about $10 billion in assets.
• The ripple effect of the above has resulted in massive strains on several major crypto trading outlets and CEXs that include Voyager, Celsius, BlockFi, Babel Finance, and more. Some of these have filed for bankruptcy, and many more exchanges are secretly insolvent.

The unfortunate side effect when major players like these and the CEXs and outlets they do business with are affected is that retail suffers; average Joes with funds on these platforms are unable to access them… or sometimes even lose these funds FOREVER!

It’s why they say, “not your keys, not your tokens.”

In other words, if you don’t have your tokens (including your FLOKI tokens) in your wallet then you do not truly own them.

We do understand that for most it is much easier to simply have their tokens on a CEX, but this doesn’t come without attendant risks (like being unable to get your tokens back if your CEX becomes insolvent). As long as you are aware of the risks then it’s fine.

The crypto market will recover and bounce back strongly (and Floki with it!), but things could get much worse before it gets better:

This means a lot more CEXs could collapse and go insolvent.

Unfortunately we don’t know which exchanges would collapse and which would survive, which is why we are writing this message:

The best place to keep your FLOKI tokens is IN YOUR WALLET.

If your tokens are anywhere other than in your own wallet, you need to realize that they do not truly belong to you… especially with the current situation of things in the market.

We want to remind you that the safest place for your tokens, especially in view of the current macro factors, isn’t on any CEX (regardless of what CEX this is!) but in your wallet: If you can, it might be a good idea to withdraw your Floki tokens to your wallet.

It’s better to be safe than sorry!

More importantly, do make sure you are very familiar with what you’re doing before withdrawing your tokens: understand how crypto wallets work and security best practices involved with using your own wallet.

For example:

• Don’t share your private key/seed phrase with anyone or they can take over your wallet and your tokens.
• Make sure you properly store your private key/seed phrase because if you lose it you won’t be able to regain access to your wallet or tokens again if anything happens to your device.
• Be very careful when connecting your wallet to any website/app online; a lot of scammers are out there trying to steal from unsuspecting people. You can lose all your tokens if you connect to the wrong website/app. Make sure to double check the URL of key websites you interact with to make sure it is not a phishing/fake website impersonating the real one.
• Don’t interact with strange tokens you see in your wallet; this means don’t send or approve them for swap. Doing so can compromise your wallet and result in you losing your tokens.
• Double check your wallet address before sending tokens to it from a CEX; be triple sure you are actually sending tokens to YOUR wallet. If you send to the wrong address you most likely won’t be able to recover it, ever.

Lots of things to keep in mind, we know. However, that seems to be the price to pay for being early in this innovative industry and doing things the right way. It’ll take a bit of effort to really keep this in mind and play by these rules, but it will save you A LOT of avoidable headache in the future.

Lots of people who can no longer access their tokens on insolvent CEXs that they trusted right now would have preferred to have put in 10–20 minutes of effort understanding the above steps and having their tokens safely in their wallet where it is forever safe.

Floki is fortunate to be partnered several amazing CEXs and this isn’t a statement about anyone of them. Instead, it is essential advice we have for you because we genuinely care about our Vikings.

The market has been very stressful and many Vikings are holding their FLOKI strongly despite being down already. We’d hate for these people to completely lose all of their tokens, which is why we’re putting out this message.

Stay safe out there, Vikings!