You dive into crypto, chasing profits that flicker across charts like stars in a terminal window. Maybe you grab some $BTC , maybe $PEPE for laughs, and watch them appear in your Spot wallet on Binance, the grand bazaar of centralized exchange.
You’re not deep into DeFi. You just tap Buy Crypto. Maybe it’s your first time. You choose the coin, then scroll through Pay with: card, bank transfer, third-party provider. Each one comes with a fee. Why? Because you’re still on the TradFi side of the bridge. That first transaction is a toll, not just money, but a change in rails.
But behind that surface glow, something quieter pulses. A subtler truth. These coins, though shown as yours, are not truly yours. Not yet.
When you buy on Binance Spot, you don’t receive tokens in a private vault. You get a number in Binance’s internal ledger, tied to your user ID, stored in systems you don’t control. The assets themselves are held in cold storage, managed by Binance. Not by your keys.
Your “wallet” isn’t really a wallet. It’s a placeholder. An entry in a trusted database. And trust is the operative word.
To hold your coins on-chain, to see them live on a network and not just on a screen, you need to withdraw to a Web3 wallet like MetaMask or Trust Wallet. That’s where real ownership begins: with private keys, with verifiable control, with gas fees as the cost of showing up.
CEXs like Binance give you speed, convenience, and access without friction. DEXs give you control and the burden that comes with it. You pay for every move, not with trust, but with transparency. The difference isn’t just technical. It’s philosophical.
So if you ever ask, Where’s my money, really?, the answer is simple. It’s there, in a vault, earmarked for you, but not yet in your hands. You haven’t signed for it. You haven’t claimed it.
And when you finally do? The taxman shows up first.
