I've read horror stories on the net about companies going bust (people shitting themsleves when kraken went dark), and reports saying that people could lose bitcoins. How is this possible? The coins are on the blockchain so you can just collect the coins later, with the next, latest and greatest crypto exchange, right? Even if Kraken went bust, pffft.. who cares? Your coins are safe on the blockchain right?
Be interested to hear from the experts..
When people keep their coins on exchange or some other online wallets, they don't control their private keys, they all trust that the owner will send them coins when they request withdrawals. It's just like banks, so sometimes those exchanges get hacked, and sometimes they turn into scams and disapper with all the coins of their customers. There's a good saying in Bitcoin community - if you don't control private keys, then it's not your coins.