Centralized exchanges is very bad but sometimes they have advantages especially if they are supporting p2p transactions where some users will convert their crypto to their local currency direct.
I always recommend using reputable and globally known centralized exchanges to avoid such things because even if it happens it might be minimal and might have solution since the owners are well known, the government can fight for their customers, but that’s also not certain because these exchanges can be dramatic sometimes.
I will advice us to always use exchanges for their purposes which is just for trading both spot and future trading, we should always send our money out to our personal wallets once we are done trading or marketing in the centralized exchange because apart from our assets that are not safe, our details we submitted during kyc is also not safe with them.
It’s really sad hearing such stories but the truth is that it’s difficult to do away with centralized exchanges completely despite knowing how dangerous it is to keep our assets with them. They provide some services that we need and that way it is difficult to do away with them completely and one way or the other we might be in need of their services like P2P you mentioned.
It’s unsafe to make use of just any exchange you come across so it is better to use reputable exchanges that are well established, it doesn’t guarantee total safety but reduces the risk of being scammed in this manner. Exchanges are not recommendable for storing assets for investment purposes especially for holding for a long duration, you should only use it for trading purposes instead and only send in amounts for trading to avoid stories like this.
I just hope affected people will be able to recover their assets and it’s not a scam tactic adopted by the owners of the exchange.