Where are my coins? Exchange vs wallet

My phone broke. Are my coins smashed too?

Your coins aren't inside your phone. A wallet lets you see assets on the blockchain and uses keys to approve actions. Whether you can recover depends on the wallet type and the recovery options you kept.

With a custodial exchange account, the platform mainly manages the assets and keys, and you act through your account. With a self-custody wallet, you control the credentials. Convenience and responsibility are split differently.

Forget your password on either one, and you just call support?

Don't think of it that way. With a standard recovery-phrase wallet, if you lose the phrase and have no other valid recovery method, support can't get it back for you.

Keeping assets on a platform carries platform risk. Holding them yourself can go wrong through a leaked key or a bad approval. Today, just understand the difference. You don't need to move everything right now.

Who controls the permission to move the assets? Answer that first. Then decide which account or wallet you need.

Two doors look the same. One is fake. Next episode: how to spot the real one.

Understand first, then act.