DEX vs centralized exchanges: who holds your coins, where fees go, and which one fits you.
CEX: you hand coins to a company (Coinbase, Binance) and trade on their private ledger. DEX: you connect your own wallet and a smart contract swaps your tokens.
A DEX runs on liquidity pools — users stock a smart contract with token pairs, and it reprices itself after every swap. Providers earn ~0.3% per trade.
CEX: your deposit becomes an IOU on their servers. DEX: tokens move wallet-to-pool in one atomic on-chain transaction — the exchange never holds them.
CEX risk: the company fails or gets hacked (FTX, Bybit 2025). DEX risk: smart-contract bugs, phishing sites, scam tokens — and your own mistakes. No undo.
The CEX is my cash register (fiat in, fiat out). My wallet + a DEX is my safe. Money I can't lose sleep over never sits on an exchange overnight.
Side-by-side comparison, 5 risks nobody headlines, slippage & MEV explained, 5 FAQs, and my beginner split — in the free guide.
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