JalalOnChain

Cold, hot, and warm wallets aren't just about temperature

Cold wallets (offline keys) hold the bulk of an exchange's reserves and move rarely; hot wallets sign automatically for user withdrawals and are deliberately kept thin to limit breach exposure; warm wallets sit in between, often multisig, used to top up hot wallets on a schedule. A sudden large cold-to-hot transfer is one of the more reliable pre-outflow signals analysts watch for.

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