CeFi
Centralized Finance consists of exchanges and crypto companies with an owner.
Anything in crypto with a company owner: Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, Crypto.com, brokers, crypto banks. Pros: easy to use, customer support, fiat on/off ramp (USD/EUR), no smart contract interactions. Cons: they hold your keys (not your keys, not your coins), require KYC, can be hacked or collapse. FTX lesson (Nov 2022): even the biggest crypto firms go bankrupt and customers lose everything.
In plain words
Anything in crypto with a company owner: Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, brokers. Easy to use, customer support, you can deposit ordinary USD/EUR. The firm holds your keys, so your crypto formally belongs to them. FTX showed in 2022 that even the biggest can collapse overnight. Rule: keep on the exchange only what you actively trade.
Example
FTX November 2022: $8B balance-sheet gap, customers lost access to funds overnight.
Also known as: cex