Withdrawals and balances
Escrow protects money attached to an open order. Everything else sitting on the platform is protected by nothing at all, and that is the money people lose.
The distinction that matters
Funds committed to an order sit in a contract requiring more than one signature to move. Funds sitting as a balance between orders sit in the platform wallet, require nothing, and are exposed to whatever happens to the platform. The two are described with the same word and are not the same thing.
Why people keep a balance anyway
Convenience. Topping up once and ordering several times saves repeated deposits and repeated network fees. That is a real saving and it is worth a small balance rather than a large one, which is the whole calculation.
Fee mechanics both ways
Every movement pays a network fee, so many small deposits and many small withdrawals cost noticeably more than one of each. The instinct to keep topping up in tiny amounts is expensive in a way that is easy not to notice, because each individual fee looks trivial.
Withdrawal timing
Withdraw after an order closes rather than intending to later. The intention is where balances accumulate. A remainder left because it was too small to bother with is exactly the amount that is still there when something goes wrong.
Where it goes
A wallet whose keys you hold, not the place you bought the coin from. Sending a withdrawal straight back to an identity checked account draws the same line the deposit was routed to avoid, in the opposite direction.
The rule
Deposit for the order in front of you, withdraw the rest, and the question of what a platform might do stops being able to cost you much.
A simple policy that removes the question
Withdraw when an order closes, in one movement, to a wallet you control. It costs one network fee and it means the platform is never holding money you are not actively spending. Everything else about balances becomes irrelevant once that is a habit.