> But we came to the conclusion that there just isn't any sane way to trade bitcoins currently where you can eliminate "exchange risk". If anyone does know of a way please let me know.

There are decentralized exchanges that are becoming more popular (Bitsquare for one, check out http://www.bitsquare.io), but there's a chicken-and-egg problem for liquidity. Not a lot of people currently trade on the decentralized exchanges, so liquidity is thin (and until there's liquidity, larger traders will likely not trade there). However, there isn't any counterparty risk, other than if you buy BTC for USD, and the person on the other end charges back the bank transfer. When you trade crypto-to-crypto, the risk is minimal (barring a 51% attack reversing the history on the cryptocurrency you purchased).