yah, that doesn't look good. it actually pissed me off to be honest.
can exp defend this?
I am the person being referred to in this post, and I would be very happy to 'clear up' this issue. First, in defense of the referenced post: r0ach is a good and long term friend of mine, I have known him for many years and he is a pretty good crypto analyst, very often correct in his analysis -- that being said, he often writes exaggerate and extreme opinions that are very assumptive and usually written in a speculatory nature -- the article in reference a great example; What he posted is interesting data, but certainty not proof bitfinex is lying about the hack to where one should express that claim directly as if its a fact, as opposed to a possibility. That doesn't mean the data isn't valid, or cause for suspicion, and I as I will address later in this post and my later article, that there is other "co-incidences" that are suspicious.
Now moving on to my personal holdings with bitfinex and your expressed concern with them:
- Firstly, I have never held 100 bitcoins at bitfinex. I have never told anyone what my exact holdings are anywhere, I have had many conversations regarding margin trading with r0ach and indicated loosely the size of various positions I have held in those discussions, but certainty never specified this number as I have not held a balance of that size at bitfinex. For the sake of his article he chose to say 100btc, and while that number is exaggerated from the reality, it might have been his best guess albeit an inaccurate one. Everything other than the 100BTC value he stated about my situation with bitfinex is accurate, and there is even more to that part of the story in which we will get back to in a moment.
- Secondly, I have been working in the cryptocurrency / blockchain tech sector/scene for years before joining expanse, and two complete years before Expanse launched I left my job as a full time programmer to work in the blockchain tech space, in which virtually all of my income since has been in the form of bitcoins. Sufficient to say, I have been saving bitcoins for much longer than Expanse has existed. As a long time miner, trader, and developer, the amount of my holdings is no indication of any type of activity with any specific project I am a part of, or the various jobs I am contracted to do. I have never sold 1 satoshi on bitfinex, instead I have purchased multiple bitcoins there, and was trading my personal holdings.
- Lastly, to clarify and validate r0achs reference to me/bitfinex in the post: I make no claim that it is anything other than co-incidence, but I had some very odd things happen with bitfinex the days prior to the hack:
Two months ago, my borrowing rates changed on bitfinex when they shouldn't have, suddenly I was paying a rate different than my contracted agreement. I contacted bitfinex support, opened a ticket, and reported the issue. They said they never heard of this happening before(which I found odd, because I have seen people discuss this issue in trading chats in the past) and would setup special 'monitoring' on my account. Flash forward to Four day before the hack, I logged into my account and saw my interest rates changed to .7% , not 0.07, .7% per day! I had locked in 30 day positions that shouldn't have been replaced for another week or so, there was no way this could be, yet somehow my margins had changed and I had been billed an insane amount of money over the few days that rate was set. I contacted support, opened a new ticket, mentioned my old ticket and having the issue then, but that this time it resulted in a giant loss to my account, not a trivial discrepancy. I immediately thought "If a bug like this is on their site, I don't know what to make of it", and filled a withdraw request for my balance. Hours later, I got an email saying the withdraw was approved -- but it never came. I logged into my account and it said 'Cancelled'. After several emails sent in a tone a little less professional than I preffer due to the stress of thinking I was about to lose my money to an insolvent exchange, they finally replied, saying they would credit my account the difference and then withdraw would be made available. My account was still on withdraw lock, and was set to remain locked to where I couldn't withdraw until Wednesday. I was waiting till Wednesday to get my withdraw, then on Monday... RIP....
I know your looking to attack the project, you've consistently demonstrated that behavior with little variation, and no clear interest in having a real discussion on any actual concern about the project or valid issue, any of which I would happily address. (While others don't want to waste the time giving you a dignified response because it is clear your purpose is just to harass/fud, I on the other hand welcome criticism of any source -- if its invalid/inaccurate, it provides a venue for us to openly present the accurate information and publically clarify the confusion that others might share on that topic, and if the concern being addressed is valid, it allows us to publically address that issue, express what lead to it occurring, discuss the projects view on the issue and our plans regarding it. In either case the public should be wholly informed, and I'm confident that an honest response will alleviate any concerns.)
Please take this situation for what it really is, it has very little to do with EXP, and certainly nothing to do with any dumping or selling of it. The only thing it has to do with EXP, is one of EXP's Devs, myself, had a large amount of his life savings over the past few years stolen/hacked in an instant.