Topic: BTC-e.com down ! Police detains the owner . - page 4. (Read 21891 times)

Unfortunately, Shapeshift's service doesn't support fiat currencies (which is also one of the reasons they can operate as they do). There are times when you can't hedge in altcoins; when bitcoin is dropping and altcoins are dropping harder, you need to find an exchange to hedge the fiat value of your coins. But increasingly, it seems like it's better to just weather the storm and hold for the most part.


This seems more and more important now. If an exchange does business with US customers, they need to be licensed as an MSB and do AML/KYC. Otherwise there is risk of FBI seizure...

Yes I agree with you, sadly there is no real easy way to avoid exchange risk. Shapeshift is probably the most innovative exchange I can think of, yet there are still many attack vectors that you can't really avoid.

At this given time, you have to take risk to exchange out your coins. I just try to minimalize that risk as much as possible by doing business with liscensed US exchangers (since I'm a US customer) for all btc/usd transactions, storing all my coins on hardware wallets or clean encrypted offline laptops which are used for nothing else, and doing a decent amount of research on any given exchange EVERY TIME I am looking to deposit some coins. I also withdraw all coins within 1 hour of them being exchanged/deposited.

At the end of the day, you could still deposit and be that last deposit before "the big hack", there is no avoiding that sadly. But making sure to withdraw your coins after exchanging and not using exchanges as storage vaults greatly diminishes the chances of this happening.

Surprisingly, at one point or another, I've done business with every large exchange that has gone down/been hacked except for Bitcoinica & I've never lost coins to an exchange *knock on wood*. I might be lucky, but I also know that removing all coins from exchanges quickly after deposit has saved my ass many times.

The Bitcoin Group #153 - BCash Launches - BTC-E Claims (@18:45) - Cloning Bitcoin - The Future
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXP2TzjODqY

Just one small step toward the US morphing into the United Federation of Planets, its HQ in San Francisco.

A lot of misinformation in the media.  I hope the exchange can survive this event, get access to coins again, and come into compliance with the necessary regulatory bodies.  Amazing to me how you don't have to be a US citizen, never step foot in the US, and can be nabbed for extradition to the US for alleged money laundering crimes against the US.  (Because every criminal indictment will include some language about "...against the peace and dignity of the United States of America," etc.).

thanks

but if you do trading, there's no other way than to have your coins in the exchange...sure, dont count on it for long term, but it's the only way to trade

Buying time? Their domain was seized by the FBI and the owners face prison time if they are ever found. I think the last of their concerns are lawyers from disgruntled former customers. Where would you even send legal correspondence, and in what jurisdiction? They were legally organized in multiple jurisdictions. Nobody knows who the owners are. Nobody knows where the money is and how much they control. It's a total crapshoot.

I suspect hiring lawyers at this point (unless/until it becomes clear that US law enforcement was able to seize considerable funds) is going to be a huge waste of time and money. The best shot at partial repayment is if they somehow relaunch or at least set up a refund process..... but the chances of that happening are low. Still, there is a better chance of that than getting anything from the US government.

Jesus, you serious? They even took the piggybank. I guess I'll have to think of another place to store my in-house illicit gains. (LOL sometimes I'd love to know what goes through these agent's heads when they do stuff like that).

And don't forget about Burt Wagner in CO. They even took his daughter's U$600 kept in a piggy bank which was returned to her via funds raised from this community.

Them not completely disappearing can also mean they are buying time before the hounds are released and they get swamped with letters from lawyers.

I still have a tiny spark of hope of seeing my NMC back, but I'm not counting on it really.

I agree that there was alot of innocent bystanders hurt, hopefully they will learn to store coins off-line in the future now in order to minimalize the risk of having your coins stolen/confiscated.

That's really what the problem is here:

Each bubble we get a new wave of users coming to the forums, most of which have never ventured outside of their Coinbase account. It leads to easy hackings & giant losses for those who don't know any better.

I suppose it's our job to help show these people, but when I try to show my friends in real life they say "It's just alot of work", not realizing that if you are going to be your own bank, you also have to be your own security advisor.

Wasn't Ross Ulbricht charged with money laundering? This is just the first time that a large bitcoin exchange has been targeted for it. I sympathize less with funds on darknet markets getting seized, since users should know that this is always a risk. But on a long-running public bitcoin exchange? A lot of legitimate traders and miners will be devastated by this. I always thought of 3rd party exchange risk as risk of hacking or exit scam. The FBI targeting legitimate exchanges brings all new risks to trading crypto...

I don't think this is the first case of Money Laundering, just the biggest so far. Think back to Charlie Shrem & Btc King, Coin.MX, The poor dudes in Florida that were just exchangers on LocalBitcoins but without a liscense, etc.

I just think they are starting to crack down on the more blatant services that fascilitate easy no-id transactions that most definitely attract the wrong crowd.

Just wait until they start going after the gambling scene, you can call all of the profits made off of US customers "illegal" & anyone whom deals with these funds are by nature "Money Laundering".

If bitcoin is "used" by terrorists, money launderers and criminals.

Why is this the only case where someone was "identified" for "money laundering"?

 

So, the new FBI director, Christopher Asher Wray, has to explain not only why the amount of money confiscated wasn't disclosed during the arrest and control of BTC-e's servers, but why BTC-e is still in operation with a supposed intend of returning all the funds to their rightful owners with the help of OKPay. 

Let's see what Sarah has to say about that when a CNN reporter starts questioning the administration in the West Wing.

Excellent Craig Wright impression, by the way.

I just find it odd is all. With any major FBI takedown I've ever seen, the headline is the amount of funds seized. Take the Alphabay indictment/press release, for instance. This was nothing like that, and BTC-e was one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the world!

Just makes me wonder if the FBI screwed up and thought they had access to more funds than they did.

As Craig Steven Wright aka Satoshi Nakamoto would say: IT'S THEIR FUCKIN MONEY NOW AND THEY CAN DO WITH IT AS THEY PLEASE INCLUDING NOT LETTING YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THEY HAVE!