OK, so a guy has a problem with an exchange in 2018, and shows up over a year later to demand his funds - something he had given up pursuing for one reason or another - now that BTC has risen back out of its slump. Livecoin collects between $50k and $90k per day in trading fees. Seems to me like if they believed they were at fault, they would simply compensate this user for their losses, which is a comparatively small amount of money.
The only reason they are not giving in to the user's demands is because they believe he is in the wrong and they are in the right. And according to their Terms of Service (like them or hate them), they
are right. Should the language in their ToS be updated to sound like they are not looking for reasons to with-hold user funds? Absolutely, I don't disagree with that part.
Livecoin was one of the first exchanges to notify Monacoin of the selfish miner attack, posting this in the Monacoin thread a full 2 days before
Monacoin acknowledged the attack:
Hello.
We're Livecoin Exchange, we're looking for contact of Monacoin developers. We have an urgent issue to discuss with them. It seems a security breach in Monacoin blockchain have taken place a few hours ago. We're hope to be wrong.
The "selfish miner" sent a bunch of bogus coins to the Livecoin exchange (as well as Bittrex and a couple others) and cashed them out for BTC. (BTW, this fraudulent chain of Monacoin is what Livecoin has been referring to as a "trash asset" -- not the real Monacoin itself). Livecoin then issued the following statement in the aftermath:
Statement from Livecoin is out....
"Dear clients, as you all know, MONA network has been attacked recently, and all the exchanges suffered at some point due to fake incoming transactions. The fact of attack has been publicly acknowledged by the developers.
We contacted the developers several times on the issues concerning the cancellation of fake transactions or providing compensations for the losses sustained by the exchanges as a result of the hackers' attack on MONA blockchain. Today we got an answer: the developers won't take any actions. We, in our turn, have nothing to do than keep MONA deposit/withdrawal closed, in accordance with the terms of services providing. If the developers of MONA will ever take steps to cover the losses, incurred by the attack on the blockchain, we would be glad to make this asset available again. If you want to influence the situation somehow, please, send collective claims to MONA developers."https://www.livecoin.net/news/view/719?lang=enDeposits and withdrawals of MONA to Livecoin have been suspended since. They supposedly lost around $90k worth of other coins (probably mostly BTC) to the attacker.
I think I can explain why they left the bogus chain "trash asset" up for trade -- they didn't want to just leave their MONA holders with nothing, and perhaps they maintained hope they would someday be reimbursed by the Monacoin devs in the form of MONA, which they could then distribute to their holders.
I suppose the best solution would have been to purchase MONA from elsewhere and recompensate their holders that way, but again, Livecoin firmly felt they were in the right and had not violated their end of the agreement with their users, pointing to clauses denying themselves of liability in the case of "malfunctioning software."
For a long time Poloniex left
BitcoinDark (BTCD) on their exchange available for trading, for over a year after it had stopped being mined. There was no way to move it in or out of the exchange, as the project's devs were absorbed by Komodo, yet Poloniex didn't feel the need to disable trading for it, even though it was an utterly useless asset.
My verdict/opinion: they should re-enable the user's account, allow him to sell his "trash asset" version of MONA on the exchange, and take his BTC proceeds off the exchange (0.08 BTC + the converted MONA). Then, bar the user from making future deposits of any sort, effectively closing his account.
Before you burn me, Hhampuz, and everybody else involved at the stake, just stop to take a couple of things into consideration:
- OP is but 1 man representing himself. There have been relatively few complaints against this exchange, and as its been open since 2014, its reputation shouldn't be destroyed over 1 incident. If you want to see what a real scam accusation thread against an exchange that probably
is scamming its customers looks like, I invite you to check out the
BiteBTC scam accusation thread.
- I highly doubt OP wrote the OP. It looks like he definitely had coaching, and while that does not change the facts, it suggests that his cause may have been furthered by those with ulterior motives. The fact that the usual parties are using this as an excuse to jump down Hhampuz's throat and are hyping the affair as a much bigger calamity than it actually is is hard to ignore.