Warning! Theory Ahead(Keep your wits about you, it's called "theory" for a good reason!)
Someone in Bitstamp organized the heist. The only name I have associated with Bitstamp is Nejc Kodric, and he hasn't posted here on the forum for almost 2 years. I suspect he has been bought out. The company has gone through a very helpful audit, but that was before the heist. The current owners might be using Kodric's name because unique names such as his (and mine!) are valuable assets. However, this would mean that he sold them his Twitter account too.
Bitstamp has not offered any kind of reward for the return of its stolen bitcoin.
A "bank run" is what the authorities have named something I would prefer to call a "collective audit". Since Bitstamp had planned to do an audit more than just the one time and has not done so, I think it's time. Some ideas:
- If you are withdrawing some cash, withdraw extra (and all of it if it isn't too much trouble)
- If you have BTC on Bitstamp, move it off.
- Since it is easier to withdraw BTC than fiat, expect the price on Bitstamp to rise in proportion to the strength of this collective audit. It is currently about $1 lower than Bitfinex for all of us USD users.
- You can help other people (means you lose money) by leaving some fiat there. If you can stomach it, leave enough there to make a lawsuit worthwhile (possibly against Bitstamp or against its bank) and then try to withdraw all of it when they are looking really shaky, and start your lawsuit as early as possible. This is a very narrow path, so make sure you know what you're doing, and please give Bitstamp every opportunity to do the right thing.
I would like this collective audit to be powerful, and for Bitstamp to meet it with grace, but several things prevent me from expecting this:
- People are not scared enough of continuing to trust Bitstamp
- I'm making a very provocative recommendation and many people won't have the balls to promote it even if they understand how valuable it is.
- Many bitcoin enthusiasts value the privacy of others more than they value the sharing of information (this is in reference to the idea of taint and how its use would be implied by any effort Bitstamp made to recover its bitcoins.
- Bitstamp has not been very open lately. Sure, lower fees are nice, but silence in response to the idea of a new audit is actually pretty loud.