Shortly after BTC-e admin was arrested and the exchange went down nearly $170 Million in bitcoin was moved to 100s of Bitcoin addresses.
Authorities on Tuesday confirmed the arrest of Alexander Vinnik in Greece following an investigation led by the U.S. Justice Department and several other federal agencies and task forces into one of the longest running Bitcoin exchanges, BTC-e.com.
U.S. indicts suspected Russian 'mastermind' of $4 billion bitcoin laundering scheme | Reuters - 07/26/2017
NEW YORK/ATHENS/MOSCOW (Reuters) - A U.S. jury indicted a Russian man on Wednesday as the operator of a digital currency exchange he allegedly used to launder more than $4 billion for people involved in crimes ranging from computer hacking to drug trafficking.
On the same day as the websites operators arrest BTC-e, via it's official Twitter account, notified it's users that the site would be down for unscheduled maintenance.
A little over 2 hours after BTC-e first tweet 66,163.40004136 BTC worth a total of USD$169,341,914.24 was moved from a cold Bitcoin address and distributed to hundreds, possibly thousands, of other addresses splitting the the total sum into smaller 20BTC amounts.
This could be a coincidence but other Twitter users aren't so sure.
The site is still down at time of posting with very little updates from their Twtter account.
This absolutely feels like "The Gox'enning, 2.0".
Sorry to everyone who had funds there.
So far I'm wondering if the U.S. Justice Department may be behind the closing of the exchange (we shall see).
Remember, crypto threatens the Dollar as the world reserve currency. Further this is the bases of all recent wars basically taking out countries that have their own currency off of the dollar.. Naturally the war on crypto is going to be in the US because these companies are the easy targets. Assuming they are not international and they follow the regulations such as anti-money laundering regulations. These regulations will seek to impose KYC on every crypto transaction. Therefore I'm still wondering if BTC-e even did anything wrong, lets consider that the so called crime of "money laundering" might be an excuse to post pone badly needed change (the collapse of fiat money like the Dollar).
Yes, this is a very real possibility. Reading this post definitely brought to mind the closures of AlphaBay and the Silk Road and how the authorities used the events to demonize crypto in general (and seize millions in BTC).
Another theory: Many people know about the "war on drugs" so it is not enough to charge them with Drugs. They have to piggy back on the Hacking propaganda from the recent hype over the Russians hacking the US election.
We still have no evidence for that Hacking but the populations have been fed this big fat "nothing burger" (a term used privately within CNN to describe the Russian hacking propanganda). Something you can really sink your teeth in while having nothing inside.
back me vote
To the US govt, "money laundering" is any transaction they don't know about.
upvoted your comment.
back me vote
I always use changelly or shapeshift. The rule is for anything centralized: "small amounts only" .. These services automate this, every transaction is a deposit trade and immediate withdraw. It is actually done quite well.
If larger transactions are acceptable changelly is often the better choice.
BTC-e was the only exchange I kept a small amount on to day trade with. Up until now, they were the oldest, most reliable exchange.
The fact that, unlike Coinbase, you could move funds on and off anonymously HAD to piss off US regulators.
I've never used Changelly. I shall give it a go.
Thanks.
@fortified
be aware that changelly always tells you a wrong value for exchanges! shapeshift is in that regard more accurate but i have never had a transaction that "hit" its value on changelly.
Thank you for the advice.
Wow, interesting story, looking forward to the coming articles about this event.
@michiel i do think so
nice post @fortified
so... nice to meet you guys :D
Thanks. I shall try and keep us all updated.
@fortified
NEVER
KEEP
YOUR
CRYPTO
ON
EXCHANGES
I also feel like TPTB are trying to demonize BTC and associate it with purely criminal activity.
I'm getting very tired of reading "criminal activity" and "money laundering" in coverage of this takedown. And about all of the other takedowns. A crime is a crime only if some authority says that it's a crime, right? And why should the entire Internet be subject to US law, and law of subservient US client states?
Fundamentally, there is no law on the Internet. There is only the raw exercise of skill and power. I mean, consider the NSA. They don't even respect US law, let alone the rest of the world. Or Google and Facebook, for that matter. They do whatever they can get away with.
There's a revolution going on. Freedom is coming, perhaps, for everyone. Or if the kleptocrats win, there will be extreme subjugation. Time will tell.
The "criminal activity" is being done by the US Govt. Kidnapping and Grand theft.
Yes, basically. Yet, I gotta say that he took a risk leaving Russia. Better yet, he should have stayed as anonymous as possible.
I agree completely, you raise some very important points here.
We should keep these ideas in mind when we read about 'nefarious' activity online or on the darkweb.
Let me just repeat that for you...
KEEP
ALL YOUR
CRYPTO
ON
EXCHANGES
@jamesc1 rightly pointed out to me that keeping small amounts of crypto on exchanges has its merits, and makes sense for active traders.
So I should make a correction and say -
Never keep ALL your crypto on exchanges
@v4vapid Getting more accurate in each moment ;-)>
A sign of conscious evolution!
Maybe even better would be "never keep any crypto on exchanges unless you are actively trading and hopefully profiting!"
Agreed, this is material to spin BTC as a criminal thing.
Probably different from MtGox because:
If lawyers get involved over money laundering and change fees that come out of the exchanges funds then they will be committing a crime by stealing funds from the exchanges customers. This could very well be a crime compliments of the US Dept of Justice (justice for who?).
MtGox was the first thing that came to mind but i see your logic on this and it makes a whole lot more sense. If this is the case, then we can possibly see that the movement of the 170 million BTC may have been some kind of contingency plan to keep it out of the hands of the DOJ, since the Admin had been arrested.
This was my theory also. BTC-e may of even had inside knowledge of the arrest. But this is just speculation for the time being.
The 66K coins came from a Coinbase cold storage wallet. That's been posted all over reddit already.
Thanks for the info. If you have the time could you link me to a reddit post.
thanks
I'm sure it was a planned situation. Since this is not a logical arrest.
I keep reading not to leave BTC on the exchanges, but it takes so much more work to know how to remove the BTC. Ledgers are out of stock until September, etc. etc.
Once someone loses BTC by leaving it on the exchange then they will definitely learn how to properly do it because they lost money.
They'll go thru the exact same amount of work but they'll be poorer while they're doing it.
True
I like the Trezor.
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Hey!
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In 2012 Obama broke up the giant fund held by the Federal Reserve into the OPPI, transferring ownership back into OUR IN PERSONA Social Security account #s which remain stolen at birth in Identiy theft, unless you have done your paperwork and reclaimed your living status. Our accounts are held for us in TRUST bc we are "DEAD AT SEA".
IT IS POSSIBLE THE BITCOMS WERE TRANSFERED INTO THESE SAME TREASURY DIRECT ACCOUNTS HELD IN THE STATE OF OUR BIRTH. WE ARE LIVING THE REVOLUTION NOW UNDER A NEW REGIME OF FREEDOM.
Heare is some news about it
https://steemit.com/news/@niceviewsua/the-btc-e-currency-exchange-will-work-again-in-5-10-days-despite-the-us-attempts-to-fine-it-by-usd-110-million-for-money
its better to resteem it ..
Great post @fortified Of course upvoted on steemit ♨
Respect
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
Shitty btce another scam...
Couldn't pull anything over on @twitterbot 🤖
@fortified That just reminds us again that security and hackers are top priorities in the crypto world. Wow if I had 1% of all that money, probably would be the happiest dude alive.
Work hard and keep hustling. You'll make it pal.
@fortified If I had a share of that money my only problem would be trying not to go crazy and containing myself...))))))) very informative post.
oh shit.. hope people will get their money back
This is an embarrassing evil. May the person involved be punished accordingly. Try if you run slowly maybe you will get results that much, but for the sake of lust exhausting to give up your trust. Hopefully this will not be sampi by others.
Bitcoin and it's altcoin offshoots scare me at the moment. I'm staying away for a while. Might miss big opportunities but I'm safe from a big crash too.
wow
Upvoted & RESTEEMED!
I am amazed this hasn't really even effected the market. It's like hacks dont' matter to btc price anymore
There was an interesting price drop straight after the WannaCry ransomware attacks a few months back. Could have jsut been a coincidence. But it was within hours of the news being made public.
Well done them . My hats off for effort .
This post got a
7.73% upvote thanks to @fortified - Hail Eris !Thanks @fortified
So glade 13 days ago I got my funds off that exchange and bought Steem. Really just makes you think If you ever want to trust an exchange when at any time they could just walk off with everything.
Good timing my friend.
Thay can arrest anyone they wont :)) they are going down :)) there is millions of users
This is crazy.. feels lucky I'm not into this
How about wirex
Oh . its a bad or good news.
sobsob... i want my LTC back... sigh
US govt is going to try to steal it. Or they already have. Hard to tell.
yep, by now they've seized the domain... ugh...
Uh oh. Hopefully it'll be back in a few days.
with recent developments... meh... My hopes are pretty much gone, the domain is already seized by the feds!
I think it's simple. Upon learning of the arrest of Vinnik, his companion closed the exchange and began to withdraw assets. Well, it's better to steal yourself than all the crypto currency will get to the government :)
@ausbitbank
FYI - Just posted this article.
Analysis of Steem's Economy - A Social Scientist's First Impressions - Part 3/4 in the series.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@cyberspace/analysis-of-steem-s-economy-a-social-scientist-s-first-impressions-part-3-4
Where you from my friend ? i want to know which country to belong to @ronaldmcatee