UPDATE
Transparance of the BitShares
The greatness of the BitShares DEX is that it's fully transparent. You can easily look up how much a user owns and what their transaction history is.
There are ways to anonymize yourself sure, but that's a whole other story
The History
Yesterday @robrigo posted [WARNING] Poloniex BTS Hot Wallet is empty; Do they have the keys to their cold storage?, where he writes about how Poloniex has 290 million BTS in their account poloniexcoldstorage. Yet they have not transferred anything from this account in 10 months!
Easily seen on CryptoFresh
Current asset in Hot Wallet = 5.57 BTS. Current asset in Cold Storage = 290,001,203 BTS
This is quite alarming as they are now putting signs up on their webpage that their BTS wallet is under maintenance
This makes me question all the previous alerts of STEEM and Steem Dollars that's been under maintenance recently to. Have they really lost their wallet keys?
Not a Solution, but a way to find out
@cm-steem just created an asset on BitShares called POLOLOSTKEYS.
By making a small proposal transaction from their account to yourself we can know when and if they have access to their account again. If they are smart they will accept all these proposed transactions and prove that they are indeed in control of their wallets. If they are not, well then we can know for sure that they have lost their access.
The transaction doesn't cost you anything since it's only a proposal, and it's their end that will pay for the fees when they approve it. The proposal is only valid for 24 hours, but you can do this as many times as you wish :)
Want some POLOLOSTKEYS tokens? Just paste your BitShares handle in the comments section and I'll transfer them
The Steps
1. Go to SEND in your BitShares wallet
2. Fill in the Transaction form with poloniexcoldstorage as sender and press propose. Select the POLOLOSTKEYS tokens.
3. Sign the transaction
4. Wait for them to make everyone know :)
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By voting for me as a witness, you will support an active witness on Steem and BitShares. I believe a witness should keep up-to-date on current happenings and be a conduit between the many users and the system.
Read my Witness Posts: BitShares, Steemit
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Steemit: sc-steemit 
BitShares: sc-ol 
Almost completely cashed out of Poloniex now :-)
Just got some BTC loans left to expire then I'm out of there. The STEEM wallet is consistently down and its scary how they don't seem to respond to any support requests.
Seems like Poloniex indeed have access to their wallet. https://steemit.com/poloniex/@sc-steemit/poloniex-still-has-access-to-their-cold-wallet-get-your-assets-while-you-can
Get your money out, poloniex can suck it!
Brilliant. Can they really be that incompetent? Glad all I got there is like 25 SD. I felt something was not right with Polo and moved everything away. Too bad though. Really like the site, but there has just been too much downtime and weird stuff going on.
Ever since they shut down the trollbox, I quit going. That's exactly what Gox and Cryptsy did before they crashed. A word to the wise.
I actually think exchanges without a trollbox look more professional but I can see how removing it looks suspicious.
I completely agree. I rarely use the trollboxes, as I see them as just a huge source of people trying to spread FUD and trolling. But when the exchange shuts it down just as everyone starts asking questions about long withdrawal times and the like, it's a bad look.
Oh boy..Glad I smelled something..Had way too much just standing there from when I first got into alt coins (which isnt that long ago)
Certainly has. There's a bunch of users here on Steemit that complains about transaction times and responsive on support tickets.
Damn that's fishy!
Yeah alright, I'll get involved: dutch2bts
EDIT: Looks like they do in fact still have access:
I've made a post about it :)
https://steemit.com/poloniex/@sc-steemit/poloniex-still-has-access-to-their-cold-wallet-get-your-assets-while-you-can
Sending you some POLOLOSTKEYS just for the funcies of it. You didn't really need them to do the proposal transaction though, and you can still do it to see what they do :)
I will play around with them. =)
Thanks!
I'd love some to help test this out.
nepd1 is my BTS name
https://steemit.com/poloniex/@sc-steemit/poloniex-still-has-access-to-their-cold-wallet-get-your-assets-while-you-can
Sending you some POLOLOSTKEYS just for the funcies of it. You didn't really need them to do the proposal transaction though, and you can still do it to see what they do :)
Good publication
Very useful information. Thanks for sharing.
upped
followed
Resteem
I'm game:
lannocc1Seems like Poloniex indeed have access to their wallet. https://steemit.com/poloniex/@sc-steemit/poloniex-still-has-access-to-their-cold-wallet-get-your-assets-while-you-can
Sending you some POLOLOSTKEYS just for the funcies of it. You didn't really need them to do the proposal transaction though, and you can still do it to see what they do :)
Good news! I'm rich! Haha. Anyways, my BitShares2-light wallet (v2.0.170522) kept producing an error trying to broadcast the proposal so I was never able to send one out.
UPVOTED.
very good.
I would be happy if you like to follow me and give your opinion about my posts.
Thanks
good work.. :)
Great post, thanks for sharing!
It's encouraging to see someone take positive steps to actually produce any sort of outcome - as opposed to that helpless feeling of uncertainty that not knowing breeds. Good onya sc-steemit!
I Poloniex is gone where do you guys strade steem/SBD reliably?
I'd stick to using the BitShares DEX with the openSTEEM and openSBD. The volume has been low, but it poloniex having issues I hope trading will shift platform.
They are indeed both backed by another "central" exchange called OpenLedger, but there is no way to falsify or hide any asset holdings. It can't be taken down and you will never be able to lose your assets since the holding is decentralized in itself.
The last trade I made was using blocktrades.us and it went surprisingly well. No need to setup an account or anything. There is a link to it in your steem wallet.
So you can really loose crypto currency when you forget your keys, like burning cash? Or is it possible to brute force attack the wallet?
Oh, absolutely. Keeping your keys safe is vital to reaching your assets. The point in cryptocurrency is that you are your own back, and with that comes absolute responsibility to safeguard your own bank and making sure you keep your access to it.
Depending on the ways you've set up your keys, passwords etc it may be possible to brute force. But if used with recommended settings and password lengths it would be a very long job depending on the power you can brute force it.
Thanks, I was worried for those poor bitshares being lonely! ;)
The problem with bruteforce cracking of keys is that they are so random no? You have to test if you have cracked it :D