Bitcoin Forum

It has done its last trade. It's six figures under.

http://www.cryptoxchange.com/blog/21/crypto-x-change-suspending-trading-and-returning-client-funds

Aren't cryptoxchange and bitcoinpolice virtually identical? How is this going to play out when they eventually run like everyone runs? Are they gonna grab their own dicks and yell "You are arrested for being too sexy?"

Where did you see they are six figures under (as in a net loss of $100K)?

I wish I could say I am surprised.  Crypto was pretty good exchange back in the early part of this year.  Although their trading interface always sucked and bank wires took too much manual "checking" and "prodding", when MtGox delays went insane (14+ days for bank wire, 30+ days for Dwolla) they were a good alternative.

However around this summer we pull all our business.  We had too many delayed wires and the delays got longer and longer.  The last wire I made required posting a scam accusation and about two weeks.  I knew they were in the long slow death after that.  Watching the bitcoincharts you could see liquidity and volume (the lifeblood of an exchange) dry up to almost nothing.   When bitfloor ramped up volume in the fall it was the final blow.  

I think in the last 30 days crypto probably made ~$100 in trading fees (based on reported volume).  A long fall from the second largest exchange.   Not really sure what happened.   Poor management?  Internal fraud?  Got hacked and hid it by doing some fractional reserves?  I guess we will never know.

It was a Monty Python Parrot Sketch reference.

They are also really six figures under, or rather one of their victims is: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85977.0

---------> Joke

Me

:)  Too early and not enough stimulants in my system yet.

They DO sell coffee for bitcoins now.  :D

But with BTC track records, one wouldn't know if it ever arrives, or when it arrives, if it's not really coffee but cute little pebbles painted brown.

That's where I had all my Namecoins sent I forgot about until today.

noooo....  :D

Will they continue to operate Mr. Bitcoins or will that be closing as well?  (That already lost TrustCash so no USD funding method, and they haven't done INR trading for a while either.)

As I have said before, when you limit withdrawal options you get unusually high sell prices.  They look great until you realize it is hard to get money out.  The high price deters anyone who wants to buy coins and the lack of withdrawal options deters anyone who wants to sell coins.

They refused to offer a Dwolla or Paypal withdrawal option and that was the big problem.  The bank fee was too high making the exchange less usable for anyone doing small volumes. 

No.  I think you might be confusing Bitcoin Police with something else, possibly Mr. Bitcoin.

I don't blame any exchange for not offering Dwolla or PayPal - they only way you can mitigate risk with them is to put a hard limit on the amount of transactions you have active with them at any given time like MtGox does and that causes delays which users find unacceptable.

Mr Bitcoin is probably a better model for someone trying to operate in Australia.  We're simply not used to delays in financial transactions and we're not used to having to pay for them.  Selling Bitcoins for cash gets rid of a lot of the issues which plague exchanges, although it might still ultimately run into issues with banks down the track if the volume of cash transactions gets high enough.  It also remains to be seen how willing people are to go to the bank given that we do such much banking and bill paying online (I seriously can't remember the last time I stepped foot inside a bank).

Saw this coming, see this Forum and the Currency Exchange forum in the last month or two. There has been many posts about delayed withdrawals and problems with Crypto, I myself being one of them- luckily I got my money out a 2 months ago and never went back. You could tell this was going to happen with the prices trading at Crypto way higher than the rest of the market, that only shows there was no liquidity (the last trade was today at $22, wtf).

Crypto was trading at like 2nd and 3rd in volume for a while there. But they could not keep it up and closed the MTgox code withdrawals and made it harder for anyone to get money in and out of there- they also went quiet on the forums and everywhere else. I think it's a case of bad management or lack thereof. Shame, it was the best way to cheaply/quickly deposit cash in Australia in it's day. Hope something else will come to fill the void. In the mean time it's back to MtgoxAUD (3.25% deposit fee) or paying $20 international wire fee anytime you want to trade anywhere else.

Nope. I'm pretty sure CryptoXchange was not only listed on Bitcoin Polices site as a highly trusted partner, but the adresses of some Bitcoin Police members and CryptoXchange owners were remarkably similar. Of course, and im sure this is totally accidental, the old Bitcoin Police site was replaced by a new one about 2 days ago or so. Still...remarkably convenient, if one thinks about it.

I had a similar story to others on here. I used them in the early days a lot... due to payment delays I lost faith in them as an exchange and stopped trading on their platform a long time ago.

where's their official thread?

You can keep track of what is going on here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=126552.0

I made this thread to centralize all the relevant information regarding the Cryptoxchange insolvency. There is a link for the "official" Cryptoxchange thread.

As far as I'm aware the new Bitcoin Police site (bitcoinpolice.org) is unrelated to CryptoXChange.  Actually, there's a greater connection between Bitcoin Police and Mt. Gox, just have a look at the whois records for bitcoinpolice.org and bitcoinpolice.net.

Disclaimer:  I am a moderator on the new Bitcoin Police forum.

The data from the old site was available a few days ago, I'll see if I can get a copy.  I didn't archive it because there wasn't much in it of interest.

Anyway, the only thing in common between MrTggr (the primary BP admin) and CryptoXChange that I am aware of is that both are in Australia.  So is SomeoneWeird (the secondary BP admin) and so am I.

CryptoXChange has a postal address in Orange, NSW (approx. 200km west of Sydney), MrTggr is in Canberra, SomeoneWeird is in Melbourne and I'm in Melbourne too.

The bitcoin police have no more in common with cryptoxchange than we do with MtGox and intersango etc. I have no idea why you're confusing us :) CX is run by Ken, and the BP is run by myself and MrTiggr.

edit: and yes if you look at the whois for bitcoinpolice.org it says that Mark Karpeles owns it, that's just because he registered it himself and donated it to us :)

BOING!

BitcoinPolice once performed security auditing of the CX web interface in its early days. This came about through through the #bitcoin-aus channel where i met Ken, the owner of CX.
Other than that, there is no association between CX and BP.


I must say it is sad to see the exchange shutdown, i still regard ken as a trustworthy member of the bitcoin community and wish him and all the staff at CX all the best of luck in any future endeavours.

sadly... *another one bites the dust*

Cheers
MrTiggr

damn....only GOX VIRCUREX, BTCe, BITPARKING and others left.....oh my.....

The one thing which is a little bit ambiguous here is that the "wishing Bitcoin a great future" comment implies that they're getting out of Bitcoin altogether.  But the MrBitcoin site currently has a "we're upgrading the site" notice (which only went up a few days ago) up giving the date for completing upgrades as 26 November - which suggests that particular business will continue operating.

I notice that augustocroppo has posted the specific details of Ken's illness in the other thread.  It's not the smoking gun he seems to think it is.  The information was easily found on Google before CryptoXchange even launched (in fact, that's how I found it myself before they launched) and I'm also aware of Ken talking about it with other community members.  

He didn't bother checking whether Hertz have moved since the Google Street view picture was taken last year, either - they have.

http://www.hertz.com.au/rentacar/location/index.jsp?targetPage=locationDetailsView.jsp&eoag=OAGC60&resAgnt=&locType=pUp

Isn't there also a connection to the exchange in India? (Beryl Armitt)

Someone accused me of being a CX "shill" https://btct.co/security/BITCOINRS. I havent spoken to Ken for months and its unfounded accusations like this which probably caused him to shut it down, along with other issues. Not saying thats why but it doesn't help.

If people keep hounding honest businesses out of bitcoin its a shame.

The Beryl Armitt connection:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=126552.msg1353969#msg1353969

Yes, but we're all in the same country so we must know each other and be colluding against the rest of the world.  It's a vast conspiracy.  Nevermind the fact that there's 23 million of us spread over a land mass about four fifths the size of the United States, it's still a conspiracy of convicts!

Whereas what actually happened, as I understand it, was that Ken met MrTiggr online in #bitcoin-aus when CryptoXChange was being built and engaged MrTiggr and the Bitcoin Police of the day to do some pentesting and security auditing of the website.  This resulted in their being confident enough to list the site as trusted.

It's also worth pointing out that for all the trouble CXC has had, they're not simply cutting and running with whatever money or BTC were in people's accounts.  My own issues with them, for example, were always in the nature of competence rather than trustworthiness.

Exactly ;D

And if the argument being made was that they over-estimated the market share they would be able to capture and under-estimated the inherent problems in operating a Bitcoin exchange I would absolutely agree with that assessment.  I don't believe that anyone can successfully operate a Bitcoin exchange long-term in Australia at the moment because I don't think they can get sufficient volume to off-set the overheads and make a worthwhile profit.

I'll certainly re-consider my opinion of their trustworthiness if users do not start receiving refunds soon, but right now I'm not seeing any evidence of any plan to cut and run with user funds.  The actual evidence points more towards an idea that didn't work out and moving on to other things (for the record, I am checking ASIC notices daily and will certainly let people know if any indication of insolvency shows up - they'd be absolutely crazy not to seek insolvency protection if KenseyCol is in fact insolvent).  I'm also perfectly happy to help users navigate the legal options available to them in the event that user funds are not returned in a timely manner.