Bitcoin Forum

Everyday I read about people having serious problems with an ever growing number of exchanges. Is it me or is it turning out it's a scam?! Since MtGox, it seems all of them have been taking the same worrying path...

People have issues with exchanges because people put a lot of trust in exchanges... And because there are many ill intentioned people and because many become ill intentioned when they see too much money flowing in keys they control.

There are still a few exchanges that can be considered to be safe or at least trustworthy. However, I advise against holding funds even on those who have been giving proof of being trustworthy.

The main reason i am seeing people having reasons to exchange the coins is the fact that there are hefty transaction fees that need to be paid. It is for this reason that exchange agents have emerged to help and ease the hectic process of exchange. The other issues may be because they want to hide their real identity and hence will opt to use a middle man to make the transaction. Am sure there are very many more factors to consider.

people should stick to the current existing trusted and respected exchanges. if they do that, then not much will happen. but if they sign up and deposit coins at flyby exchanges, then it's their fault. avoid them.

People are far too quick to trust any old craphole online if it looks shiny enough. There's also the greed factor. If you're trading BTC lots will go for the Chinese places with their socialised losses and Bitfinex with its outages because of the leverage they offer. 

Cryptsy is an old exchange, it still has a lot of problems. It is difficult for us to identify the right exchange.

Alts are still a free for all pretty much, but for btc there are (whisper it) regulated exchanges now but not in every country. If you use Itbit your dollar deposits are insured and I think they have their own insurance if coins are lost due to a hack at their end.

i wouldn't put any coin near cryptsy at the minute, they seem to be in melt down, i tried to get an account un frozen 5 months ago and to this day i still cant login.  i use Poloniex now and it always pays out as promised.

People have trouble with exchanges, because it's a central point of failure. You shut down the exchanges or these services makes a new policy and the users are all bound to

that. Most of these exchanges are just a puppet for the governments and have to adhere to their laws and regulations. They serve one goal and that is to make money and in

doing that, they have to adhere to the KYC/AML regulations. If any user cross the boundaries of these regulations... they will have their accounts locked or banned.  >:(

I agree with this, and I'd also like to point out that the people running these exchanges don't necessarily know how to run exchanges.  It isn't like someone was working for Etrade or Merryl Lynch or wherever and just decided to open up a bitcoin exchange.  Look at Mark Karpeles's background.  Tech geek, yes, businessman, no.  And so you have computer people trying to run businesses that they have no business running, so to speak. 

And the worst part is how they handle the problems, and then there's also the total scammers.  Not sure where Cryptsy is going to fall in all of this.

Peoples have problem with exchange because they don't provide valid KYC (aka. real identity) ... when it's requiered by the law.

Exchange are business.

Because Bitcoin is still so much in infancy this kind of thing will happen.  Exchanges that come and go, some fold, some were scams to begin with.  People need to do as much research as possible.  Are there any kinds of information outlets out that could keep a real time list of current scams and current good exchanges?  Maybe this is what is needed?

Absolutely. Bitcoiners seem to have this weird disconnect with the rest of the world. Because it's 'on the internet' and 'special' then somehow conventional oversight doesn't need to apply. Even the most corrupt and lowliest third world banking official would take a shit if they looked into how most of these exchanges operate.

If I remember rightly OKcoin's cold storage is being 'looked after' by the CEO's girlfriend's mother or something. I don't think NASDAQ would have very many customers with a similar setup.

very true, because I think the exchange is increasingly crowded and has a number of transactions and the amount of bitcoin that many will be the target of hackers, which comes from within and from outside of the exchange.

i think the worst thing that people do and after what they have a lot of problems with exchanges is keeping their money in it as they can easily turn to a scam after some time

Some exchanges are just trying to get good reputation and maybe exit from the market.
And probably because the bitcoin price is doubled the last few months, but most of exchanges are trusted enough.

in my opinion people trust them too much despite of the fact that a lot of them steal peoples money

You have no other choice if you want to trade alternate coins to bitcoin.
Unless you find someone in forum or face-to-face but this time the rate will not be the same as in exchange.

We have to take care before using some exchange services, as known not all of them are trusted and there is many scam projects called as exchangers. Just try the best trusted services which have good reputation

What exchanges?

I mostly see people complaining about cryptsy, but not so many about other exchanges

Because a number of these exchanges do not go into the business with the expectations that they will be loosing some money when the trades do not go for them.  Exchanges should only make money from their trade fees and there are a number of them who play in their own back yard.  This is not good for them and they end up turning scam.  Just my overview opinion.

There is nothing to worry about if you just use exchanges as Bitstamp, Bitfinex, Kraken, and so on.


Yep. Another way of reducing risks is that every coin that you have must be kept offline if you are not trading. People tend to not take this too serious, but we have seen enough exchanges go offline because of a "hack/inside theft". People unfortunately only seem to learn things when they have to pay heavily for it.