Bitcoin Forum

This not only affects BTC,but also some alt-coins as well.
http://www.dcmagnates.com/ouch-now-vircurex-is-freezing-withdrawals-to-cover-last-years-losses/

If this is true it is not good :)

I must check it.

That's what Gox should have done...

Hope it works out... I'm glad they are communicating with their customers. Hope they pull through it...

"stolen" funds...

Bitcoin exchanges are free money generators.

Once again those in the know got out before the peasants.

https://vircurex.com/welcome/ann_reserved.html

NOOOO!!! I have very much Doge coins there :D

No stress, as I believe Vircurex is not MtGox :)

They need perhaps a day to make it up with withdraws again.

Like you want to say all of you know about Vircurex issues? :)

Make us smarter and share your knowledge :)


ps. I haven't got any coins there atm. :]

Well, I have enough, getting (the rest of) my coins out of stamp later.

Can you read? You will only be able to withdraw what they unfreeze, and that's profit distributed on a monthly basis (and half for smallest accounts and the other half for biggest acounts).

And no problem with DOGE and most other currencies. That is, until those reserves run dry too of course.

That's not good at all, Vircurex doesn't have that much volume it'll take forever to pay these customers back from trading fees.

Expect to see the price of coins not affected on there to skyrocket as people try and get their BTC  out.

Goxing is now a contagion... Which one will be next?

Although it is crappy news atleast they communicate upfront and with honest intentions of paying back.

Hope they don't end up goxxed.

P.S. Is bitcoinbuilder already running on this one  ;D

Vircurex is handling it the right way.

The coins can't be traded. They are completely frozen...

Vircurex has identified the amounts, the users are all informed.

The losses weren't recent but a few large players exited and left the exchange high and dry. The remaining users benefit by remaining on the exchange in the future.

On another note, vircurex needs to consider a remittance for those affected. Perhaps they should include interest on the frozen balances.

well this is rather interesting news.  I've got an account there that I lost the password to.  I'm hoping I can contact the staff and get back into my account as I've got some alts there and I'd like to check on the current value.  

This is not good news but I'm liking the way they chose to handle the matter seems very responsible on there part to make things so transparent and I hope people give them credit for that and there service to the community.

They haven't froze the balances yet you can still trade. Freezing will happen tomorrow.

So vircurex was on fractional reserve all these time, and they are running low on cash flow.
If they handle this properly, they could get out of this.

No.

The situation should be considered from every aspect and the focus should not fixate on the theft of the coins alone; it's old news anyways. Everybody there was informed about the theft when it happened. Good businesses are determined by the reaction to bad situations and the desire to succeed...

You can't stop all theft, it's a constant battle. You will win some and lose some... There's no such thing as theft immunity.

Bad things happen, if they weren't transparent and honest about it I would have an entirely different opinion on this matter. The manner in which they're approaching this is the best you can expect in this situation...

this was handled definitely much better than the gox situation, where they lied until the very end (and didn't stop lying even after that)

Crowd-funding, IPO, find investors in fiat...
How much bitcoins did they loose last year?

lol years, you really have no idea how profitable it is to be such a exchange like vircurex. In a few weeks most of the losses could be covered.

Oh really? Take a look at this report...

https://vircurex.com/Reports/2013-11.pdf

1218 BTC in the red September - November 2013, and they made only 64 BTC in revenue which I assume is all from trading fees.

Yes, you are probably looking at years for them to recover the funds, that is if they are even still around then. Luckily I only had a small amount of BTC in there, decided to cut my losses and buy some DOGE at 140 satoshis, rather than wait forever for them to recover my balance.

I think it's time to start upping the fees and create an insurance trust fund.

Double the trade fee and apply 50% of all fees to a cold wallet designated for insurance. Publish the wallet address for transparency.

Only doge/btc only today already has 200 btc volume. Why not show me stats from their first month on the market?

+1 every company should insure themselves. I bet proving that all or most BTC are insured will put customers at ease and make them willing to pay slightly higher fees.

The DOGE volume is only high because people are buying it then withdrawing to get funds out, that's not going to continue, it'll drop like a rock tomorrow.

As for the stats, that's the most recent report I could find.

I was only trading @ vircurex it is such a lost for me ...

I do not keep any money @ online services so I am not worried about how I will withdraw, I am worried about:
where I will trade :(

Vircurex for me was very, very good - and now what ... where should I go? :(

This is unfortunate.... fortunately did not have much BTC left on there.... but this is quite unfortunate.... they were always my favorite altcoin exchange. :-\

Well Done Vircurex, my dogecoins just rocket to a fair price  ;D

ps-> I really like vircurex because all alt are related to BTC ... it's much easy to find correlation between alt-coins

from forex wisdom ... Using Currency Correlations To Your Advantage
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/05/051905.asp

well as you can see few altcoins price went up at a same time ...

This is nothing great IMO...

I'm not exactly a Cryptsy fan, but that article is idiotic.

So when Vircurex said they'd cover losses from their income, did they specify they didn't have enough funds to cover their liabilities at the time? Were they completely straight up about running fractional reserve? If they were, why wasn't there an immediate bank run?

I pulled my coins out of vircurex when they got hacked last year. They may not be able to recoup their losses given the low trading volume they now have. Also, they're not being very transparent about how much coins were stolen (precise figures) from them and how much losses they have covered so far. Many people will now view them as a dying exchange and avoid them like the plague. And rightfully so.

While it's admirable that they're trying to earn back their losses, folks can go and do business with other exchanges which aren't empty shells (yet). 

I am really worried about Vircurex ... :( best exchange is dying :(

no we're not we just got upgraded to sniper ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX9eJdDayKU

Agreed, this is why I have respect for the way they (Vicurex) chose to handle the problems they had.  Gox was a much bigger exchange IMO and they acted beyond poorly which made me lose total respect for them before the latest debacle.

I don't have any respect for Vircurex, they may not be as incompetent as Gox but not halting all trading as soon as this happened is very irresponsible.

There should be a way to make arb profit, but it's way too risky.

That is your right as a person who was hit by the issue first hand I don't blame you for feeling how you feel  but from an "outsider" looking in stand point it is not even close to the trouble that Gox caused the community as a whole is what I'm basically getting at.  Not saying much more then that really.

I'm going to stop being lazy and pull my cash out of the American exchange I belong in. I should have learned my lesson already about being lazy from Mt. Gox.

Notice how they said they had large withdrawals recently which led to this. I knew this was going to happen after the Mt. Gox failure. People are pulling their money out of the exchanges, no trust.

SO basically VIRCUREX is expecting their customers to pay back their debt by trading on their website and paying them fees for each trade.

What a bunch of bullshit.

Close your site and pay back your customers over time through another means of income, not through fees you charge the customers which you owe for trading on your site.

Scammer exchange...so fail.

I lost track of that story:
Is SR2 open or closed?
Of course I'm only curious, I don't use it....

so the exchange needs extra funds and decides to get it from their clients? what a NEW way of doing it

I think Gox were the pioneers in that field, but it seems the other exchanges are picking up on this new business strategy quite astutely :D

We should start demanding that exchanges post the wallet addresses publicly. Or better yet, support those working on decentralized exchanges.

Its open I believe: http://e5wvymnx6bx5euvy.onion/

No big difference to what the banks have done during the last years. Search for "bonuses despite losses" and you get dozens of reports, about it's not the bank managers but the bank's customers who are expected to pay for losses.

Outside the shady business area like the financial sector, however, one could imagine a legitimate situation like this. A carpenter or a plumber who causes substantial damage to your home may offer to pay for his mistake by sharing parts of his income during the next months. It is customer's money, of course, but it is also his hours of work.

Another "major" exchange down the drain.

I've personally pulled out all my coins from ALL exchanges after gox, I have a few for trading on stamp but no more

I suggest everyone to do the same. Don't trust any exchanges especially with all these hacks going on.

Looks like Vircurex would have done better with some financial backing rather than this plan. Perhaps they tried to get some?
The problem now is people are probably not going to trade there much, unless the alternatives disappear.

Too bad, was a nice exchange though they rarely got back to me when I had questions (at least not timely when they did.)

This brings up the point of insurance, which is probably going to raise trading fees. I really wonder what is going to come of all this.
In the end we will probably have the security of many large stock exchanges in the end, but till we get there...

Interesting in that 4 days ago I bought some LTC there and couldn't get them out as the wallet was offline (said the message). After the Goxing I was a bit
on edge, but decided to give it till morning. I also emailed Vircurex but as expected they never go back to me. A friend also mentioned the Goxing!
Still couldn't withdraw the LTC in the morning and just to be safe I sold them and prayed I would be able to withdraw the BTC.
I could and transferred them to Cryptsy to buy the LTC. I took a very small hit. Feel bad for all involved though.

This has been a great and rough ride fellas. The BFL saga (I was affected), the mining saga in general (ditto), the exchange hacks (ditto) and on and on.

IAS

Just checked the spreads (as another mentioned) on Vircurex and Cryptsy. Nothing shocking, but sad. Note the LTC inversion relative to the others rise.

Coin      Cryptsy                    Vircurex

LTC      .027                           .020
DOGE   0.00000115               0.00000164
VERT    .0032                        0.00453000

Like 30% ish just by eying it. Memories of Gox.  :(

I don't think any one is keeping all coins in one place anymore. It is free market so some enterprises must shut down once in awhile.

I only had a tiny bit of money in Vircurex but I have moved it out, I thought these guys looked pretty trustworthy but I'm feeling awfully paranoid right now, especially after MTGOX and I didn't even put any money in there.

How they handled this is better than gox, lmao.
This should not be handled like that at all.  Again prices plummet from gross incompetence and criminal behavior.
Thankfully people here advised me against using their interest program.
Again what is with their weird and corrupt usd trading system they have going on, where you can sell btc for usd, use that usd to buy bitcoin, but cannot move usd on or off the site?
  

What do you think, when they will stops withdraws of the rest altcoins?

I am thinking about letting my friend know about it because he is keeping there some dvc and he just hodl them there :)

Maybe it is a good time to take them out...

So far you can withdraw DVC with no problem, but perhaps ... it might not stay forever ..

I tried to withdraw 1.5m DOGE yesterday and it failed.  It got deducted from my balance but the account history shows it with no TrxID and nothing on the blockchain.  Sent them a support mail.  Anyone know if they ever respond to emails?

Sorry to hear that. I sent an email to them last week as I mentioned, before their announcement, and they never replied.
Before that, I think I got 1 reply (days later) out of 3 emails.

I like the comparison of the exchanges being like banks when they lose funds they try and make their clients pay for the debt.  But the banks also use the taxpayers who aren't all the clients so there is some differences.

Too many "bad" exchanges to keep track of them all.
Which exchanges smaller than Cryptsy have "decent" volume, a good reputation and no known hacks/big loses?

It is free market so new, better exchanges will emerge .

I agree I think so too.

But we truly need good and legit exchange that will stay with us forever with no probs ;)

I hope those days are close.

US forcing us to use regulated exchanges  ::)

I'd like to get some clarification on the question you brought up also. I wasn't following this issue for very long and I'm interested in getting more facts from those are aware of them.

So, another exchange bites the dust and runs away with people's money?

Niiiice!

When will people will stop trusting these scamchanges and stop fucking bitcoin? Because that's what they do, fuck it. Decentralized protocol with centralized wallets. You deserve it. Your coins will belong to somebody else.

they not yet did it so do not tell it yet like it is done :)

Give it a time ...

 I don't think there's even one site that looks trustworthy to me. They all look like they were created as quick as possible to serve one purpose. I can't speak for Vircurex cust serv. but Gox and BTC-e were by far the worst. Only Cryptsy ever responded and corrected an issue in a reasonable time frame. Paranoia for lack of a better word is GOOD! Only we can protect our coins all exchanges are subject to theft.

What do you suggest for exchanging coins and trading? You only use cash and no bank?

The problem with the current exchanges is that they we're built when bitcoin had a low price. Centralization is not the real problem it introduces risk that should be addressed properly.
Now they should consider themselves as banks or exchanges and up their security. These people have no idea what it takes to run a bank or money business.

Also people are against regulation but regulations can stop incompetent people from running money businesses and stop people goxxing. Anarchy is no better than regulation.

Also bitcoin is a new ballgame, there have always be exchanges/banks losing money, it's all part of the game it should be taken into account.
Exchanges should encorporate strict security rules around available money and offline wallets. They should reserve funds for losses instead of fixing it after the hack.
IMO atleast 90% of funds should be offline and offsite. Offline funds should be retreivable within a short period to allow withdrawls within 24-48 hours. 5% of the total capital should be reserved for incidents.

As a last note, exchanges have made bitcoin trade-able and accessible making the price what it is today.

Now I'm glad I pulled out a month ago. Vircurex has withdrawal fees that are too high anyway. There are better exchanges.

Perhaps - which one of them you will called "better" I am asking because I need to find another good exchange :)

None?
Any decent exchanges smaller than Cryptsy?

I just wanted to update this and let people know that they did get to my support mail in the end and I have now received my Dogecoin.  Vircurex is alive, well and - slowly but surely - recovering.

Ha, I pulled my dogecoins out of vircurex when I realized how ridiculously high their fees are. I hope they tank hard.

Well I think even if (it is yes) they have a big problems - they are trying to do their best!

I must say I believe they will recover somehow and no one will lose any coins there.
That's what I believe - because I want to believe in it...
As Vircurex was 1st exchange where I did registered ... and till this issue I was trading only @Vircurex ... and sometimes @Bter.

I liked Vircurex and at least it looks like they were honest. But until they show us their books, we will never know.

Anyway, I just checked the volume there and it is mighty low. So, I don't see how they will pay back the missing BTC/LTC/etc. and that is too bad.
I would go back to them but really, all of these exchanges need to have some form of industry wide security (e.g. - multisig, etc.)

IAS

They intended to payback from fees in silence, but got in a squeeze so they had to make it public. But now they lost volume due to that and its getting more and more difficult to make up the lost coins. Its hard to tell but I wouldnt trust that they can pull it off now.

so now it is a religion? hope is a dangerous thing when you are depending on another human to come through for you.

Slowly? As in since 2013 (one year ago)?

Yeah then I agree with you. It will never recover FAST. May never ever recover.

I believe = I see that they are trying to do something instead of runaway - so I "believe" that there is a possibility that they will success.
And I want tosee they success so I want to make it happen.

Do not mess a religion with a bitcoin ☺
Word "believe" have few other than a religion kind meanings :)

I wish this was true but I'm afraid you have no idea what Kumala has done to some people.

I've been pretty angry regarding what Kumala did but now I'm just heartbroken.  All I did was move some coins into Vircurex to trade them in late March and couldn't get them back. I only move coins to an exchange to trade then I retrieve them immediately.  Kumala claimed there was a technical error he was fixing but then he froze (stole) them.  He promised to make up his losses without affecting user accounts then went back on his word.  He claimed he was fixing a technical withdrawal issue and stole those funds too.  That second lie costs me a lot of money and heartache.  Here's why:

My autistic son will be graduating from high school in June.  It has been such a long journey for us and we are very proud he has made it.  My wife and I asked him what he wanted as a graduation gift and he said he'd like a cruise to Alaska.  Normally we could never afford that trip but I had enough cryptocurrency to just swing it.  I tried to trade the coins on Vircurex so I could monetize them.  Instead, Kumala stole them from me.  I've tried everything to get him to return them and he won't even respond to me.  Monday, I saw Kumala unfroze .00026808 LTC of my total of 450 LTCs.  I guess I was fooling myself thinking somehow I may get my coins but now I know I won't.  My wife recently cancelled our trip and today I told my son we can't go because someone stole the money. He was heartbroken and I was humiliated.  I'm now selling all of my mining equipment in the hope of raising some cash for a more modest trip.

I don't need sympathy and I certainly don't need people telling me it's my own fault for trading on Vircurex.  I just want people to know (especially Kumala) that what he did had real consequences for people.  Does Kumala realize when he steals people's coins it could effect their lives? 

I'm beyond upset now.  I'm heartbroken that he could be so callous as to steal people's wealth with no regard to how he is hurting them.

this is old news.............