Bitcoin Forum

Hi everyone,

Just in case some are not aware yet, TradeOgre has been busted by the RCMP (Canadian Feds).
They took all the funds and closed the website. So far no one has been able to get any response from them about what to do to get your funds back.

I am personally thinking about a Class Action or something similar as this is obviously a pure abuse of power. TO didn't have any KYC, but it doesn't make it illegal to have funds deposited there. And no legal reason for the RCMP to take the funds, closing the website I understand it if TO broke some local laws, but they should have a mechanism to let people get their funds back.

There was a couple of threads discussing the seizure. There is a guy on YouTube, The Crypto Father (https://youtu.be/UlxCYE-w5gY), who got a response from the RCMP. There might be some information in his recent videos which you might find relevant.

It seems like it might be possible to get your funds back, but they are demanding a lot of personal information, which TradeOgre users might not be comfortable with submitting. If you are okay with KYC, then you might want to follow the advice of the channel.

TradeOgre is a very small exchange, no KYC requirement on users but the exchange has many shit coins with very low trading volume. I really don't see any potential to use TradeOgre exchange with this shit coin listing there and very low trading volume which is not helpful for your trading.

The exchange did not have customer support that is very dangerous and fearful to use.

Mostly you can not and you must assume that you won't get your money back. The post above with information from a Youtube video shows that there is very small chance, with KYC, even advance KYC with RCMP.

Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5421039.0)

Hate exchanges and I know its too late for the advice but if you HAVE to use an exchange, you always want to have one regulated, and you need to KYC. This way of life is the norm now in 2025.

Actually I'm surprised such an exchange still exists, and its not Russian or Korean :)

Either that or chunk with small amounts so you don't lose much.

It makes sense to get your funds off exchanges as quickly as possible and to store as little as you can on them. At the very least, you're entrusting other people not to steal your funds and that hasn't gone down well in the past. Transactions are irriversible, that should be enough of a warning too.


Yeah but it had a lot of coins and the UI was pretty clean.

You had to wait a while for an exchange on some pairs but that was a small price to pay for it actually having the pair in the first place.

Am as surprised too, because in this day and age, kyc requirements and the FINTRAC registration are important requirements for such a business to remain open. Although I know such an action is due to suspicion of money laundering and well that's just a way government these days hold and own BTC like the U.S who converted seized coins to a federal reserve.

Individuals who has their funds confiscated alongside should do well to contact the RCMP with proof of ownership and source of coins and can of course be accompanied by a legal counsel for the reclaiming process. It gets no easier than that unless the government decides otherwise.

The news about the seizure came out some weeks back, and I am not sure what exactly their plans are regarding compensations. One thing I know for sure is that authorities do not like it when people decide to go private with their finances, and they end up labelling such acts as money laundering even when they are not. So once the illegal seize those funds, they simply label them as laundered funds. This has happened so many times with Bitcoin mixers.

There is something RCMP saw about TradeOgre that made them took that action. In my opinion, TradeOgre has so many red flags that make them appear like a scam-in-waiting. If the authorities stepped in to prevent future damages, that should be taken as a good step. I don't know why someone will keep funds in such exchange when we know that CEX is not a place to store funds.

Based on  reported coingeek.com (https://coingeek.com/40m-crypto-seized-as-canada-shuts-tradeogre-exchange/#:~:text=TradeOgre%20is%20a%20centralized%20digital,Your%20Customer%20(KYC)%20requirements.), TradeOgre exchange have been seized by RCPM or Royal Canadian Mounted Police On September 18 with seized over $40 million in crypto assets. Sadly for Canadian who has assets cryptocurrency there and recently the investigation from policemen talk about money laundering, easily for making money laundering if exchange not require with KYC and all user easily make transaction without using verifying document ID.

So what new update right now after several week investigating have good news for the user of TradeOgre exchange get back their fund or will loss their fund without any responsibility from the exchange owner make refund or the policemen sent back the user fund.

I hear for the first time that TradeOgre was a Canadian crypto exchange. I thought that they were hosted somewhere offshore and their business was better protected from such confiscations. Running a non-KYC crypto exchange is a very risky business, since all governments around the world require KYC for all sorts of financial stuff. Maybe at some point the team behind TradeOgre will have to show up in court and the court must decide what to do with the seized crypto. I'm sure that the people will get their coins back, but they might have to prove that those coins aren't a result of money laundering, tax evasion or other illegal activities.

I think this is also one of the problems about trading on unregulating exchanges despites while we are dealing with anonymity crypto currencies that keeps users privacies.
Such trading platform has never been encouraging for highily trading values/volumes due to it risks of unlicensed operations under centralized exchange.
If the platform is actually genuine with the requirements of customers to enroll their Kyc's before they gets their money back, then it is a breach of reputation because, Kyc has never been one of the criterias of the terms. However, those who are comfortable with the conditions can follow the guides if providing those required Kyc's is the only condition to recover their funds.

They have very small trading volume, and with another big risk - no customer support, I don't see how TradeOgre exchange is worth to use. I used this exchange years ago, and honestly, they proceeded withdrawals very quickly but I had one time with fear when the exchange site was down like 2 or 3 years ago. It's when I discovered that they have no customer support at all, fortunately their site came back and I withdrawn my money from it, never use it again.

With many DEX since the last market cycle, you can easily trade altcoins without KYC and without need of using TradeOrge if you don't trade your bitcoin for shitcoins.

It was removed from kycnot.me site.
https://kycnot.me/service/tradeogre

I am only surprised to know that TradeOgre is from Canada that is not a paradise for privacy.

The problem is that TO is a non-KYC exchange and is based outside of Canada (Gemini Overveview states they are based in the US). Canada can legally claim that the assets are not registered in a legal jurisdiction. So, even if TO is legal in another country, they can still freeze the assets in their territory.

Canada has a special law called the PCMLTFA^(*), which gives the RMPC the discretion to take action and seize assets without direct charges, as long as they are suspected of or related to money laundering. This means they don't need to prove TO guilty in court to seize their assets.

(*) https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/p-24.501/

Tradeogre worked without KYC or any identification and on top of that, you could find almost all the shitoins on this exchange that were hard to buy anywhere else except Tradeogre. So, it was only a matter of time before this essentially “pirate” exchange was shut down.
After they had their first operational problems and suspected hacking a couple of years ago, it became clear that their's days were numbered. There were also problems with Kasp, when many people had their transfers frozen there. In general, there are fewer and fewer exchanges without KYC and identification, and Tradeogr held out for quite a long time, given the specifics of their work.

Well, if you want to trade, then you have to chunk your whole capital anyway, I would just choose one exchange, as regulated as possible, then full KYC.

You already have to lose control of your coins if you trade on exchange, and we all know exchanges eventually do bad shit, so might as well choose one with the best possibility of recovery.