Poloniex don't do fiat, hence money, until such time as US laws treat crypto as money, which will be a constitutional nightmare.
In 2013 Silk Road was seized. Ross's lawyer argued in 2014 that Ross could not be guilty of money laundering because bitcoin is not money, but property. The Judge shoots down this argument by stating that "it's close enough to be considered money". Ross lost the case and was sentenced for money laundering, among other things Consequently: bitcoin is to be defined as money. Except the constitution defines money. You can read some of the arguments here: http://www.tmtperspectives.com/2014/02/28/does-the-constitution-have-anything-to-say-about-bitcoin-and-money-laundering/Irrelevant. As the Slik Road case just proved. It's not irrelevant because constitutional law takes precedent over case law. Just because the Silk Road defendant didn't bother to take the matter to the supreme court as an error in law, doesn't mean others wont. Ulbricht faced much more serious charges than arguing the technicalities of money laundering, he got life for drug trafficking, which was over the top even according to the prosecution, the judge was trying to send a message to drug traffickers. |
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Poloniex don't do fiat, hence money, until such time as US laws treat crypto as money, which will be a constitutional nightmare.
In 2013 Silk Road was seized. Ross's lawyer argued in 2014 that Ross could not be guilty of money laundering because bitcoin is not money, but property. The Judge shoots down this argument by stating that "it's close enough to be considered money". Ross lost the case and was sentenced for money laundering, among other things Consequently: bitcoin is to be defined as money. Except the constitution defines money. You can read some of the arguments here: http://www.tmtperspectives.com/2014/02/28/does-the-constitution-have-anything-to-say-about-bitcoin-and-money-laundering/ |
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Poloniex don't do fiat, hence money, until such time as US laws treat crypto as money, which will be a constitutional nightmare. The Washington laws are the states attempt to wind up crypto exchanges altogether. Expect other states to follow. BTC-e made the mistake/choice to take fiat so they stuck their head in the noose. There is a war on, the US government is trying to kill crypto exchanges, but they will eventually fail because the next wave is decentralized exchanges via the lightning and other side chain nets. In the meantime, crypto exchanges will be forced to ban trade with US citizens, thus forcing crypto underground, or take the government to court on constitutional grounds. Should be entertaining to watch. |
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That's the part I miss.
How can a company such as BTC-e, which has anonymous shell companies in the virgin islands and so on... leave hot wallets valued hundreds of millions... in US friendly servers?
I still believe that crypto assets are not in Fed hands, although this does not necessarily mean that they will return to right owners.
Exactly what I thought, where is the disaster recovery strategy? The Feds raiding is not the only reason servers might go offline, you need a well thought out strategy to handle it. You certainly wouldn't have wallets on hosting servers. In case of hacking or theft, the wallet server drives would should be fully encrypted requiring a manual passphrase entry to mount them. Private keys should only be in RAM so they are gone when a server is rebooted, and have to be imported again. It's not like they had many coins to worry about. BTC, LTC, NMC, NVC, PPC, DASH, and ETH. That's only 7 hot wallets to import keys each reboot. |
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If theres one thing I've learnt from all this bullshit is that the biggest problem is crypto is fiat. If a viable living economy can exist purely based on crypto, then the ties to fiat can be cut and these government shakedowns can end
The US gov behaves like a gigantic organized crime mob, stand over tactics and all. It's so big that the people think it's legitimate because they know no better having been brought up with it's spin. Corruption is everywhere. If the government was for the people, they would be the ones encouraging crypto and privacy, not trying to force it underground. |
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Oh right, BTC-e owners are anonymous, what are they going to do, sue the blockchain? |
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They don't seem to respond to support tickets.
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What's next, does the US gov seize bitcointalk.org because we talk about btc-e.com?
Civil forfeiture seems rampant.
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If there is an ongoing investigation in their premises it can last even longer than 3 months, but I like your optimism, then they'll truly become another Kim Dotcom. Wow!!!
Kim Dotcom operated his servers on US soil, BTC-e didn't |
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If exit scam's theories be true, i think the domain seized is fake and owners build it themselves.
It's an incredibly crappy page, no links for further information, and it has the badges of several agencies that have nothing to do with what's going on. There is no big deal getting a domain that is out of US government control, letting people know about it is the trick. |
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To stop a "bank run" perhaps? |
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wow really? thats pretty crazy. Must be BTC-e trying to run with funds cause why would us gov move stuff about multiple times.
To "run with funds" all you need to do is move them once from the private keys you think might be compromised, to new ones that you know are not. |
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Since ETH balance automatically transferred to new wallet, it could mean that those 5-10 days could be some kind of 'dead man switch' that will be activated.
How do you know that ETH balance was "automatically" transferred to a new wallet? If you check https://etherscan.io/address/0x8eb3fa7907ad2ef4c7e3ba4b1d2f2aac6f4b5ae6first 3 transactions are completed on exact full hour difference, 4th 10mins after and 5th could be some troll. So first 3 transactions looks like automatic dead man switch probably executed or confirmed by 0.0001 sent back to original ETH balance wallet from https://etherscan.io/address/0xf886abf45d68611078b5f66d450f76beb1dd8234Also there is a quote of Balthazar who is familiar with BTC-e (don't have the original post link): "Well, ETH stash is still incomparable to BTC wallets. Anyway, FBI would notify everybody in the world in case of successful seizure of funds. So I think that it's just a new wallet created by automatical task which is still function properly. It looks like at least some part of exchange's infrastructure is still up." We shall see if US gov says anything about money in the next couple of days. Balthazar was too quick to say that FBI would notify everybody. They might do that but not the same minute they have moved ETH balance. But anyhow it looks to me like it was some automatic script doing that ETH balance transfer. Sounds like epic BS to me. In which country were these "FBI" supposed to be doing this seizure? |
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Since ETH balance automatically transferred to new wallet, it could mean that those 5-10 days could be some kind of 'dead man switch' that will be activated.
How do you know that ETH balance was "automatically" transferred to a new wallet? |
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I must assume some sort of backup plan must have been created by the BTC-e team if something like this would have ever happen...
Like have a place to go, have stuff ready or is this wishfull thinking?
Because we don't know what happened, how can you assume there was a plan in place? BTC-e could have been disconnected by their data center operator. They might have been hacked. They could have been raided by local authorities. The might have panicked over the news of Vinnik arrest in Greece and decided to move. Or it could be simply be an exit scam. So far everyone is guessing, the only thing we know is BTC-e is offline and they said it was a "network" problem in the data center and they would be back in 5-10 days. Everything else is speculation or FUD from new trolls. |
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Right now, only Vinnik is indicted. BTC-e only received a fine (as far as we know).
Unfortunately, it's worse than that. BTC-E was indicted on two counts, as part of the same indictment -- running an unlicensed money service business and conspiracy to commit money laundering. And the feds seized their main domain (BTC-E.nz still seems untouched, not sure about the others). So it looks a bit more grim; I think they expected that $110mm fine to be paid out of seized funds. But it's still not entirely clear if they were able to seize funds. One would think they would have announced it in the initial press releases... Yes, but the were not running the business in the US, and there is no mention of a take down order which would only be enforceable for companies under US jurisdiction. To take someone else down overseas requires the action of local authorities, the US are not going to raid and snatch things in another country without a political uproar. What I think is most likely is the BTC-e hosting provider was US owned and took them offline so they are looking for a new provider. If BTC-e have instead decided to close up shop and do a runner, which would be a bad thing to do as it's an admission of guilt, then the chase begins. |
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Stupid petition. How do you know that BTC-e was shutdown by the US government? Just because the US issue a fine notice, doesn't mean they shut them down. |
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But this might all be irrelevant. What matters is that the feds want to shut down BTC-E. What the feds want, they usually get.  The corrupt American gov is virtually bankrupt, they will STEAL every dollar they can, like desperate thieves. Still there is some hope left. The "corrupt American gov' can print as much money as the like out of thin air via the Federal Reserve, and the sheeple around the world will honor it. What they are trying to do is close any method of exchange that doesn't involve on of their third parties, eg. a US bank. They want to control everything in the world. Crypto and cash transactions bypass that third party, so the only way to attack it is to go after exchanges, and ban cash. |
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But if there is no way for USD or EUR to exit the exchange, why will people want to hold it? That's the problem. The only option, then, is to cut the EUR markets and transition the USD markets to USDT. Maybe that's possible, but I'm not sure Bitfinex's parent company (who owns Tether) will want to deal with backing BTC-E at this point.
Because traders in a falling market want something they can shift to for wealth preservation. I do it all the time, but I don't deposit or withdrawal $USD. Most of the trade in an exchange like BTC-e is not in and out, it's just trade between currency pairs in their database, not wallets and bank accounts. Think of it as a casino, most of the trade volume is casino chips at the tables, not fiat in and out of the enterprise. The same chip might change hands a dozen times a day. BTC-e had some chips called USD doesn't mean they were USD. |
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