TLDR: - many of the exchanges with high daily volumes are faking transactions, - OKex being the main suspect with 92.9% fake volumes - Huobi the 2nd on the list, 81.8% fake volumes - most of the chinese exchanges are faking it hard: Lbank, Exx, RightBTC, CoinEgg, Zb, BitZ, Bibox, CoinEx, BTC-Alpha… Original post on Medium (13k+ claps): https://medium.com/@sylvainartplayribes/chasing-fake-volume-a-crypto-plague-ea1a3c1e0b5eWhy should you care?
One may argue that “since it’s not a regulated market it’s not even illegal, why shouldn’t they do what they want?”, and one would be wrong. Precisely because the market is not regulated the responsibility behooves the market actors themselves. Spreading awareness and boycotting exchanges that endorse this practice is the least we can do.
One may argue that “well they’re not hurting anyone”, and one would be wrong. First of all, by inflating their volume, they position themselves in a way that could allow them to defraud gullible investors. More importantly, if you’re neither gullible nor a VC investor they can and they do have an impact on some cryptocurrencies valuation. Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash notably, have had as much as 75% of their volume circulating on one or the other of these exchanges. OKex alone consistently accounts for over 30% of either currency’s volume.
I remember reading the same thing about Huobi a few years back with its fake volumes. It obviously makes it exponentially more attractive for someone to trade at an exchange which has huge amount of volume which makes them seem more trustworthy and used by whales, than an exchange that does not have these kind of volumes. That I think is the primary reason why they do choose to manipulate their volumes, apart from also manipulating prices of coins in more complicated means. Definitely a reasonable doubt to have, and it has been around for quite a long time already. But has anyone conducted the same kind of research on western exchanges? Or is it just assumed that only asian exchanges do this and western exchanges are generally 'clean' of this crime? |
|
|
|
7000 BTC was moved to Bittrex. There are rumors that MtGox is involved in this. There are some implying association to Mt.Gox, Bittrex wallet and even Winklevoss. But in any case, trying to sell them quickly can reduce the price of bitcoin. https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/16rCmCmbuWDhPjWTrpQGaU3EPdZF7MTdUkAs soon as the price grows, it is lowered down again. Do you still think that this is a coincidence? Look, there is no point speculating whether Mt Gox is doing this or not. Just because someone moves coins doesn't mean that they are going to dump it all at one time or they're going to sell any at all. The major resistance so far has proven to be along the lines of $9k. BTC did breach it once but failed to hold its ground above that level. Second time, it was unsuccessful at even hitting $9k even though it was well within reach. So it's clear that there are bears keeping the prices down below $9k. Whether it's going to be Mt Gox behind this or Winklevoss twins dumping I don't know and I don't think it's ever going to be confirmed. Though doesn't matter who's dumping - someone is taking their profits now and feeling bearish. We may drop back to $7k-8k range but for now, we're probably going to recover up to a level close to $9k and test it again, if it doesn't reach it, then we may truly be in a bearish state for a couple of months. |
|
|
|
I read alot of Yobit horror stories, they need more regulations impose!
This has nothing to do with yobit. If you bothered to read the thread then OP actually got tricked into sending money to a yobit imposter because he got scammed by a fake telegram ICO and wanted a refund. In general though I would definitely avoid using yobit and following the yobit twitter account as it is filled with scams of the same sort that require you to send money to them to gain more money, and yobit doesn't seem to be actively reporting these scammers. And yes, yobit is an unregulated exchange which makes it even more risky to use. I saw only one Telegram ICO page,I didnt expected that its scam but its my fault that I didnt checked more carefully before sending,I realized that the only official information about Telegram is only from their twitter and yes,you are right,I know that the funds are lost,I learned my lessons in a hard way,the good thing is that I invested early and the real loss is not so big but the potential is huge....so I would be more careful in the future,for sure,I will try to make everything that I can to track this bastard and hopefully recover something.
Thanks
Good luck. There is some info on the scammers and their previous site here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3179243.0. Hopefully this can help. |
|
|
|
|
It's most likely that he's actually hacked himself, although there is a chance that he may be one of the farmed accounts used specifically to achieve the objective of phishing for people's account details. Either way, he should definitely get negged. And yes, you should also press the report to admin button to report the PM.
You shouldn't even click on the link, and of course you shouldn't actually enter any details on that site.
BTW, this PM format is new. The old one is "I've replied to you" and without the "thanks again" part. The phishing link also seems to be updated. It could actually be a different person operating this site with two different phishing attempts going on at the same time. Anyways, do be careful as it seems to be a huge problem at the moment.
|
|
|
|
Why Bitcoin came so low in 2018 january to march
All the guess people were saying that Bitcoin would touch 25k$ but why did not it happen ?
I guess the regulation news did not stop. Pretty much every single day you are able to see news in the media about G20 calling regulation on crypto, SEC saying that crypto needs to be regulated, India regulating crypto... Etc., etc. And people somehow are scared of these regulations and think that bitcoin would not function as it used to because of these regulations, which I think is probably not going to be true at all. This is why markets are so bearish right now and prices are not going back up as quickly as people expect, including me. However, I don't think that anyone expected BTC to hit $25k in March, which is way too bullish a prediction. |
|
|
|
I'd say that most likely his account is hacked. But for now, he should definitely be tagged for spreading phishing links. This has become a pretty common occurence these days using the same format. It started late last year so it has been around for a few months already. Thy always uses the same phishing website(myrippleaddress i believe it is). If you have clicked on that link and entered any data you will want to change your password and email straightaway. Otherwise, you are risking your account security and you may potentially become a phishing link spreader without knowing. |
|
|
|
I can honestly say that I think I've only heard Paxful in the same sentence as 'scam' but obviously that's users, not the platform. I'm not sure there's any presence where I'm at. Localbitcoins all the way for me.
I've used paxful a total of 2 times. Once I was sent a stolen credit card as payment and the scammer marked payment complete. Obviously I disputed and requested for him to cancel. The second time, I was in need of BTC for my paypal in a rush and I was charged a 20% premium. After that, I stuck to localbitcoins. Paxful deals more in the gift card scene meaning that the users on there are a lot more scammy for sure. I don't get why people would use paxful over localbitcoins... There is obviously more listings on localbitcoins, and I'd say Localbitcoins probably is a lot more trusted than paxful. There's less scammers on LBC, the rates are better, less complaints... Benefits are really endless for me, personally. If you're dealing in the business of buying gift cards and you know the risks, then maybe paxful would be better for you since you are able to get GCs for cheap(which can often be fraudulent, which is why I'm saying if you know the risks and know how to manage it). That's the only scenario I would think paxful is advantageous, however. |
|
|
|
Does cryptopia lock accounts not on IP basis? (based on OP - look likes it's not)
Now after thinking about it, It sound stupid to lock accounts based on the account. In other words, If I know your email address, I could just lock it?  Either that or they actually got my password and the failed login represent that they weren't able to go through the 2FA? I'm honestly not sure. Exactly. If you are able to pull stuff like that just by knowing someone's email address, then it's not a good security measure to have. And if you have hackers on your tail trying to get into your account, if they wanted to, they could literally lock your account just by attempting to login with the wrong password over and over again. What's their policy on multiple accounts if you haven't done KYC? They obviously had a database leak. I wonder what other data was taken. I wouldn't load funds on my old account knowing that. I'd prefer to just make a new account with a fresh email address.
You can use 2FA for peace of mind (in fact you should anyway), but getting your account locked over this is also a bitch.
It could be their database being leaked, most likely which is why everyone on cryptopia is getting login attempt logged. Or, it could be another exchange who had their database leaked and they're just cross-checking the same email addresses on cryptopia. Is a possibility but less likely. Their multi-account policy is as follows: Multiple accounts for the purpose of defrauding, circumventing bans, soliciting or abusing Cryptopia Ltd. services will result in immediate termination of all related accounts, including seizure of all on-site digital property. I don't think creating a new account for the purpose of trying to avoid a hacker qualifies as any of those things. However it's best to check up with support still, even though you may never get a response back. Why use cryptopia anyways instead of another exchange when it's got so many problems with it? |
|
|
|
Long, always long. I hold bitcoin because I believe it is and will be the best coin, so I don’t care that much about the price. I am fully aware that it is a highly volatile asset, so I take what has happened in the past months for granted. It reached 19k too fast, so now we are in a consolidation phase.
I have been long since 2013 and I see no reason why I should not continue being long as I believe in the future of bitcoin. I did a little bit of shorting anyway when the market had a bull rally and it simply showed some possibility of downtrend and I got back long at $6200. So, I guess I have to wait to see how that turns out eventually. Nothing much is going on in the market apart from the recent news, but it seems that is not sufficient enough to give the market a good boost. I think that he is talking about the short term. Long term speaking, I am also extremely bullish on bitcoin. I think that as soon as mass adoption starts to happen and people stop worrying about regulation which doesn't even affect how bitcoin is used and we consolidate for enough time, we will be able to see a pump around the same size or even bigger than the 2017 pump. Sky's the limit for bitcoin in the long run. But for now, we've dropped back to $8500 after attempting to break $9000 at the start of the day. Resistance is pretty strong for sure. I would be careful going long or short with any sort of leverage here. Either hold your coin that you've already got, or wait until we get to around $9.3k to buy in as the uptrend is confirmed if that resistance is breached. I think we should still see $9k+ by the end of month, however. |
|
|
|
Not new at all. I encountered the same problem here last year in November: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2385827. I clicked on the link, realised that it was a phishing link, and then went back straightaway without submitting any data. I use a Mac OS. After 4 months, nothing bad has happened yet. I think it's unlikely that any malware has been installed onto your computer, but if you're having some weird stuff happening to you in the shut down process, you better get your computer checked out with antivirus, or reset windows if it's something serious. Just curious. What exactly do these phishers aim to achieve by penetrating the accounts? It's not like they can steal coins within the short time span when the genuine owners realize what happened and the accounts are then tagged for being hacked into.
Or is it a quick sale? Which seems unlikely, given they first need to put up ads which would be open for all to see, including DT members.
Neither will taking out loans work. This is a painstakingly time consuming process involving signing of staked addresses etc. And lenders do a systematic check of the forum for any record of the account having any open and unresolved issues.
I'm guessing that they'll either attempt to scam in trades where signing messages is not as common, or try to launch an attack on the forum with the data they get. But your account details are compromised for sure if you submit any data and that's all you'll need to worry about. |
|
|
|
Trade wars have an impact on the global economy. It doesn't matter where you live, when the heavyweights of finance (US, Europe and Asia) are involved, you will see an impact on your local economy as well since everything is interconnected nowadays.
Bitcoin is no different, the Bitcoin price is subjected to what happens at the geopolitical table, and since it's a neutral global asset, it should go up. So while we have Trump screwing around with his trade wars, we can benefit by holding Bitcoin and watching the fireworks on the sidelines as countries print more money. We should be going to 100k in the following years as a result. Forget about coffee with Bitcoin, this is where Bitcoin will shine.
It doesn't even need to be that complicated. Just consider this, bitcoin demand is probably going to continue growing for a few decades, while the supply of bitcoin is governed strictly by code which cannot be changed, and inflation rates are going to stay extremely low to the point where it's pretty much 0% inflation. People around the world will start using BTC as a hedge against the fiat economy and currency as a result of this decentralisation of power. And again, this boosts demand in the coming decades in my opinion. $100k could definitely be possible given a decade or two, it's not as absurd as some people think just because we're stuck in a bear cycle at the moment. |
|
|
|
We had to deal with a dip this week. Prices seem to be climbing back again. The question is how we move forward after this dip? $9k resistance is still extremely strong at this stage. We re-tested that level yesterday and failed to breach it, so that's two times we've failed to do that already. I think that is a signal that we may stay between this $8-9k range for some more time to come. I doubt it's going to break out. If it does the target is still at $12k and then we hit the ceiling like the last 2 times, so IMO still very bearish markets at the moment. Unless of course some positive news come all of a sudden and causes a big reversal. Though, with the BTC markets clouded with new regulations, I just don't see that happening easily this year. Prepare to hold for a long year ahead.  |
|
|
|
Ofcourse its normal to feel sad when you see you're losing money again but it never crossed my mind on planning to sell it. I just do things that will completely forget my holdings like games, hangout with friends or watching movies. We all know from the start that this is the possible situation that we will be facing so just be it and accept the risk we take.
I actually got past the stage of feeling sad long time ago when I realized how strong the market is. People will always say whatever they like whenever they feel like as we are all entitled to our opinion, but no matter the FUD, the attack, check it! We still always come back strong. While some may panic and end up selling at loss, then joining the FOMOs when the market gets back up, those of us with experience of how the market behaves normally, really do not bother. I trade anyway, so that even makes me to bother less. I always say that the worst thing you can do in a panic dump caused by new regulations or new negative media is to dump your coins also. You're literally just letting other people getting their coins for cheap. If you are not comfortable with the fact that you can indeed lose money on bitcoin, then just don't trade it. I just wonder how those HODL people that are now losing so much money day after day after day, manage their positions? Are you guys just sitting there, watching your accounts evaporate, hoping for better days? Are you cutting losses? When is it enough?
My position at least is definitely not evaporating. I have been holding BTC since 2015 so I have a lot of room, even if BTC goes down by a lot, I can stay put and look at the long term picture. Even if you bought at a higher price, you should have this kind of mindset. Focus on the long term, don't get distracted on the short term, because if you do, you'll always end up buying high due to FOMO and selling low due to impulse selling/panic. |
|
|
|
I believe end hope BTC to USD for December 2018.In the beginning price at 15164 Dollars. Maximum price $18821, minimum price $15164. The average for the month $16685. Bitcoin price forecast at the end of the month $17590,
And my predictions BTC to USD for December 2020.
In the beginning price at 62294 Dollars. Maximum price $72131, minimum price $62294. The average for the month $66033. Bitcoin price forecast at the end of the month $67412,
I doubt it. The problem with your prediction is that they are so time specific that even if bitcoin is bullish, it could be well outside of the ranges that you have predicted. It seems like that you are just chucking up random numbers out there. I think it's unlikely for BTC to climb up to $18k this year because of all the regulatory pressures coming from countries all over the world. But it could happen just by hype. If people get hyped up, nobody can possibly know what's going to go on next. Have to say though that your prediction for 2020 is well outside of what I think will be likely. If we see a major pump, it's going to be in 2021 and not 2020. And for BTC's prices to 8x within 2 years seem a bit too optimistic to me. Throwing up random numbers like you are doing right now isn't the way to make a profit off speculating BTC. |
|
|
|
telegramfoundation.org was the first one.
Unfortunately, to be able to trace You should be scammed first. They got my attention when I was in a hurry with other things and was happy that GRAM ICO "started". Everything was done in less than minute. I usually send very small amount first, but as I said, I was before leaving the desk so... I have traces now. I don't expect to be able to return back what I literally throw away, but there are chances scammers to be stopped.
Everyone scammed is getting separate address, but scammers are consolidating payments at the first address in the list. They were using very same address for consolidation with the first domain scam. History shows that scammers divided consolidated amount on three new addresses. Here is their mistake, first one was not new and held some amount of ETH before, received from the last address in the list that has many transactions with Bittrex. Transactions are valuable, so user should be ID registered with Bittrex. Unless scammers never converted currencies to fiat with this account so ID registration could be fake.
From the other side, registrant of the second domain is using e-mail from domain registered in Cyprus, which registrar (contact is lady with Russian name) doesn't want to reveal even to FTC contact details of registrant.
Well that site seems to be down as well. I see what you mean. So every victim have different addresses, but if I understand you correctly, the scammers first redirected all the scammed funds into one address and then further diverted into different addresses which is the reason why you were able to track them down, correct? I don't see much you can do with Bittrex even if they did have links to bittrex transactions. There are probably privacy conditions protecting them. But who knows, it's worth a try. And it's good that you've learned your lesson, always do your research. US FTC has system for reporting phishing scams and they can be intrigued with the value of the scam and proceed further. Nothing more I can do. Lesson learned. Never hurry with payments. Yes, indeed. Again, I'd say that you hope for the best and expect the worst. With both domains down and with the domain registered overseas, it'll be incredibly hard to track them. |
|
|
|
|
Is this actually data that has been collected from the G20 meetings or did you just copy the data for the G20 countries with their current crypto legality from wikipedia? They are promising some kind of regulation towards July, no idea what exactly it's going to be though. Even though China and South Korea have restrictions placed on crypto, they are still two enormous crypto nations. So this data isn't always going to be as straightforward as you think.
I do think that people are over concerned about the regulations that may end up coming out of the G20 meetings.
The worst the governments can do is restrict exchanges or place tighter regulations on exchanges, that's all. And we're already seeing that happening. Either trading is going to become decentralised, or p2p. BTC cannot die because of regulations - it is decentralised itself.
|
|
|
|
|
Try PM Cyrus as well. Not sure if it's going to help, but worth a try.
Did you get banned because your account was used to spam or used to spread virus links, or was it just that you tried to reset your password through a security question and thus got your account locked?
It's not as simple because your account was used to post links to viruses, and you can't really prove that that's not you.
BTW, the unedited post containing the address is posted on 26th Dec, the exact same date your account apparently got locked/hacked. You should provide signed messages from addresses older than that.
|
|
|
|
I'm not really afraid about the security of my funds as I don't store anything on exchanges but It's worth mentioning that I received 3 Fail login attempts and then my account got locked. 15th March - 95.181.176.135
17th March - 73.196.57.191
19th March - 85.102.254.166
The IP addresses are not from the same country so It's most likely an attack with proxies on different accounts and not just mine. I thought I should let you guys know so in case you don't have 2FA enabled or strong password, do it. It's definitely not an accident, definitely planned and the hacker's trying to login from different IPs so that he doesn't get traced down. Probably using a proxy to do so, but it's definitely malicious in intent. I believe that I've heard users at cryptopia being hacked before, though I'm not sure if it's officially confirmed. But as warningsigns said, nobody should store any amount of coins on exchanges. If you have to exchange crypto, then do the exchange and get your money out asap. You never know what goes on in an exchange, you might not even get notified of hackers trying to get into your account. It might not even be hackers, it could be the exchange itself that becomes insolvent which ends up with you losing money. |
|
|
|
https://www.ccn.com/cryptocurrency-exchange-binance-facing-regulatory-pressure-in-japan-report/Japan’s top securities regulator will warn cryptocurrency exchange Binance that it must cease operating in the country without a license or face enforcement action.
Citing a person familiar with the matter, Nikkei reports that Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) will issue a formal warning to Binance, which has allegedly begun expanding operations into Japan without permission from the regulatory agency.
Headquartered in Hong Kong and bootstrapped through an initial coin offering (ICO) last year, Binance has quickly emerged as one of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency exchanges. At present, Binance ranks as the world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform, with a 24-hour volume of nearly $1.9 billion.
Binance has its own utility token — BNB — and the exchange operator has announced that it has begun development on its own public blockchain, which will be used as the foundation for a decentralized exchange (DEX). The BNB price fell by approximately 10 percent from its intraday high following the initial report, although its 24-hour performance is still in positive territory.
Binance has said that intends to apply for an FSA license, but the fact that it expanded its operations into this jurisdiction without regulatory approval could attract more scrutiny to the company’s application. What will probably happen is that Binance will simply move away from the japanese markets instead of applying for a Japanese FSA license. They'll probably just disable their services for Japanese people instead of reforming their entire KYC policy or try to actually become licensed, because they want to continue to attract customers from other countries via their loose verification policies. The problems were there at the beginning, it was just not noticed until they have gained a sizable volume. And that's the problem with all exchanges - if they operate without issues as a small exchange, they'll still probably get caught up in regulatory issues when they get bigger. And yes, decentralised exchanges is definitely a need. Nobody trusts centralized exchanges anymore, I'd much rather prefer p2p trading even for altcoins to be honest. At least there won't be anything concerning regulations. |
|
|
|
The scammer's proceeds have not been moved, but if that's the correct amount scammed, that's a lot of money. Over $120k even with the current dip in crypto prices. I do hope that figure is inflated and not actually this many people got scammed.
You could try reporting to exchanges, but I doubt they'll act on it. The scammer can also trade the ETH on LBC, or via other p2p methods, in which case there is nothing we can do about it.
$120K is only from second used domain and only in ETH. Looking at ETH transactions addresses scammer collected 165 ETH from first domain two weeks ago. But there is connection between scammer's addresses and older address that had transactions with Bittrex exchange. Case is opened at US FTC and Bittrex. Scammer sits on top of $750K in ETH only with addresses connected with transfers from this scam.  Hmm, what was the name of the first domain again? That's some good detective work for sure, but how did you manage to track down all of the scammer's addresses? Did they reuse the same address for their fake ICO and told everyone to send to the same address or is it via blockchain analysis? Good to hear that you've notified Bittrex, though again, they may just use any other exchange under a fake name and still be able to cash out their ETH. BTW, does the US FTC actually deal with cases of cyberscamming like this one? I doubt they'll be able to do much about it honestly, but it's worth a try. Doesn't hurt to file a report in any case. $750k is a ton of money, hopefully some of this is just the scammer's own assets, and not all is from the fake ICO. Otherwise that's some major losses for investors. |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
