My guess is that the funds has not been seized and here is why:

The first thing FBI would boast about is the large seizure. But it's been dead silence regarding funds. Secondly the first thing they would do after getting their hand on the servers would be to secure funds (to prevent a second admin getting away with them). But funds only started moving yesterday. During the weekend, of all things.

I tracked my namecoin deposit, and ended up with these two wallets:
https://bitinfocharts.com/namecoin/address/NJinDPKLrfJ7tna7BgKWNXJ9NkK1Fxfv2F hot?
https://bitinfocharts.com/namecoin/address/NENJ9ygeLDRcLs2NgvUcApqC9K4xCzYWM7 cold

No funds has been moved since the shut down.

I see ETH was moved here: https://etherscan.io/address/0x8eb3fa7907ad2ef4c7e3ba4b1d2f2aac6f4b5ae6

The LTC wallet people have posted looks like a hot wallet... Like with namecoin, it might be interesting to see if only the hot wallet is moved, or if cold also. If the cold wallet is left, perhaps it is because admins have it secured fully already and don't need to move it. Another thing is if anyone is able to pick up the IP broadcasting these transactions, it could give an indication as to who is behind.

We know for a fact there is still at least one more admin out there due to the updates posted here and the tweets. Why would he post that btc-e would be back in 5-10 days if funds were seized ? At what point is that your priority? to post that kind of update? It doesn't make sense that he would post that if he knew that funds were seized and gone. Posting anything at all in fact puts him at risk, as fbi can start to work on tracking his IP address on twitter. Why put himself to that risk ? Same question applies if he intends to do an "exit scam".

We who came to bitcoin in early 2011 and earlier didn't come here because we wanted to get rich. It was idealists. BTC-E has been running since 2011 and that increases the chances imo, that whoever is behind it is honest. That said, they are in a hopeless situation now, we have to expect the worst, but wish for the best.

I already gave you that answer: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2045453.msg20432251#msg20432251

If the coins gets seized I will look into possibilities to claim my funds from the US mafia. We will have to see what kind of documents they require to release funds or if they will even release funds at all. I prefer if US do not seize the funds as I don't trust them. The best outcome would be if admin on the loose relaunch btc-e on a new domain and allow users to withdraw. I'm hoping for that outcome.

About 79k here. Will have to give it some more time before further action. If funds have been seized by US government we should demand them returned, but no indication of that yet. 

The real criminals here are the US thugs btw.

Only a matter of time now before we see the seized message on btc-e.com.

I did some more digging which confirms that the AML law from 1956 can be used to catch money launderers who ONLY use bitcoin / crypto.

Silk Road 1, Ross Ulbricht was charged with exactly that:


Ulbricht was charged with money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic narcotics,[23][27] and procuring murder.[24] The charge of procuring murder was removed from the indictment[28] although the evidence was factored into Ulbricht's sentence.[29] Ulbricht was convicted of all the remaining charges after a jury trial that concluded in February 2015.[30] He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on 29 May 2015.[31][32][33]

I agree about that definition, I couldn't find any legal definition of it.

Monetary value (Cal. Fin. Code § 2003(m)) – “Monetary value” means a medium of exchange, whether or not redeemable in money.

Perhaps that one will fit?
or (ii) involving one or more monetary instruments

Regardless, the Patriot Act can still be used on people who don't deal with fiat directly then. In addition we can expect the law from 1956 to be extended to include cryptocurrencies.

18 U.S. Code § 1956
(a)(1) Whoever, knowing that the property involved in a financial transaction represents the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, conducts or attempts to conduct such a financial transaction which in fact involves the proceeds of specified unlawful activity

(4) the term “financial transaction” means (A) a transaction which in any way or degree affects interstate or foreign commerce (i) involving the movement of funds by wire or other means or (ii) involving one or more monetary instruments, or (iii) involving the transfer of title to any real property, vehicle, vessel, or aircraft, or (B) a transaction involving the use of a financial institution which is engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce in any way or degree;


Definition of fund from dictionary
1a :  a sum of money or other resources

Definition of money from dictionary
something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value,

They might not have needed the Patriot Act in this case. But they can, and will, when necessary.

"We will hold accountable foreign-located money transmitters, including virtual currency exchangers, that do business in the United States when they willfully violate U.S. AML laws."

translation:
No matter where you are, where you're from, what you trade; we are coming for you and you will go to jail.

BTC-E imo was the BEST exchange. Feature wise, that is. Why would someone use it? There's a long list of reasons why, here are some:
- Privacy, why should anyone be allowed to monitor my transactions?
- No KYC, why should I have to send my documents off to strangers to do business?
- Deposit/Withdraw options, there was a lot of options, PayPal, PerfectMoney, OKPAY etc... Very useful to get funds to and from some of these processors.
- Long term in business
- Anonymous owners, makes it harder to target with social engineering or through the legal system (as we've seen now, one admin is still on the loose).
- You can't really be fully complicit with the law in this day and age. That is wishful thinking. So even so called "regulated exchanges" can at the end of the day break laws, that puts them in jeopardy.
- Exchanges that are "regulated" also get hacked and fail as we've seen many examples of.
- Ideological reasons such as supporting the right to freely transact and the right to privacy.

It's for DDOS protection. Not many providers who offer that at affordable rates. They are just using CloudFlare as a shield. The servers are located elsewhere.

BTC-E also had plenty of better opportunities to "exit scam". They were far from their peak now as poloniex and other exchange has taken a lot of their volume. The only reason would be if they were scared for their life (as in, of getting arrested). I can sympathize with that point although I hope they come through and deliver, I much rather btc-e admins end up with the funds than US government thugs.

No, nobody is waiting. Every creditor has been notified that mtgox is under bankruptcy and has a trustee managing funds. They are waiting for payments now, but that is a different matter.

The fact that mtgox "did the same" doesn't mean btc-e will do the same thing. Why would there even be any correlation here? These are two completely separate entities and they were brought down for entirely different reasons. Stop spreading FUD.

Perhaps the admins are honorable people and just want to give people their money back? They do exists you know, even if you might not be one yourself. Just like mtgox and btc-e is two different entities, so is you and the btc-e admins. If you would have stolen the funds, it doesn't mean they will. Let's see.

Wouldn't it be the opposite then? If no exchange is safe, people need to get the money out quickly. Only way to do that is buy BTC with their fiat and withdraw. In fact I speculate this will happen if BTC-E comes back. People will buy BTC there and withdraw, causing a massive spike in the BTC price.

Most likely BTC-E will come back. An admin is still on the loose, there has been no indication that funds or servers were seized. No message of seizure. No known transfer of funds (that's one of the first things LE would do). Perhaps it will only come back to allow withdraws. The risks has increased for the remaining admin(s). I also wouldn't be surprised if there will have to be some socialized losses as fiat accounts are easier to seize, no info that it has happened but it's a possibility.

There's a lot of new people here today who seem to gain joy from others misfortune. Studies has shown correlations between schadenfreude and low self-esteem, inferiority complex and envy. I only feel sorry for these people. If you gain pleasure from others misfortune you probably don't live such a great life yourself. Successful people seldom feel this way. Just a quick note on that point.

I think most of us knew this day would come, sadly there is no choice but to keep funds on exchanges if you want to trade. It's clear that we're headed for decentralized exchanges in the future, but the infrastructure is too young still for most of the volume to move there.

Also I would caution people cheering on the capture of Alex to be so quick to judge. We don't really know any details yet. For the most part he seems to be completely innocent with regards to harming others. Moving money around without license should never be a crime. Let's not have the slave mentality get completely out of hand here, mkay?

This is indeed very interesting.  Mayzus Financial Services Ltd is where fiat for btc-e and OKPAY is deposited (IIRC btc-e just had an OKPAY account, not their own bank account). OKPAY so far seems to be untouched. Interestingly enough, OKPAY was aquired by Mayzus last month: https://www.okpay.com/en/company/news/okpay-has-been-acquired-by-mayzus/

I feel like Mayzus and OKPAY is at a huge risk to be brought down by similar charges as btc-e and liberty reserve. It's a game of cat and mouse, and I'm rooting for the mouse.

Guys... why would they pay the fine? They are running an illegal money laundering enterprise (which btw is NOT an immoral act, just illegal, it is important not to confuse the two). There is no reason for them to pay that fine. If they were to pay the fine they would need to "go legal" which means revealing their real identifies, implement KYC/AML and get all the required licenses. And spend up to 55 years in jail for the rules they have currently broken FIRST.

They will continue rogue or shut down.

This makes zero sense. Why on earth would btc-e need to use any exchanges to "hide their tracks" ? They can just let the funds sit for months or years and do nothing. It's pretty clear this was not an intended scam as it was brought down by LE. Why does everyone seem to think criminals HAS to send btc to exchange and withdraw for fiat. Criminals are FAR better off holding crypto.

How do you explain the arrest today ?

This is great news. It sounds like the second admin is still on the loose. Hope he is safe and well. If we're lucky the USSA did not manage to seize funds nor server in time and we will be able to get it back.

Did some digging which led me to this topic, see the image here.

It has the name of Alexander Vinnik, which could mean that this is his profile on bitcointalk: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=43575

He seems to be involved with exchanges for a long time, running wm-exchange and trading in the forums. However he does not strike me as the owner of btc-e, I don't think the owner would bother with small scale trades like these, so it could be a coincidence, just a guy with the same name. Still, it may warrant further investigation.

Last update was 18 hours ago. While there's still hope (especially since there is no message about the site being seized yet as mentioned above), it could be that this maintenance message is automated. If we start getting new updates however, then it will look good. Right now, not so much.