That's one of the reasons I'm gonna hold it. ETH supporters dumped ETC massively at the bottom. Then it consolidated for some months before becoming correlated with ETH and seeing a massive price rise. At the very least, it will probably dump, then pump and dump (like any other altcoin). Who knows? Maybe it will even last longer than a shitcoin pump and dump.

I think the fundamentals are crap, but you never know. Might as well hold on to some, since I'm not paying for it.

Yes, that's possible. They aren't properly registered in each state that they serve IIRC. But I don't think that necessarily means that they will get shut down in the same way as BTC-e. With the latter, the money laundering charge and association with Vinnik's activities seemed to greatly overshadow any emphasis on the unlicensed MSB charge. Since they both have stricter AML/KYC procedures, and because Poloniex doesn't have fiat deposit/withdrawal, I suspect it would go down very differently. I think there's a good chance in those cases that the government simply levies a hefty fine and forces them to implement new KYC procedures and/or prohibit US residents.

Capitalism is certainly flawed. The end goal is, in fact, inequality. If the goal for capitalists is capital accumulation, the result for the majority of the population is rent extraction (paying rent for housing, living on wages rather than having access to capital, paying interest due to no access to money). In this way, capitalists accumulate and wage slaves as a whole become poorer and poorer.

Part of the problem in these discussions is that capitalists conflate "competition" with "capitalism." I am not against markets at all; free markets and competition are vital. And it is true competition which can actually address inequality, because in the context of free markets, prices tend to approach the cost of production (due to many competitive producers vying for market share). The problem under capitalism is that 1) governments are used to enforce monopolies and 2) even absent governments, private militaries hired by landowners are used to enforce monopolies. True competition under capitalism is impossible.

This is definitely a good strategy, at least based on past performance. Time and time again, the market has shown me (although I have profited handsomely) that it is very, very hard to beat "buy and hold" in this market.

Having said that, it's pretty easy to look back in hindsight and say, "create a snazzy marketing pitch and whitepaper (not even a proof of concept) and run an ICO." Because that can net millions of dollars worth of ETH or BTC in literally minutes.....

Which exchanges are doing that? I don't think any services announced they are replacing BTC with BCC.

I believe some exchanges (Kraken, Bitfinex, several Chinese exchanges) will be crediting BCC to BTC holders in addition to there BTC holdings, and may open markets for the new coin. But from everything I've read (and aside from the regular counterparty risk you always have to be careful with), all the exchanges are either ignoring BCC or giving it to their users on top of their current holdings.

I'm pretty sure the legal justification used is that they were serving US customers while acting as an unlicensed money services business. If they had (like many other exchanges) prohibited US residents --- or at least asked customers to confirm they weren't US residents and IP restrict based on region --- maybe this could have been avoided. Or not; maybe it's highly political and this is really about US and USD hegemony.

What about this one:


vs.


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2056158.msg20505927#msg20505927

I suppose that would only be the hot wallets anyway.....and even then, I suppose there could be encryption. There is also the matter of their fiat obligations..... I wonder how much was at risk of FBI seizure. I imagine their Mongolian-held funds are fine, but who knows how much was at risk. I'm only aware aware of the accounts in Czech Republic and Mongolia...

Well, I'm happy that they finally said something, and their words -- particularly coming from Russians -- are encouraging. I'm still trying not to get my hopes up. They haven't "come through" ... they hopefully will. But I've also seen a lot of bitcoin services collapse, and they always say they are coming back before they disappear. I'm not trying to be a downer; just trying not to hype the expectations at this point. I lost a shitload of money on BTC-E and I was just starting to come to terms with it...

Bitcoin Cash has no market cap; it doesn't even exist yet. It will take some time, once the fork happens, for the market to accurately reflect true demand for BCC. Maybe it will be a non-event and BCC will just be dumped into the ground. Or maybe BCC will sustain (like ETC did) and BCC markets (alongside BTC markets) will be represented on the major exchanges eventually.

Well, not that crazy. At some point, either the US authorities or the BTC-E admins were going to start moving the crypto. Unfortunately, we don't have much clue at this point which one of them it was, right? And even if it was BTC-E, that doesn't mean they're going to relaunch.

But if BCC is valued highly, where does that value come from? Thin air? If BCC supporters are dumping BTC, and BTC supporters are dumping BCC, that would (in theory) drop the price of both. Like ETH/ETC, the overall market cap of Bitcoin could definitely take a hit -- if there is a real network split where a significant portion of the economy moves to BCC.

There will definitely be money lost to replay attacks. I'm genuinely surprised that there is so much interest in this airdrop, and I'm sure many don't understand the risks of replay attacks. It's really too bad... If the fork hadn't been so rushed, there would have been time to properly add and test replay protection.

If they were able to, of course they would move any crypto funds they could immediately. Otherwise, the site admins could move them with the same private keys.

It's true, the seizures are usually the most important part for federal agencies. They can easily freeze bank accounts in US-friendly countries and they generally execute such warrants at the same time that they make raids/arrests. They always act all at once for maximum impact. And the reason we didn't see the takedown page for a couple days is because of DNS propagation.

The Russian Federation already banned btc-e.com -- this is why many Russians access the site through a mirror at btc-e.nz. The Russian government also just banned access by their population to some forty other bitcoin/crypto exchange sites. So even though BTC-E's target audience was Russians and Russian speakers, I don't think Russia will do anything.

The problem is that they are pursuing the shutdown of BTC-E and a case against the owners. They are treating it like Liberty Reserve, as if the exchange and all customers are criminals. Unfortunately, the authorities (by being unable to arrest the actual owners or high level admins, or seize any significant funds) have created a situation where the most sensible thing for the BTC-E owners to do is exit scam.

Originally, I had hoped they would allow BTC-E to pay a hefty fine, implement AML procedures and continue operations. That seems unlikely now that they seized the domain and condemned not only the owners but also the userbase as criminals.

Indeed, but it's not clear how much would be kept in their Okpay/Moneypolo accounts. Maybe not much. They have bank accounts in Mongolia, and I don't know if the US authorities can execute warrants there.

Isn't it strange that the authorities did not announce seized funds in the press release (like they always do)? Is it because the bank accounts they were able to seize were worthless, and they couldn't get any crypto? Or are they just slow rolling us all?

I've seen similar designs on torrent site takedown notices in years past. Maybe it's designed by the Shadowserver guys (the sinkhole where BTC-E is now pointing to), as opposed to some other takedown notices you might see. It does look a lot less professional than the Pokerstars/Full Tilt takedown. I remember those looked legit.

If they returned and I got even a chunk of my funds back, I would be ecstatic. It would be life-changing. But I doubt it.

In principal, you are right. But I just don't see a great chance of success there. Those of us who have sustained big losses from this -- we need to start rebuilding now. I don't have capital to put into any legal battles. I need to rebuild my trading capital and get my life back on track after these losses.

As much as I would love to fight the US authorities, I think it will probably be a waste of money (and for US citizens, it might bring some unwanted attention). I suspect that this is the reality for a lot of BTC-E's customers.

Absolutely. Mayzus (also just acquired Okpay) has been doing their banking for several years now, and many people have suspected that they have an ownership stake in BTC-E, if they don't own them outright. Further, some contend that BTC-E was partly a front for Mayzus money laundering. Given the charges brought against BTC-E, I am honestly surprised there is no action against Mayzus, Okpay, etc.

I remember one Coindesk article (from maybe 2013?) where they asked Mayzus for comment on BTC-E bank wire delays, and their answer made it sound like they owned BTC-E. I wish I could find it now.

The xBTCe connection has always been obvious, but given how BTC-E has always organized itself (lots of shell companies and intermediaries, no banks in its own name or in its holding company name), it's impossible to tell. When they advertise xBTCe on their site and call them a "partner" and use them for verification services..... what does that really mean? I don't know, but it certainly always felt like the same people.

Yes, what makes me angrier than anything is how they have branded the entire userbase as criminals. BTC-E could never have functioned if that were the case -- it had lots of liquidity, traders. A great API/trade engine. I (and many others that I know from Tradingview, etc) am a legit trader, and I think most of the users there were.

All they have is some transfers from 2012 that this guy, Vinnik, supposedly made. Suddenly, the exchange is criminal, and thus it's okay to steal from its customers? If they could even seize anything -- no announcement of such -- but they have now made it very likely that the owners will disappear with customer money. What choice do they really have? The feds want to put them in prison for life.