WARNING ! Vircurex is freezing your BTC, LTC, FTC, TRC.

[dynodog]

right.  everybody take all your cash and bitcoin out of exchanges.....  and then see what happens to the price of bitcoin.  more and more people will withdraw their money and crypto from exchanges, and that is why the price is going down (imo) and will continue to go down.  cryptos will not survive unless there are extremely reliable exchanges.  bc there aren't enough of them, i have sold all my bitcoin. 

going cold storage is nothing but a short-term fix for personal holders of bitcoin bc without reliable exchanges there is no liquidity and no new money coming into bitcoin. 

[clownius]

right.  everybody take all your cash and bitcoin out of exchanges.....  and then see what happens to the price of bitcoin.  more and more people will withdraw their money and crypto from exchanges, and that is why the price is going down (imo) and will continue to go down.  cryptos will not survive unless there are extremely reliable exchanges.  bc there aren't enough of them, i have sold all my bitcoin. 

going cold storage is nothing but a short-term fix for personal holders of bitcoin bc without reliable exchanges there is no liquidity and no new money coming into bitcoin. 

Very much so thats why the Bitcoin community needs to come up with a better way.  Because the current response is to laugh at anyone being "goxxed" and saying its all your fault for trusting them.  Not productive in any way shape or form.

Without some level of liquidity created by exchanges Bitcoin is useless.  No business will accept it if they cant sell it for cash they need in the fiat economy they reside in. No person wanting to get involved can short of mining (and that now requires very expensive machines) if there are not exchanges to buy it on.

So things will stagnate without some level of order.  Bitcoin will become an interesting but failed experiment.

Hopefully someone will come up with a better exchange system.  One that requires somewhat less trust. 

But until the main community gets over its Libertarian circle jerk and realises some level of regulation (even if community driven) is not only inevitable but necessary this stuff will continue to happen and probably kill Bitcoin before long.

[clownius]

Actually im semi-libertarian myself.  I just dont try to take it too extremes like some and realise no ideology is perfect in the real world and occasionally you need rules and regulations.

I hope Bitcoin gains the mass it needs.  We need Bitcoin or something like it.  But it seems like the people on the inside are doing their absolute best to kill it off while the community cheers them on and laughs at anyone burned.  Im worried one day the people doing this will wake up and realise trading volume worldwide is non-existent and the miners are pulling their machines as there is no liquidity.  Then wonder why it all happened.

So this is my addition to the conversation people need to have with themselves before they kill a good idea

[galbros]

The point about private keys and control of your bitcoins is well taken and absolutely true.  Storing your wealth on an exchange is a very poor plan.

However, all functioning economic systems require trust.  Bitcoin does not prevent this, e.g. the "who goes first problem".  For one of the first altcoin exchanges to fold like this is not a good thing.  Everyone keeping their BTC in the virtual equivalent of their mattress wont build a very dynamic financial system.

Holiday, which exchange has the better exchange system?

The Vircurex bag holders, just like the Gox ones before them, have my sympathy.

[justmyname]

Exchanges don't need anyone to store their fiat and coins  on their site, to stay in business. They make a profit on every trade. They don't make loans like a bank so it's only a risk to hold the coins. Unless of course, they plan on stealing  when it's worth it to do so. 

So don't leave large amounts on any of these exchanges. Unless you have a fetish "get off" by getting robbed. 

[cheezhead]

If I absolutely had to use an exchange, I would deposit, make my trade, and immediately withdraw. I realize that isn't suitable for day traders.

I took this advice to heart but got caught anyway.

All I did was move some coins into Vircurex to trade them in late March and couldn't get them back. The whole transaction should have taken 15 minutes.   Kumala claimed there was a technical error he was fixing but then he froze (stole) them.  He promised to make up his losses without affecting user accounts then went back on his word.  He claimed he was fixing a technical withdrawal issue and stole those funds too.  That second lie costs me a lot of money and heartache.  Here's why:

My autistic son will be graduating from high school in June.  It has been such a long journey for us and we are very proud he has made it.  My wife and I asked him what he wanted as a graduation gift and he said he'd like a cruise to Alaska.  Normally we could never afford that trip but I had enough cryptocurrency to just swing it.  I tried to trade the coins on Vircurex so I could monetize them.  Instead, Kumala stole them from me.  I've tried everything to get him to return them and he won't even respond to me.  Monday, I saw Kumala unfroze .00026808 LTC of my total of 450 LTCs.  I guess I was fooling myself thinking somehow I may get my coins but now I know I won't.  My wife recently cancelled our trip and today I told my son we can't go because someone stole the money. He was heartbroken and I was humiliated.  I'm now selling all of my mining equipment in the hope of raising some cash for a more modest trip.

I don't need sympathy and I certainly don't need people telling me it's my own fault for trading on Vircurex.  I just want people to know (especially Kumala) that what he did had real consequences for people.  Does Kumala realize when he steals people's coins it could effect their lives? 

I'm beyond upset now.  I'm heartbroken that he could be so callous as to steal people's wealth with no regard to how he is hurting them.