BTC-e hacked ??

[MAbtc]

Well, I'm not saying there is a good outcome here. I don't think there will be. But I also don't think Vinnik is an owner, nor has access to BTC-E's storage. If you read the Russian forums, those who have been in contact with the owners and admins over the years -- none of them recognize this Vinnik. I don't think the owners would step foot in Greece, either.

They say, but is all rumors. I also think that the USA does not have the funds. The question is, if Vinnik was just a tech admin and an offshore company mule, would the other owner(s) just open btce for us? Now, at this time?

If it were just Vinnik's arrest, I'm sure they would. But by issuing a takedown of BTC-E.com, they are sending a very clear message to the owners that they will be hunted down. That's the most fucked up thing about this. If they couldn't seize any money, they pretty much guarantee that the owners of BTC-E will disappear with it. Trying to operate an open, public exchange with the FBI trying to shut you down and put you in prison for the rest of your lives? I'd like to think positively, but just, why? $100-200k profit/day can't be worth that risk, can it?

[YesLOST]

If we are about rumors, personally I think the Mayszus Financial company owner is the real owner of btc-e or has at least very close connection to the owner(s) of btce. Likewise xbtce.com - they should know more than they say they know. Why would be your name xbtce and doing identity verifying for btce if you are not closely connected?!  

[marky89]

If we are about rumors, personally I think the Mayszus Financial company owner is the real owner of btc-e or has at least very close connection to the owner(s) of btce. Likewise xbtce.com - they should know more than they say they know. Why would be your name xbtce and doing identity verifying for btce if you are not closely connected?!  

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.

[brainland]

Sign This Petition. It Might Help Tho.

https://www.change.org/p/department-of-justice-we-want-our-money-back-from-btc-e/

[erk]

Sign This Petition. It Might Help Tho.

https://www.change.org/p/department-of-justice-we-want-our-money-back-from-btc-e/

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.

[exstasie]

Sign This Petition. It Might Help Tho.

https://www.change.org/p/department-of-justice-we-want-our-money-back-from-btc-e/

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.

Well, there were press releases by various federal agencies where it was stated that they "took down" BTC-e. There is a takedown notice on their main site now. They didn't only issue the fine -- that was just FINCEN. The DOJ indicted BTC-e itself on two criminal counts: operating an unlicensed MSB and conspiracy to commit money laundering. So it is definitely more serious than a simple fine.

[CaptainClaw]

Sign This Petition. It Might Help Tho.

https://www.change.org/p/department-of-justice-we-want-our-money-back-from-btc-e/

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.

There's literally an eagle page on btc-e.com right now

https://i.imgur.com/EqnleRe.png

[YesLOST]

What about btc-e.nz - why not stolen, too?

[Unacceptable]

This is hilarious why would the DoJ let https site run while uploading a crap image on http that one has to jump through hoops to see it.

Yes, I know, right, but I see technically no way of changing the nameserver and the resolving IP of btc-e.com to shadowserver.org servers unless you own the dns and thus, the fake looking picture must come from shadowservero.org and why would they place it, if its not the real thing? They are the owner of libertyreserve.com too.

cant open btc-e. https error, can you post screenshot?

Had to use old IE 

[exstasie]

What about btc-e.nz - why not stolen, too?

Maybe the DNS change has not propagated yet (which is why we didn't see the takedown notice on BTC-e.com until today). I expected to see a similar takedown of this domain. Or maybe they are hoping admins will try to relaunch (that was their #2 domain) so they can take another crack at seizing the funds, servers. Strange...

[Old_Timer]

Whoever uploaded this is Trolling bigtime.

Calling BS on that.


Link to the announcements from US agencies stating the takedown plz.

[exstasie]

Whoever uploaded this is Trolling bigtime.

Calling BS on that.


Link to the announcements from US agencies stating the takedown plz.

Here is the press release from the DOJ: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/russian-national-and-bitcoin-exchange-charged-21-count-indictment-operating-alleged



I remember thinking it was strange that they kept saying "takedown", yet it seemed that the domain had not been seized. As it turns out, we were just waiting for the DNS change to propagate. I actually still can't see it from my location. But the fact that the whois registry has been updated today (probably from 3 days ago) to point to Shadowserver says it all. Same exact thing as Libertyreserve.

[deisik]

guyz, there is still hope. as far as i can see, they only got the fukin domain under control, thats it.

Yeah and you know how that probably happened?

FBI came visiting Vinnek in the prison, either hand over all data, plead guilty and get 20 years lowsec prison with visits by wife and child every day or 1000 million years Guantanamo without seeing your family again.

Look at his face and you know he signed within a second.

Well, I'm not saying there is a good outcome here. I don't think there will be. But I also don't think Vinnik is an owner, nor has access to BTC-E's storage. If you read the Russian forums, those who have been in contact with the owners and admins over the years -- none of them recognize this Vinnik. I don't think the owners would step foot in Greece, either.

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

This is not always the case

Sometimes they fail miserably. They wanted Snowden extradited, and they had to back off eventually. If the Russian government steps in, all those bald eagles may have to fuck off instantly. Say, Putin through his minions like Greff allows the owners to restart the exchange under whatever name in Russia or in some friendly country or territory (like Abkhazia or Mongolia). In fact, there were certain rumors that Btc-e exchange is (was) strongly affiliated with Sberbank, the biggest Russian state-owned bank. For example, Btc-e has never had any issues with Yandex.Money (at least, as long as I remember), the online payment processing service owned by Sberbank. Further, fiat transactions seem to have been processed via Mongolian companies (banks) where Uncle Sam has no footing altogether. So it all mostly comes down to safety of the crypto wallets and whether the FBI managed to seize any coins

[smartcrypto]

This is hilarious why would the DoJ let https site run while uploading a crap image on http that one has to jump through hoops to see it.

Yes, I know, right, but I see technically no way of changing the nameserver and the resolving IP of btc-e.com to shadowserver.org servers unless you own the dns and thus, the fake looking picture must come from shadowservero.org and why would they place it, if its not the real thing? They are the owner of libertyreserve.com too.

cant open btc-e. https error, can you post screenshot?

Had to use old IE 

yeah this is real, but it looks it was done by a kid for lols  i have lost $500 with btce but this image looks hilarious

[smartcrypto]

could this be still 'man in the middle' attack. the fact that https is still there and http is being used to send the image. they could easily shutdown https. no??

or it could be us having dns pointing to https. lets hope the us of a doesnt get its hands on the servers and all data. some people did say few hours prior that the api is still accessible. not sure how. I dont have an api with btc-e.

edit: this also reminded of that one bs in the past.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/06/no-the-feds-didnt-seize-your-domain-youve-just-been-punked/

however the lack of word from btce and no fixing the website does suggest otherwise. I really hope they were not running their shit from EU

[YesLOST]

With the current setup of dns and A records and where the picture loads from I don't see a way that this is fake.

[smartcrypto]

original article
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3368462

translation
https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=3&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3368462&usg=ALkJrhiP7Nykitny0WZeRCcPwlUxmeLTiw

[MAbtc]

guyz, there is still hope. as far as i can see, they only got the fukin domain under control, thats it.

Yeah and you know how that probably happened?

FBI came visiting Vinnek in the prison, either hand over all data, plead guilty and get 20 years lowsec prison with visits by wife and child every day or 1000 million years Guantanamo without seeing your family again.

Look at his face and you know he signed within a second.

Well, I'm not saying there is a good outcome here. I don't think there will be. But I also don't think Vinnik is an owner, nor has access to BTC-E's storage. If you read the Russian forums, those who have been in contact with the owners and admins over the years -- none of them recognize this Vinnik. I don't think the owners would step foot in Greece, either.

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

This is not always the case

Sometimes they fail miserably. They wanted Snowden extradited, and they had to back off eventually. If the Russian government steps in, all those bald eagles may have to fuck off instantly. Say, Putin through his minions like Greff allows the owners to restart the exchange under whatever name in Russia or in some friendly country or territory (like Abkhazia or Mongolia). In fact, there were certain rumors that Btc-e exchange is (was) strongly affiliated with Sberbank, the biggest Russian state-owned bank. For example, Btc-e has never had any issues with Yandex.Money (at least, as long as I remember), the online payment processing service owned by Sberbank. Further, fiat transactions seem to have been processed via Mongolian companies (banks) where Uncle Sam has no footing altogether. So it all mostly comes down to safety of the crypto wallets and whether the FBI managed to seize any coins

Indeed, sometimes they fail miserably in political situations against e.g. Russia. But I don't see that happening here. BTC-E was banned in Russia long ago (hence the popularity of the .nz domain). I believe they were on BTC-E.ru and moved to .com and supposedly to Bulgaria because of this. And Russia is still busy banning access to exchanges today. Why change stance here and now? If they've never had any issues with Yandex, I'm not sure it follows that they are cozy with the Russian government. Agreed, it seems likely that their bank accounts in Mongolia are untouched, so if there was not much to freeze in their 3rd party Okpay/Moneypolo accounts, that might explain the lack of mention of funds being seized by the feds.

But even if most of their fiat and crypto are intact...and absent some highly political intervention by e.g. Russia, how can they survive under constant threat from the FBI? Operate like the Pirate Bay did and constantly shift domains? How can they manage to pay people fiat? I suppose shell company payment processors work in the poker world (to some extent), maybe it could still work for BTC-E. It just seems far fetched to me at this point, without some miracle intervention like you mentioned. That would be interesting as hell, though.

[brainland]

could this be still 'man in the middle' attack. the fact that https is still there and http is being used to send the image. they could easily shutdown https. no??

or it could be us having dns pointing to https. lets hope the us of a doesnt get its hands on the servers and all data. some people did say few hours prior that the api is still accessible. not sure how. I dont have an api with btc-e.

edit: this also reminded of that one bs in the past.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/06/no-the-feds-didnt-seize-your-domain-youve-just-been-punked/

however the lack of word from btce and no fixing the website does suggest otherwise. I really hope they were not running their shit from EU

I guess we are all been pranked. there must be something really fishy about btc-e shutting down and am sure they never knew whats gonna come after them

[Crypto_Future]

original article
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3368462

translation
https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=3&nv=1&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=auto&sp=nmt4&tl=en&u=https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3368462&usg=ALkJrhiP7Nykitny0WZeRCcPwlUxmeLTiw

Very good article.

As I see it, wallets & server infrastructure are intact.

Vinnic is by no means owner, so team is intact.

They just need a new base of opperations.


they can return as coins-only exchange and replace USD with USDT or similar. With some limit on withdrawals at first of course.


If they chose to Run away with everything is another matter.