BTC-e.com down ! Police detains the owner .

[aesma]

And those who now correctly blame btce for assisting criminals: the GOX theft is NOT even on the arrest warrent, it is wholly about this: A Bulgarian company, with Russian executive, living in Greece, bank accounts in Mongolia, is blamed for not being licensed in the USA!!!!!!!!!!

They could just as well arrest a Swiss Railway executive because they do not request ID from US customers when riding a train...

Or Saudi Arabia could request kidnapping a British bar owner on a vacation in Greece, because he served alcohol to Saudi citizens...

it is not forbidden to serve Saudi citizens with alcohol

The idea is that a "financial" company must know the laws from the countries where they make their business.
you cannot claim in your defence that you don't know the law.

example : BTC-e accepted US citizens as clients. they accepted bank wires and they send bank wire to them. that means they made business within US according to FINCEN and they needed to be registered as MSB.

Can you imagine the reverse happening ? An US exchange, serving Russian customers without a Russian license, being seized by Russian authorities ?

[Prem.Soorajpaul]

And those who now correctly blame btce for assisting criminals: the GOX theft is NOT even on the arrest warrent, it is wholly about this: A Bulgarian company, with Russian executive, living in Greece, bank accounts in Mongolia, is blamed for not being licensed in the USA!!!!!!!!!!

They could just as well arrest a Swiss Railway executive because they do not request ID from US customers when riding a train...

Or Saudi Arabia could request kidnapping a British bar owner on a vacation in Greece, because he served alcohol to Saudi citizens...

it is not forbidden to serve Saudi citizens with alcohol

The idea is that a "financial" company must know the laws from the countries where they make their business.
you cannot claim in your defence that you don't know the law.

example : BTC-e accepted US citizens as clients. they accepted bank wires and they send bank wire to them. that means they made business within US according to FINCEN and they needed to be registered as MSB.

Can you imagine the reverse happening ? An US exchange, serving Russian customers without a Russian license, being seized by Russian authorities ?

It is surprising to see so many people justifying the actions by the American authorities. What the FBI has done is clearly over the mark, and they were wrong in seizing and taking down the BTC-e trading platform.

[karan1498]

Can you imagine the reverse happening ? An US exchange, serving Russian customers without a Russian license, being seized by Russian authorities ?

lol can only imagine

[btc_angela]

If BTCe have secured their coins properly it should be hard for the FEDs to get their hands on the coins.

And it would also make it near impossible for users to get their coins back, if the site is shut down there is no reason for them to honor their debts to people who used their platform.

In my opinion the FEDs are more likely to pay back users money than the owner is at this point.

No. The FED's wont pay back users for the money lost.

I really feel sorry for everyone losing money here but please take 2 things into account:

1. it was kinda obvious that website was an unregulated exchange; poor contact details were a first sign
2. I would never keep more than $100 in an exchange regulated or not, I would simply exchange and bye bye

Correct. It doesn't make sense for people to just let their funds sit like $2500-$10000 in an exchanges because we all know that you don't have total control over it. Everyone should have learn their lesson from Mt. Gox incident. Just too sad to hear people losing all their investment.

[Kevondo]

Fuck the American government!
Let in Texas in command - if there's a lot of sheep !

I'm on this exchange lost 5.4 rubles.
Give freedom and democracy.

The freedom of circulation of funds!

Let the sheep from Texas taxes they pay!!!

Don't use bad words for any government. Because it is really bad to hear abuse here if someone report you that you are doing abuse then it can harm your account so i will be thankful to you that next time you will not use a bad words against someone because it is already looking very bad in front of people it is not a good thing to do. So try to be careful next time.

[mayax]

The domain is seized bu US authorities, it seems that it will be the bigger lesson for the unlicensed exchangers worldwide and especially Poloniex

Is poloniex unlicensed ? while its containment any exchanges I'll see him about the same thing with the exchanges that you have to look out for is manipulation of the withdrawal and deposit limits. Need to be careful while using exchanges.

YES, poloniex is unlicensed and it's based in USA;same as Kraken.

[mamaya]

The domain is seized bu US authorities, it seems that it will be the bigger lesson for the unlicensed exchangers worldwide and especially Poloniex

Is poloniex unlicensed ? while its containment any exchanges I'll see him about the same thing with the exchanges that you have to look out for is manipulation of the withdrawal and deposit limits. Need to be careful while using exchanges.

YES, poloniex is unlicensed and it's based in USA;same as Kraken.

Poloniex doesn't have the New York bitlicense or any money transmitting license which is why it operates without fiat but it is a US licensed company that complies with KYC and money laundering regulation.

[mayax]

The domain is seized bu US authorities, it seems that it will be the bigger lesson for the unlicensed exchangers worldwide and especially Poloniex

Is poloniex unlicensed ? while its containment any exchanges I'll see him about the same thing with the exchanges that you have to look out for is manipulation of the withdrawal and deposit limits. Need to be careful while using exchanges.

YES, poloniex is unlicensed and it's based in USA;same as Kraken.

Poloniex doesn't have the New York bitlicense or any money transmitting license which is why it operates without fiat but it is a US licensed company that complies with KYC and money laundering regulation.

The law says otherwise : a person is an exchanger and a money transmitter if the person accepts such de-centralized convertible virtual currency from one person and transmits it to another person as part of the acceptance and transfer of currency, funds, or other value that substitutes for currency.

So, Poloniex is running an illegal business according to FINCEN.

[Baofeng]

And those who now correctly blame btce for assisting criminals: the GOX theft is NOT even on the arrest warrent, it is wholly about this: A Bulgarian company, with Russian executive, living in Greece, bank accounts in Mongolia, is blamed for not being licensed in the USA!!!!!!!!!!

They could just as well arrest a Swiss Railway executive because they do not request ID from US customers when riding a train...

Or Saudi Arabia could request kidnapping a British bar owner on a vacation in Greece, because he served alcohol to Saudi citizens...

it is not forbidden to serve Saudi citizens with alcohol

The idea is that a "financial" company must know the laws from the countries where they make their business.
you cannot claim in your defence that you don't know the law.

example : BTC-e accepted US citizens as clients. they accepted bank wires and they send bank wire to them. that means they made business within US according to FINCEN and they needed to be registered as MSB.

Can you imagine the reverse happening ? An US exchange, serving Russian customers without a Russian license, being seized by Russian authorities ?

It is surprising to see so many people justifying the actions by the American authorities. What the FBI has done is clearly over the mark, and they were wrong in seizing and taking down the BTC-e trading platform.

I'm not saying that US is correct, but I think they are building this case for some time now and probably have evidences that BTC-e have indeed violated by serving US customers which would then require a more tighter regulations. And if BTC-e would go online again, I think they will go underground or follow the strict KYC/AML law.

[owlcatz]

The domain is seized bu US authorities, it seems that it will be the bigger lesson for the unlicensed exchangers worldwide and especially Poloniex

Is poloniex unlicensed ? while its containment any exchanges I'll see him about the same thing with the exchanges that you have to look out for is manipulation of the withdrawal and deposit limits. Need to be careful while using exchanges.

YES, poloniex is unlicensed and it's based in USA;same as Kraken.

Poloniex doesn't have the New York bitlicense or any money transmitting license which is why it operates without fiat but it is a US licensed company that complies with KYC and money laundering regulation.

Exactly - Thankfully, they are a registered MSB in my state, as I looked it up in the state's database (not Fincen), so I'm not worried. Not only that, but the owner is well known and is public , you can quickly figure out who he is with google.

Edit - Mayax, it may be "Illegal" in some areas or uses by particular users just like any exchange, but not for me at least. Thanks.

[mamaya]

The domain is seized bu US authorities, it seems that it will be the bigger lesson for the unlicensed exchangers worldwide and especially Poloniex

Is poloniex unlicensed ? while its containment any exchanges I'll see him about the same thing with the exchanges that you have to look out for is manipulation of the withdrawal and deposit limits. Need to be careful while using exchanges.

YES, poloniex is unlicensed and it's based in USA;same as Kraken.

Poloniex doesn't have the New York bitlicense or any money transmitting license which is why it operates without fiat but it is a US licensed company that complies with KYC and money laundering regulation.

The law says otherwise : a person is an exchanger and a money transmitter if the person accepts such de-centralized convertible virtual currency from one person and transmits it to another person as part of the acceptance and transfer of currency, funds, or other value that substitutes for currency.

So, Poloniex is running an illegal business according to FINCEN.

Poloniex is registered with FINCEN, if you think they are running an illegal business you should ask them why they gave them an MSB license.

The key difference is that they are a money services business but are not considered a money transmitter as they never handle fiat.

[mayax]

The domain is seized bu US authorities, it seems that it will be the bigger lesson for the unlicensed exchangers worldwide and especially Poloniex

Is poloniex unlicensed ? while its containment any exchanges I'll see him about the same thing with the exchanges that you have to look out for is manipulation of the withdrawal and deposit limits. Need to be careful while using exchanges.

YES, poloniex is unlicensed and it's based in USA;same as Kraken.

Poloniex doesn't have the New York bitlicense or any money transmitting license which is why it operates without fiat but it is a US licensed company that complies with KYC and money laundering regulation.

Exactly - Thankfully, they are a registered MSB in my state, as I looked it up in the state's database (not Fincen), so I'm not worried. Not only that, but the owner is well known and is public , you can quickly figure out who he is with google.

Edit - Mayax, it may be "Illegal" in some areas or uses by particular users just like any exchange, but not for me at least. Thanks.

please show me where(what state) they are registered as MSB. .

[mayax]

The domain is seized bu US authorities, it seems that it will be the bigger lesson for the unlicensed exchangers worldwide and especially Poloniex

Is poloniex unlicensed ? while its containment any exchanges I'll see him about the same thing with the exchanges that you have to look out for is manipulation of the withdrawal and deposit limits. Need to be careful while using exchanges.

YES, poloniex is unlicensed and it's based in USA;same as Kraken.

Poloniex doesn't have the New York bitlicense or any money transmitting license which is why it operates without fiat but it is a US licensed company that complies with KYC and money laundering regulation.

The law says otherwise : a person is an exchanger and a money transmitter if the person accepts such de-centralized convertible virtual currency from one person and transmits it to another person as part of the acceptance and transfer of currency, funds, or other value that substitutes for currency.

So, Poloniex is running an illegal business according to FINCEN.

Poloniex is registered with FINCEN, if you think they are running an illegal business you should ask them why they gave them an MSB license.

The key difference is that they are a money services business but are not considered a money transmitter as they never handle fiat.

I keep saying that by registering with FINCEN, it does NOT mean that a company is a MSB.

FINCEN website:

"Information contained on this site has been provided by the MSB registrant. FinCEN does not verify information submitted by the MSB. Information provided on this site reflects only what was provided directly to FinCEN."


You can register on FINCEN website yourself... right now with any name you want.   make a try.


So, being registered with FINCEN means nothing. First a company MUST be a MSB and then to submit on Fincen website.

A US company must be registered as MSB in all the states if they want to deal/trade/do business  in all of them. See Coinbase, Gemini, Itbit. Look to their websites. You will notice something like :

https://www.coinbase.com/legal/licenses

https://gemini.com/about/


See? BIG difference between Kraken, Poloniex and similar others and these ones

Again, being registered on FINCEN page without being MSB = zero

[owlcatz]

please show me where(what state) they are registered as MSB. .

Thanks, but no thanks as I'm not telling the world what state I live in. Look up some random state database's yourself, it doesn't take much effort, just google.  

[NorrisK]

The domain is seized bu US authorities, it seems that it will be the bigger lesson for the unlicensed exchangers worldwide and especially Poloniex

Is poloniex unlicensed ? while its containment any exchanges I'll see him about the same thing with the exchanges that you have to look out for is manipulation of the withdrawal and deposit limits. Need to be careful while using exchanges.

YES, poloniex is unlicensed and it's based in USA;same as Kraken.

Poloniex doesn't have the New York bitlicense or any money transmitting license which is why it operates without fiat but it is a US licensed company that complies with KYC and money laundering regulation.

The law says otherwise : a person is an exchanger and a money transmitter if the person accepts such de-centralized convertible virtual currency from one person and transmits it to another person as part of the acceptance and transfer of currency, funds, or other value that substitutes for currency.

So, Poloniex is running an illegal business according to FINCEN.

Poloniex is registered with FINCEN, if you think they are running an illegal business you should ask them why they gave them an MSB license.

The key difference is that they are a money services business but are not considered a money transmitter as they never handle fiat.

I keep saying that by registering with FINCEN, it does NOT mean that a company is a MSB.

FINCEN website:

"Information contained on this site has been provided by the MSB registrant. FinCEN does not verify information submitted by the MSB. Information provided on this site reflects only what was provided directly to FinCEN."


You can register on FINCEN website yourself... right now with any name you want.   make a try.


So, being registered with FINCEN means nothing. First a company MUST be a MSB and then to submit on Fincen website.

A US company must be registered as MSB in all the states if they want to deal/trade/do business  in all of them. See Coinbase, Gemini, Itbit. Look to their websites. You will notice something like :

https://www.coinbase.com/legal/licenses

https://gemini.com/about/


See? BIG difference between Kraken, Poloniex and similar others and these ones

Again, being registered on FINCEN page without being MSB = zero

Theres also a big difference between kraken, poloniex and similar ones compared to btc-e.

These exchanges changed a lot about KYC over the years and you can be quite sure that this has everything to do with complying to laws.

[mayax]

please show me where(what state) they are registered as MSB. .

Thanks, but no thanks as I'm not telling the world what state I live in. Look up some random state database's yourself, it doesn't take much effort, just google.  

Poloniex Inc is registered in Delaware  and they are not a MSB in this state as it should be.  In fact, they are not registered as MSB in any state. 

Yes, Poloniex and Kraken won't be closed for alleged money laundering. they will be charged with unlicensed money transmitter.

[illyiller]

Update for BTC-e customers (Google translation from Russian):

More detailed information about what happened to the BTC-e service.

On July 25, 11:00 the FBI staff came to the data center where our server equipment was located and seized all equipment, the servers contained databases and purses of our service.

Almost for 6 days we could not get from our hosting provider the sane information, what happened to our servers because of this information we publish only now.

July 28, the domain was confiscated.

At the moment, part of the service facility is arrested by the FBI.

The next update will be information on what options are available to restore the service, as well as the procedure for obtaining funds, in the event that the service is not started. In the current situation, if the service is not started before the end of August, Then from September 1 we will start the process of refund.
In the next 1-2 weeks, we will evaluate and publish information about how much money fell into the hands of the FBI and what amount of funds is available for return.

For all those who buried us, I will remind you that the service has always worked on trust and we are ready to answer for it.
The funds will be returned to everyone!

Arrest of the Russian Vinnyk Alexandra:
Officially declare - Alexander was never the head or employee of our service.

Sincerely, btc-e

P.S. In the subject write questions as far as possible we will answer them.

Original post:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2056158.0
https://twitter.com/btcecom/status/891928666065707008

[bensam1231]

If BTCe have secured their coins properly it should be hard for the FEDs to get their hands on the coins.

And it would also make it near impossible for users to get their coins back, if the site is shut down there is no reason for them to honor their debts to people who used their platform.

In my opinion the FEDs are more likely to pay back users money than the owner is at this point.

I disagree. Besides the government having absolutely no idea how cryptos work, when was the last time they decided to repay people after a seizure? There is no way they have any idea how an exchange works and it's probably too much work for them to return any amount of money. Exchanges being insanely complicated, how is it going to work if you're in FIAT when the exchange was seized? You would need to convert to BTC or need to receive a check from them. Do you think that's going to happen? Not only that if everyone converts from FIAT to BTC the price would crash on the exchange.

You're more then likely to get your money back from BTCe. BTCe already had plenty of opportunity to cut and run before the seizure, the seizure doesn't really change anything. We don't even know if their assets were even taken. There are plenty of ways for them to move them around, we're talking cryptos... That's like one of the biggest parts OF cryptos.

the govs know very well how it works. the forex companies are running since decades ago. the exchangers are the same.

the point is that most of the exchangers are out of law because they are not regulated like any other broker/trading company. so, before using exchangers like BTC-e, Kraken, Poloniex, Bitfinex, you should think twice.


also, i highly recommend you to find forex brokers which accept BTC (all of them have a history behind and are regulated) like

So because the government goes after someone because they launder money which I have nothing to do with, I should lose all my assets? As I mentioned you would definitely be more likely to get assets back from BTCE then the government, who had them in the first place. There is no way in hell anyone is getting anything back from the government. We'd have to form a class action lawsuit to get it sorted out.

And even then if the lawsuit is won the incompetence and general lack of professionalism when they do stuff like this will make almost everything irrecoverable. I find it hard to believe they even managed to snag anything other then the domain for BTCe. Maybe their primary servers. I'm sure they have tons of backups.

Stock exchanges aren't the same as crypto exchanges besides they're both 'exchanges'.

[Pe4kin]

Don't use bad words for any government. Because it is really bad to hear abuse here if someone report you that you are doing abuse then it can harm your account so i will be thankful to you that next time you will not use a bad words against someone because it is already looking very bad in front of people it is not a good thing to do. So try to be careful next time.

What is bad?
If you like that your government operates. Cuts like sheep!
Comes up in day 50 of the new laws.  And there You are happy that every day invented another new tax.

Do what you want. Create your own theater of the absurd and justify everything.
What the hell am I American government have to pay taxes ?

I am a free man and not a slave You have there in the States.
We want - and I'll live.
It is not enough that some scum of America pointed out to me - how to live and what to do!

[aTriz]

To be honest, everyone expected this especially after AlphaBay and all the other sites shut down a week or two ago. Good for the human race, but it might be bad for bitcoin although I doubt it

BTC value will drop for sure 

Nope, Bitcoin is still where it is, so this leads me to believe these reasons:
1. The people who often use Btc-e are just oblivious to the fact that the website shut down and/or are just still sleeping.
2. The people have realised that this is like the Hydra, you take down one site, 2 more pop up. They are holding their bitcoin for when a new site opens and then business resumes. (Most likely)