Let's have a healthy discussion as to why Yobit is/might be a shady exchange, and whether or not the promoters of said service should face any repercussions for the damages they do against customers who are unknown to Yobit's business practices. (Which is to squeeze as much money out of every customer possible.). Or if this is completely healthy, and everyone just has to do their own due diligence before using them.
Table of Contents:
I. Prologue.
II. List of various accusations against yobit. (Cannot be effectively proven, as we only have other people's accusations.)
III. Yobit selectively scamming users and freezing withdrawals. (Cannot be effectively proven, as we only have other people's accusations.)
IV. Yobit' site owners orchestrating pump & dumps.
V. Yobit's InvestmentBox .
VI Yobit's ticker ignorance/fraud.
Sources.
[1]
[2]
https://cointelegraph.com/news/cryptocurrency-exchange-yobit-investigated-in-russia-on-fraud-claims /
http://forbes.net.ua/news/1428269-komanda-forbes-ukraina-stanovitsya-mind-ua (?)
[3]
https://bitnewstoday.com/news/exchange/businessman-connected-with-yobit-arrested-in-moscow/ /
http://www.coinfox.info/news/8864-millions-of-nem-stolen-from-coincheck-transferred-to-russia-related-exchange-yobit (?)
[4]
https://twitter.com/yobitexchange/status/1050035464609124352?lang=en /
https://twitter.com/yobitexchange/status/1050777225505705984?lang=en[5]
https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7wobq0/reasons_why_i_avoid_yobit_and_why_you_probably/[6]
https://bitcoinexchangeguide.com/warning-russian-crypto-exchange-yobit-uses-ticker-name-to-fraud-traders/[7]
https://medium.com/@rdbritannia/the-exchange-ticker-scam-from-russia-with-love-7d6e206c3b64[8]
https://cryptoinsider.com/yobit-net-scammers-incompetence/
I. For those who don't know about yobit, they're a russian exchange[1], with various features which i think are quite controversial. They've been investigated for fraud in the past[2]. And have unknown owners. Although it is rumored that the actual owner was arrested on fraud charges[3]. It's unclear to me whether or not this is actually true though(?).
I might have a wrong view of certain business practices conducted at Yobit. If my accusations against them are false/ungrounded, please feel free to refute them.
II. This is pretty shocking. Over the years Yobit garnered hundreds of scam accusations, most of which have gone unanswered despite them having a BTT account. I haven't seen this number of scam accusations against any other exchange.
Just a few examples;
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2163490.0 HOW YOBIT SCAMMED ME
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2831618.0 YOBIT SCAMMED ME 15.20780976 ETHEREUM
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1880931.0https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4327871.0 YOBIT Scam Exchange
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4319301.0 Yobit scam ? Trade lost money
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3948962 Yobit SCAM - SYSCOIN withdrawal
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3636433.0 1000+ ETH blocked: Yobit.net won't explain or resolve
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3109307.0 YOBIT scam - class action law suit
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3893592.0 YoBit seems wants to steal my money. Are they scammed?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3659923 Scam market YObit.net and YObit.io
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3307444.0 Yobit.Net Scamming My Deposit
III.
I'm kind of reluctant to show these as proof that yobit is a shady exchange, or scamming customers, as i don't know the ins and outs of each case..
However it is obvious that with yobit there's far more users complaining that they can't withdraw coins/their wallets have been frozen.
Some accusations, again.
Please unfreeze my YoBit accountSupport tickets about NewYorkcoins should be directed to Yobityobit about to take off ?
WARNING YObit is a scam (User was able to login but had no support offered whatsoever.)
You can google far more examples of users not getting answers to their tickets, and thinking that they've lost their funds.
Now onto the observable questionable behavior:
IV. This one is quite obvious, and they're not shy from hiding it.
What they used to do is just call it a pump and dump, and add a timer as to when they were going to "release" it (the pump). It was announced on all of their social media, "Pump and dump in X hours"[4]
https://yobit.net/en/pump/timer/It's unclear to me whether they still do this. (but don't worry, they replaced it with an instrument just as bad!)
So, after a boatload of criticism, i guess they changed it to "New ICO in X hours, (what's now a new "IEO"), so that it isn't really market manipulation anymore. (I'm guessing?)
They're still doing this as of today. You can see the countdown timer here.
https://yobit.net/en/ico/timer/Basically, they launch a non-existing project, and users can buy their sack of shit, hoping an even bigger fool will buy it from a higher price from them. I guess one could argue that this isn't against any laws, but it sure as hell is shady. And perhaps it is actually quite unethical to serve your customers a literal pile of dogshit with atleast some of them not knowing that what is on the menu is not edible..
They are conducting IEO for coins that do not exist - it's not a project. They make a paid "SHROOM" let's say, and that's it, new coin added. It's to generate profit for those who get in early - a kind of gambling game. It can be profitable or very taxing. I guess nothing wrong with that and up to each use to play their part or avoid it.
From someone who participated in them.
V. Their InvestBox. despite them stating the obvious;
Invest your free coins to InvestBox! It’s a tool for devs to promote their coins. It’s NOT Pyramid/HYIP, all payments are made from special fund.
InvestBoxes can change status from Active to «No coins», but you can close your investment any time, it’s 100% safe.
If it's not a ponzi, (which, well, it really does have all the looks of it.), it for sure is a nice way to get more people into a shitcoin, of which the dev can then just dump all the coins of slowly to 1 sat. I believe this is what has been happening, and is the entire purpose of the "InvestBox".
Take a look at the "MOON" and "URANIX" investment plans, and it becomes fairly obvious.
https://yobit.net/en/trade/MOON/BTChttps://yobit.net/en/trade/URANIX/BTCAgain, as i see it, this is just another way for yobit and shady coin developers to squeeze some more money out of ignorant/new traders.
VI. Yobit's ticker ignorance, or plain fraud? I'm not sure.
There are a couple articles about this explaining it, but basically it went like this. Yobit (or was it a third-party? No one knows...) created a shitcoin called Boat's n Boobs', and listed it as BNB.
through washtrading they kept the price ~x% under the actual marketprice BNB (Binance Coin) was trading at, and defrauded investors who thought they were buying actual BNB coins.
1. Yobit take an established coin Omise_Go (OMG).
2. They then quietly create their own, useless coin, entitled OMGame.
3. Listing OMGame on their market using the ticker (OMG) at a handful of Satoshi cheaper than current market price they drive up hype for discount purchases (no note of OMGame is made to the consumer on the trading screen).
4. Volume is artificially kept high thanks to exchange wash-trading.
5. When people grow wise to the scam, Yobit delete the coin, leaving traders out of pocket unable to sell elsewhere.
6. Support emails in return claim that the coin was a 3rd party technology that no longer met the exchange's T&C and Yobit is not liable for remuneration.
The coin got "delisted" after some controversy.
Some articles/ reddit threads; [5] [6] [7] [8]
Now there are multiple questions to answer, the first one being as to what extend this sort of behavior is fraudulent, (If fraudulent at all, you decide.), and if it is, to what extent the promoters of Yobit are complicit in this.
People who promote ponzi schemes in Gambling threads, or advertise pump&dump groups are usually tagged/ ushered away rather quickly. If Yobit was proven to also engage in that behavior, wouldn't wearing their signature be essentially the same as promoting a ponzi/pump&dump scheme? (I don't know..)
