Remember Plustoken? they are still active and massive sell-off keeps going on

[ChiNgadOr]

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, these guys made an epic scam: 200,000 BTC and 800,000 ETH were stolen.
The BTC have been moving around and hidden via mixers. ETH has not been moved, perhaps because those who weren't jailed don't have the prevaite key of ETH wallets, although most likely because it's more easy to track.
It can be seen that in spite of having the leader of the famous SCAM caged, the company's addresses are still active and they may have hit a snag during last March's fall, when these sons of b**ch dumped 13,000 BTC ($118M).

Now for the important part of my post:
Whose fault is it that these things happen? In my opinion, much of the blame lies with the unscrupulous exchanges. If they agreed, the stolen funds could be flagged and they would never be cashed out. With a well-connected and regulated system (Yeah.. I don't like it either.. but it's the only solution I can think of), the exchange from crypto to fiat could be blocked at the moment it happens.


https://beincrypto.com/plus-token-scam-dumps-another-13000-btc-118m-may-be-responsible-for-bitcoin-drop/amp/

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[exstasie]

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, these guys made an epic scam: 200,000 BTC and 800,000 ETH were stolen.
The BTC have been moving around and hidden via mixers. ETH has not been moved, perhaps because those who weren't jailed don't have the prevaite key of ETH wallets, although most likely because it's more easy to track.
It can be seen that in spite of having the leader of the famous SCAM caged, the company's addresses are still active and they may have hit a snag during last March's fall, when these sons of b**ch dumped 13,000 BTC ($118M).

They stole 45,000 BTC, not 200K.

Chainalysis responded to those reports and said those 13K BTC didn't land on exchanges: https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/plustoken-scam-bitcoin-price

3/12/2020 Update

This week, Bitcoin’s price fell sharply, dropping from over $9,100 on Friday, March 6 to a low of roughly $5,800 this morning on Thursday, March 12. This price movement coincided with reports of movements by funds associated with the PlusToken scam, prompting some to wonder if scammers’ liquidations are causing the price drop, as we concluded likely happened in September 2019 in our original blog post below.

However, in this case, we don’t believe PlusToken liquidations are responsible for Bitcoin’s price drop. While Bitcoin did move from PlusToken addresses over the weekend, very little has gone to exchanges.

We believe Bitcoin’s recent price fall can instead be explained by the same macro events driving down stocks and other assets — namely, the tumult caused by the COVID-19 virus.

In the last couple of days, we’ve seen a huge increase in transfers to exchanges, as traders appear to be selling in response to recent market events. Exchange inflows are 80% higher than average, which translates to about 170,000 BTC more than usual hitting markets since Monday. These heightened inflows are overwhelming the relatively illiquid Bitcoin market, causing prices to fall, which in turn leads to further inflows, causing prices to drop further.

Any dumping by the Plustoken scammers would be tiny in comparison to the effects of the March 12th liquidity crisis.

Whose fault is it that these things happen? In my opinion, much of the blame lies with the unscrupulous exchanges. If they agreed, the stolen funds could be flagged and they would never be cashed out. With a well-connected and regulated system (Yeah.. I don't like it either.. but it's the only solution I can think of), the exchange from crypto to fiat could be blocked at the moment it happens.

Be careful what you wish for. What if you buy some BTC peer-to-peer or withdraw some BTC from a service, and it later gets confiscated by an exchange because part of an output was tainted?

[Jating]

Now for the important part of my post:
Whose fault is it that these things happen? In my opinion, much of the blame lies with the unscrupulous exchanges. If they agreed, the stolen funds could be flagged and they would never be cashed out. With a well-connected and regulated system (Yeah.. I don't like it either.. but it's the only solution I can think of), the exchange from crypto to fiat could be blocked at the moment it happens.

As far as I can remember, exchanges have been notified of the btc addresses, but if those crooks used a bitcoin mixer then it is hard to blame exchanges from accepting those btc. So I wouldn't say that exchanges are part of the problem here. I'm not defending those scammers, but they are well sophisticated that it will take blockchain analysis to really track where the coins are going right now. And it will be too late, once they have cash it out.

[Tytanowy Janusz]

Why are you even in crypto? As i remember correct you are here for quick lambo aren't you (at least i assume that after this thread -https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5239132.msg54187833#msg54187833 and few others)? That explains why you want regulations, exchange stealing someone funds to not let them dump etc. I'm here for freedom and independence from banks. Crypto was made to free people. It has advantages and disadvantages. You can start a global company with SC without going out from home, you can store and transfer money without banks and their regulations but on the other hand you can be scammed if you are not thoughtful. It is impossible to enjoy freedom while imposing restrictions. Any restriction that will help in prosecuting these types of fraudsters will limit our freedoms and bring crypto closer to the system we have outside the crypto. Stop promoting restrictions!

[davis196]

Plustoken was a typical HYIP ponzi scheme that exit scammed(like every other HYIP ponzi scheme).
I hope that the team behind this scam gets arrested and convinced(or punished) to return all stolen BTC and ETH.There's no nothing we(of crypto exchanges) can do.There authorities have to step in.
Only thing we can do is to promote the simple "disclaimer",that everyone who invests money in such projects is going this at his own risk and there's always the possibility of losing all his investment.
People will always have to do their own research before deciding what to do with their money.

[Reid]

First of all, damn it! I thought it was a name. I read it like Ploosto-ken.   Hilarious.

That article was 1 month ago man.
You made me the effort to google "plustoken news" "plustoken update" and more. Yet, I don't find any recent news about them.
All dated like February, March. No April.
We should move one with this. There are people who are already looking up to this.

[justdimin]

KYC is literally for this, we can't do anything more than that, if an exchange asks for KYC and somehow still doesn't get the right guy that means there is nothing else they should be doing. Hell I have recently bought a yoga mat and didn't give any other information then my address so they can ship it, I bought a game from steam and never really gave ANY info, my name and address they asked there were all fake and nobody checked it twice.

So, exchanges are already doing something much much more than what the other ecommerce are doing, we should not be asking them anything more. If there is a hacking going on and people withdrew, just use their KYC to catch them, give all the info you have to cops and they will chase him, if not that means its not exchanges fault.

[Tytanowy Janusz]

KYC is literally for this, we can't do anything more than that, if an exchange asks for KYC and somehow still doesn't get the right guy that means there is nothing else they should be doing. Hell I have recently bought a yoga mat and didn't give any other information then my address so they can ship it, I bought a game from steam and never really gave ANY info, my name and address they asked there were all fake and nobody checked it twice.

So, exchanges are already doing something much much more than what the other ecommerce are doing, we should not be asking them anything more. If there is a hacking going on and people withdrew, just use their KYC to catch them, give all the info you have to cops and they will chase him, if not that means its not exchanges fault.

~50$ - that's how much you need to pay for KYC photos on darknet.
~100$ - that's how much you need to pay for credit card that is registered on random guy.

Also ICOs scammers has thousands of ID from their KYC that they demanded from their clients. Sometimes i think that this is a main income from today's ICOs. You get 1000 bounty hunters that perform KYC to get reward and you have 50 000$ from darknet. You don't need to sell even a single token during ICO.

Any restrictions will only makes things harder for honest guys. Scammers will always find a way to scam.

[cryptoaddictchie]

~50$ - that's how much you need to pay for KYC photos on darknet.
~100$ - that's how much you need to pay for credit card that is registered on random guy.

Hello I am not that familiar on darknet but is this valuation for real? Only 50$ and someone can eventually used your details? Holy crap, this is not good. Hopefully people can learn not to be stupid on signing up with most KYC bounty. By the way, do you have a source where we can see this tyranny scandalous activity of selling KYC information is happening?

Maybe I am doomed I did some KYC before on some bounties for rewards. My goal now is to avoid these devil swarms abusing people. Thanks. I am clueless that there are sellers for this kind of informations.

[boyptc]

With your opinion, maybe time will come for these exchanges across the world that they will create a union to become connected and unite if such incident happens again.

I think Binance will have the initiative for this but only time will tell.

[Tytanowy Janusz]

By the way, do you have a source where we can see this tyranny scandalous activity of selling KYC information is happening?

I will not share darknet market links here because i don't know if its not against BTT (and personally i don't want to promote that) rules but i can link you this article to prove that I didn't made it up:
https://www.ccn.com/hacked-customer-data-from-world-leading-cryptocurrency-exchanges-for-sale-on-the-dark-web/

And photo of random vendor selling KYC data:


And if some may think that exchanges need photo with you holding a piece of paper with date than you need to know that 100$ is enough for fake ID.



So as I already said. Any restrictions will only disturb honest users. Every KYC, every coin holding if they are tailed with scam etc. Scammers will always find a way to scam and wash dirty money.

Scammers have fake IDs, KYC data, they sell OTC - P2P, they spread it through dozen of exchanges and cantors they may even use it to pay for signature campaigns for they current business (casino, exchange). It is possible that your address is already tailed. It is possible that they have their own exchange.

[hugeblack]

It can be seen that in spite of having the leader of the famous SCAM caged, the company's addresses are still active and they may have hit a snag during last March's fall, when these sons of b**ch dumped 13,000 BTC ($118M).

Whenever we see a drop in price, following large BTC transfers, some analyzes (newspapers are trying to gain more views) try to link between them and the price dump/bump, for example, this article^[1] from February speaks about the same FUD.
Consequently, they are not responsible for the recent decline.
Notice that the amount of 12,000BTC ($84,000,000) is minimal to cause huge changes in a market with a market capacity of $32,107,189,024.

[1] FEB 11, 2020 PlusToken Scam Moves $123M in Bitcoin Just as BTC Price Regains $10K

Whose fault is it that these things happen?

Stop using the central platforms, use open-source wallet/exchange after checking the source code.

[fortunecrypto]

With your opinion, maybe time will come for these exchanges across the world that they will create a union to become connected and unite if such incident happens again.

I think Binance will have the initiative for this but only time will tell.

They should, to combat hacking and protect the industry where they making huge profit, but there are stiff competitions among exchanges right now,  and I agree that Binance should be the forefront since they are the industry leader in exchange, if we something like this, we will never have another plustoken.

[el kaka22]

If somehow there could be some initiative between exchanges, what should be the prime thing is figuring out who is the hacker and where is the money at the latest.

Because, we all know that this much money can't be cashed out without any KYC at all, there has to be some sort of trail that could be traced and if all exchanges work together in cases like this we are talking about billions of dollars worth companies working together and I am sure they could fund something that could trace all of this to a person, I know you think that might be a bit difficult but if you throw enough power+money+talent into a project like that, they could basically make it their mission and their only job so they could figure out who it is. And when you do catch the hackers once or twice, people will realize hacking is not the end result, you also have to not get caught and that might convince some people otherwise.

[Quidat]

It can be seen that in spite of having the leader of the famous SCAM caged, the company's addresses are still active and they may have hit a snag during last March's fall, when these sons of b**ch dumped 13,000 BTC ($118M).

Whenever we see a drop in price, following large BTC transfers, some analyzes (newspapers are trying to gain more views) try to link between them and the price dump/bump, for example, this article^[1] from February speaks about the same FUD.
Consequently, they are not responsible for the recent decline.
Notice that the amount of 12,000BTC ($84,000,000) is minimal to cause huge changes in a market with a market capacity of $32,107,189,024.

[1] FEB 11, 2020 PlusToken Scam Moves $123M in Bitcoin Just as BTC Price Regains $10K

This is why i dont really easily get panicked when theres some new like these about hacks and other stolen btc's but we cant really avoid for people no to think that the market would dumped
but if we do really talk about on the entire amount then it wont really be enough to dump the market down to low levels and also as you said that not all situation would really correlate to market
price yet it had proven how many times that it can go to opposite way.

Whose fault is it that these things happen?

Stop using the central platforms, use open-source wallet/exchange after checking the source code.

This had been said for a decade but people do still rely on centralized ones and just ignore the risk or danger thats why we do continue to see these kind of circumstances.

[aioc]

It can be seen that in spite of having the leader of the famous SCAM caged, the company's addresses are still active and they may have hit a snag during last March's fall, when these sons of b**ch dumped 13,000 BTC ($118M).



https://beincrypto.com/plus-token-scam-dumps-another-13000-btc-118m-may-be-responsible-for-bitcoin-drop/amp/

So what's the update here, do they still have those Bitcoin that they've scam it's kinda worrying because they can do another massive dump again and lose the momentum that we are having right now,  we have seen how they crash the market when they dumped their share, something that we do not want to happen again.

[Tytanowy Janusz]

So what's the update here, do they still have those Bitcoin that they've scam it's kinda worrying because they can do another massive dump again and lose the momentum that we are having right now,  we have seen how they crash the market when they dumped their share, something that we do not want to happen again.

People overestimate their impact on the market. Dump that we saw was caused by massive panic sell that was visible not only on bitcoin but also SP500, DJI, DAX, LSE, silver, OIL - almost every asset. I doubt that OIL was dumped to -35$ because plustoken guys was selling.

I agree with this:

Notice that the amount of 12,000BTC ($84,000,000) is minimal to cause huge changes in a market with a market capacity of $32,107,189,024.

Here you can see 40 000 BTC 5 min candle on binance futures (300 mln $ traded in 5 min). People still forget (or did not realise that yet) how deep bitcoin market is. You can really dump 100 mln $ in BTC without significant impact on market if you do it wisely.

[figmentofmyass]

Here you can see 40 000 BTC 5 min candle on binance futures (300 mln $ traded in 5 min). People still forget (or did not realise that yet) how deep bitcoin market is. You can really dump 100 mln $ in BTC without significant impact on market if you do it wisely.

a lot of that is the same market makers splashing back and forth. there's probably fake volume added by the exchange too. once you've seen huobi doing several million BTC volume in a day, you start to be skeptical of these numbers.

binance futures also offers up to 125x leverage. i'm not saying everyone is leveraged that much, but it greatly skews the amount of real market depth. that's why derivatives can stray from real bitcoin spot prices during extreme volatility, like we saw in march on bitmex.

i wouldn't include derivative platforms in with real spot exchanges when measuring depth and volume, or at least i would control for the amount of leverage used. there is also a lot of faked market depth and faked volume across the industry in general too.

13k BTC dumped on coinbase pro or bitstamp would definitely affect the price. i can't see coinbase pro's full order book but the shortened version shows only ~1500 BTC depth down to $7100 ($600 away), so imagine how far 13k would go.

[__M]

Hi,

To add to what figmentofmyass said, You cannot ignore future volumes anymore. the liquidation mechanism introduced by leverage trading is one of the greatest liquidity pool in the market right now.
1- Following those area of high liquidity can be highly profitable
2- Historically, those areas have been a "magnet". The price always tended towards them.
3- If you have sufficient funds, pushing the price one way can create cascading liquidations and sudden HUGE increase in liquidity

Though it must not be forgotten that most derivative platforms only have an index of the Bitcoin price, calculated by weighting different spot exchanges spot-prices (Kraken, Bitstamp...)

[Tytanowy Janusz]

I'm not sure if I would disqualify trading volume because of leverage. From dumper perspective it does not matter if he fills 1000x buy offers form none leverage guys or 10x buy offers from 100x leverage guys. I need to think more about that.

a lot of that is the same market makers splashing back and forth. there's probably fake volume added by the exchange too. once you've seen huobi doing several million BTC volume in a day, you start to be skeptical of these numbers.

Fair point. But that's volume from only one exchange.

13k BTC dumped on coinbase pro or bitstamp would definitely affect the price. i can't see coinbase pro's full order book but the shortened version shows only ~1500 BTC depth down to $7100 ($600 away), so imagine how far 13k would go.

We would see instant buy offers spam from arbitrage traders that would move price change to other exchanges like binance (with 2000BTC to 7100$ - only spot). There are also bunch of hidden offers that waits in arbitrage bots for trigger price. I think that 300$ -500$ price change is max that we might see from 13k BTC instant dump.