Let's talk about BTC.SX and MT.GOX

[larin]

Hello there, fellows. Let's talk.

I'd like to caution you about depositing at BTC.SX. Those guys are located at Mt.Gox building, as far as I know, you can also find tracks of Mt. Gox fluence at their site(About/Media and Press):

History
Btc.sx was founded by Joe Lee, a Bitcoin enthusiast whos parallel interest in finance and technology took him on a journey ending up in MtGox's Tokyo offices.

They took their BTC rates from Mt. Gox as well. When the Gox was just about to crush their trades appeared disabled plenty of time coz they had no liquidity so I withdrawed all. After first 24h of waiting I started to email their support. Lots of comlains started to appear at their facebook page(so as mine), like "where is my money", "why noone answers emails", "why did my profitable order has been closed by itself", "I didn't get my withdraw" and so on. They've muted few most active guys including me. After few days I recieved an email about "investigation" going around. Of course, none of my questions about what kind of investigation have been answered. Than I've got:

Your accounts have been suspended by our staff because of activities we have detected in your placed trades that have been classified as exploitation. Thank you for your patience while we investigate these further.
Until we have resolved all account activities across each of your logins, all bitcoin in each account including withdrawals will be placed on hold.

7 days of waiting, no explanations, no answers, total ignore(I kept emailing them pretty intensive). After I've got(27 feb):

We have highlighted 72 trades that you made with an 'Order Stop' beyond the recommended sizes. As a result, you posted a loss on certain positions beyond the collateral posted in the initial deposit. These losses have been totalled as highlighted and deducted from pending withdrawals.

They didn't even have Order Stop(stop loss) at December.
Recommended size? I've seen the only size I could consider as recommended. At their FAQ. At Trading Examples. It is 1000 points.
When does recommended(when there is even no recommended) become obligative and what gives them right to steal money like that? Piece of crap excuse, if you ask me.
Though, their FAQ clearly says:
It is important to remember that losses can also be multiplied however losses will never exceed your deposit.
(Deposit is the sum dedicated from Balance to open trade. Balance can be withdrawed, it's totally yours)
And they've taken my WITHDRAWED money without any doubt. Kept them for so long with no explanations and stolen it right away.
And 0.6 BTC arrived. From 16.8 BTC sent.
16.8 sent from 5 different accounts belongs to 5 different people they've linked up together coz mostly we communicated with them from 1 mail about all the acc's(the way they answer once in a century it's useless to email them from different mails, tho we did it as well, but didn't even had 1 answer to any other mail). Sent to 1 btc-e account coz we wanted to withdraw with wire transfer in order to pay less for transfer.
Even tho I mailed them with all that explanations and parts of their own FAQ(it appears they didn't read it at all), I had no respond since 27 feb. I kept mailing support@btc.sx, press@btc.sx, admin@btc.sx, I've written to all of their team members I could find at facebook. Only CTO have read my messages, but he just muted me.
founder:https://www.facebook.com/josephkwlee
CTO:https://www.facebook.com/james.turner.3532
press:https://www.facebook.com/george.samman.1

I've been emailing them from the emails they don't know with some simple unsuspicious questions(for them not to find out it's still me) but they didn't respond it either. Other people keep telling they don't answer emails. I don't know, did other people get their problems solved and how did they do it, but all I can see is other people keep telling their money is gone. Now my acc's had been deactivated, so as few other people's acc's. I know I'm not the only one. Jackmaninov, bitcointalk user said:

My guess: they lost money on trades while Gox was Goxing people, and now they're passing this loss on to "suspicious" accounts.

I think the same. Their misty statements about "we don't have money or crypto at Mt. Gox, we have no losses from that" and then "yep, we did have some losses from crash but it's ok" speaks for themselves. They have been closed for quite a long time, now they've opened and updated. Before, deposit size depended on BTC price and order(trade you open) size, just like in FAQ. Now min stop loss is 20$ and when you put 200$ stop loss you got your deposit x10(money taken from balance).

I've also PM'ed Seal here on bitcointalk, I suppose he is part of their team. People around here claimed him to be honest and helpfull. Well, we'll see. So far I got no answer from him as well.

So I've decided to warn you, fellows. As much fellows as I can. And I will keep sharing this story till I can type letters with my fingers. I've posted story or fraudlent calls under plenty of news articles I could find(tried to select only new ones) at few news sites, including coindesk. I've got all the screenshots of withdrawals at account histories, saved FAQ and other things I suppose I might be using as proves. Share this story, fellows.

I'm not the only one ignored. Not the only one with money gone withdrawed at the end of Feb. Not the only one with acc's being deactivated.
They've decided to start clean, updated, with bitstamp btc rates now, with old accounts have been deactivated, money has been stolen to cover losses. People will bring them money for sure. Let's not make this happen. Let's highlight this. Let's make EVERY DOG KNOW BTC.SX ARE THIEVES.

check these links:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=478952
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=470281
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=473478

You might want to share you thought here, as well:
http://www.coindesk.com/btc-sx-resumes-trading-mt-gox-induced-freeze/
http://letstalkbitcoin.com/transparency-and-technical-expertise/#.Uyur5vl_vpU

Let's talk.

[larin]

UPDATE

I've had a conversation with BTC.SX on facebook from a fake page. They didn't wanted to listen to any of my words, even about it's not 1 person's accounts and funds so they should reconsider their actions.

They've just blocked me. That's how they treat their clients. No matter what you say - "it had already been dealt with" and block.

I encourage everyone who has been treated like this by BTC.SX or have their money stolen to start and info-war and let as much people as you can know about their fraudlent behavior and straight-up thievery.

Let's talk.

[larin]

Some of those people who have been robbed posting link to this topic at their FB. They are just blocking everyone. That's how solid platform works! No replies or public statements. Post this topic at their facebook if you can, the more people will know, the less will get robbed, the less deposit will flow in BTC.SX pockets. They go online only like once or two times per day not for a long time. This link will be shown long enough for people to see it.

I ask the uninvolved bitcointalk community to participate, as well. For the sake of all the robbed in cryptocommunity. Don't let scams evolve!

[jackmaninov]

I've been emailing them once a week about a withdrawal I made that never arrived. The last time I emailed them I went to log into my account to check on balances there (maybe I was silently refunded) and learned that my account is disabled. This is AFTER they suspiciously closed one of my long positions on me (unrelated to my stop price), resulting in a loss.

Don't trade with these guys, you WILL lose money (especially with their new, lower stop loss limits).

[Hodor_keeper_of_the_light]

Piece of crap bunch of fraudlent children. Who calls it "trading platform"? I wish I could sue them.
Who ignore their users like that? They are like 5 years old. Making straight-up daylight thieves.

[r3wt]

Piece of crap bunch of fraudlent children. Who calls it "trading platform"? I wish I could sue them.
Who ignore their users like that? They are like 5 years old. Making straight-up daylight thieves.

damn that is fucked up. i can't believe Seal would do this. i'm going to message him so he can come over here and make a say for himself.

[surfer43]

I've had no issues with btc.sx.

[Nagle]

The basic question with any derivative is, "who's the counterparty". A derivative is a promise to pay something under some condition at a future time. Who stands behind that promise? BTC.sx tries to squirm out of responsibility with their "terms", which look like they're copied from some ordinary web site, not a financial service.

This is a big, big problem. A "Bitcoin exchange" is essentially a cash business - they match orders and execute them. There's no inherent financial risk to the exchange.  (Despite this, over half of Bitcoin exchanges have managed to fuck up and collapse.) BTC.sx, on the other hand, is itself the counterparty. They can lose big if they guess wrong or there's a sudden change in the price. (This is how a lot of big banks lost money in 2008.) But BTC.sx only has $150K of their own funds, less whatever it took them to get the thing going. That's not enough financial strength for what they're doing.

ICBIT also offered Bitcoin futures, but they were just running an exchange in them. They weren't a party to the transaction, and reserved the right to close out a futures contract if the other party didn't have enough in their account to pay up.  (But you don't know up front, with ICBIT, how much money the other party has in their account. So any big win is likely to not be paid off.)

That's the problem. Derivatives require financially strong counterparties who can be relied on to pay up when they lose, and systems to make them pay up. BTC.sx and ICBIT lack both.

[r3wt]

The basic question with any derivative is, "who's the counterparty". A derivative is a promise to pay something under some condition at a future time. Who stands behind that promise? BTC.sx tries to squirm out of responsibility with their "terms", which look like they're copied from some ordinary web site, not a financial service.

This is a big, big problem. A "Bitcoin exchange" is essentially a cash business - they match orders and execute them. There's no inherent financial risk to the exchange.  (Despite this, over half of Bitcoin exchanges have managed to fuck up and collapse.) BTC.sx, on the other hand, is itself the counterparty. They can lose big if they guess wrong or there's a sudden change in the price. (This is how a lot of big banks lost money in 2008.) But BTC.sx only has $150K of their own funds, less whatever it took them to get the thing going. That's not enough financial strength for what they're doing.

ICBIT also offered Bitcoin futures, but they were just running an exchange in them. They weren't a party to the transaction, and reserved the right to close out a futures contract if the other party didn't have enough in their account to pay up.  (But you don't know up front, with ICBIT, how much money the other party has in their account. So any big win is likely to not be paid off.)

That's the problem. Derivatives require financially strong counterparties who can be relied on to pay up when they lose, and systems to make them pay up. BTC.sx and ICBIT lack both.

pretty accurate view of the situation, and ultimately why i never even registered with either service. the inherent risks involved were to great.

[Seal]

Hi Bitcointalk,

In response to larin. I would like to share with the community some facts about his history with btc.sx.

His accounts were locked due to exploitation to unfairly game the system for selfish profits at any cost, to us and our honest userbase. Upon discovery of this exploit, he signed up with 5 different accounts and continued using it across an additional 72 trades. This is behaviour which the community should stand against.

The attached images below show these trades.


http://postimg.org/image/rk659w9l7/full/


http://postimg.org/image/5ifuzup3f/

Through use of his exploit, in these trades he profited by 17.9 btc.

Where losses incurred costed btc.sx additional collateral, this was deducted from his profits (15.6 btc).

The funds which larin claims to be his are all profits he gained from the exploit. We have not taken a satoshi more and honoured remaining withdrawals against his account.

This is the response we sent to him:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Btc.sx Support <support@btc.sx>
Date: Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 6:06 PM
Subject: Re: Deposit
To: Aндpeй Лapькин <larkin9292@gmail.com>


Hi Andre,

Thank you for your patience during our investigation. First of all apologies that it took so long to complete. Your trading history is extensive and the fact that it was spread across 5 different accounts made it time consuming to compile.

Attached is an excel spreadsheet highlighting areas under investigation. We have highlighted 72 trades that you made with an 'Order Stop' beyond the recommended sizes. As a result, you posted a loss on certain positions beyond the collateral posted in the initial deposit. These losses have been totalled as highlighted and deducted from pending withdrawals.

Your refund has been processed to the wallet address:
134CLcuxm8tjQGbfbv5AMkW2aWVyMVxQaz

Further to the investigation, it appears that your behaviour highlights the continued and undisclosed use of an exploit allowing for negative order stops to be used. In these cases we exercise our rights in our terms and conditions in order to limit our losses.

Your accounts have been unlocked. In the future please inform us as soon as you encounter behaviour which can be considered out of the ordinary.

Regards
BTC.sx

The community should also know that larin will not stop at any cost to undermine our efforts to run a business as transparently as we can.


http://postimg.org/image/5ifuzup3f/

He is also using multiple accounts in his efforts to slander our business. As in this post, and on a number of accounts on our Facebook page and elsewhere.

Here is more information based upon the truth rather then false facts posted under multiple accounts:

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-derivatives-market-btc-sx-suspends-trading-amid-turmoil-partner-mt-gox/

http://www.coindesk.com/btc-sx-resumes-trading-mt-gox-induced-freeze/

larin, as a company our staff have been directed to ignore your messages due to the continued abuse you send us. The nature of your deceitful lies and continual exploitation is not what we want to deal with as a bitcoin startup and not what the community needs.

[Seal]

16.8 sent from 5 different accounts belongs to 5 different people they've linked up together coz mostly we communicated with them from 1 mail about all the acc's(the way they answer once in a century it's useless to email them from different mails, tho we did it as well, but didn't even had 1 answer to any other mail). Sent to 1 btc-e account coz we wanted to withdraw with wire transfer in order to pay less for transfer.

This is also untrue. See below.


http://postimg.org/image/zcvvz24ub/

I also have emails from you informing us of your 5 accounts.

[Hodor_keeper_of_the_light]

We have highlighted 72 trades that you made with an 'Order Stop' beyond the recommended sizes. As a result, you posted a loss on certain positions beyond the collateral posted in the initial deposit. These losses have been totalled as highlighted and deducted from pending withdrawals.

They didn't even have Order Stop(stop loss) at December.
Recommended size? I've seen the only size I could consider as recommended. At their FAQ. At Trading Examples. It is 1000 points.
When does recommended(when there is even no recommended) become obligative and what gives them right to steal money like that? Piece of crap excuse, if you ask me.
Though, their FAQ clearly says:
It is important to remember that losses can also be multiplied however losses will never exceed your deposit.
(Deposit is the sum dedicated from Balance to open trade. Balance can be withdrawed, it's totally yours)
And they've taken my WITHDRAWED money without any doubt. Kept them for so long with no explanations and stolen it right away.
And 0.6 BTC arrived. From 16.8 BTC sent.
16.8 sent from 5 different accounts belongs to 5 different people they've linked up together coz mostly we communicated with them from 1 mail about all the acc's(the way they answer once in a century it's useless to email them from different mails, tho we did it as well, but didn't even had 1 answer to any other mail). Sent to 1 btc-e account coz we wanted to withdraw with wire transfer in order to pay less for transfer.
Even tho I mailed them with all that explanations and parts of their own FAQ(it appears they didn't read it at all), I had no respond since 27 feb. I kept mailing support@btc.sx, press@btc.sx, admin@btc.sx, I've written to all of their team members I could find at facebook. Only CTO have read my messages, but he just muted me.
founder:https://www.facebook.com/josephkwlee
CTO:https://www.facebook.com/james.turner.3532
press:https://www.facebook.com/george.samman.1

1000 points, that's what larin have used. That's what is written in your FAQ. Also, your FAQ says about "losses will NEVER exceed your deposit. There is nothing written about "too big stop loss is exploit and we will take all your and your friends money".

http://postimg.org/image/rk659w9l7/full/


http://postimg.org/image/5ifuzup3f/
Through use of his exploit, in these trades he profited by 17.9 btc.

Where losses incurred costed btc.sx additional collateral, this was deducted from his profits (15.6 btc).

The funds which larin claims to be his are all profits he gained from the exploit. We have not taken a satoshi more and honoured remaining withdrawals against his account.

All the trades remained opened for 1 day, the only 2 trades to be opened for a 2 days brought only (-deposit). The 100$ stop loss would make no difference with that 1000pt stop loss. So I see no use of the thing you call "exploitation", no extra profit or something like that. That's why your reason for taking money is called "imaginary". Your interface allowed to put that kind of stop loss, your FAQ have 1000pt stop loss in Trading Examples. If your system and FAQ differs from IMAGINARY RULES FROM YOUR HEAD it's only your problem. You had daily fundings and took deposits. You claim all those money to be earned be using "exploit". That's LIES.

You didn't even have STOP LOSS at DECEMBER, what kind of "additional collateral" are you talking about?

LOL, yeah, Answer to larin please, so what? You have been ignoring this situation for too long.

16.8 sent from 5 different accounts belongs to 5 different people they've linked up together coz mostly we communicated with them from 1 mail about all the acc's(the way they answer once in a century it's useless to email them from different mails, tho we did it as well, but didn't even had 1 answer to any other mail). Sent to 1 btc-e account coz we wanted to withdraw with wire transfer in order to pay less for transfer.

This is also untrue. See below.


http://postimg.org/image/zcvvz24ub/

I also have emails from you informing us of your 5 accounts.

So what? An excel table made and screenshotted by you does only prove that you linked those accounts together. That's what we are talking about. Nothing more.
Those are your proves??
Email sent to you was to inform about accounts of friendly people who all have that kind of problem(with no money recieved) who have sent BTC to 1 address at btc-e to withdraw with less fee, tho it didn't involve such details, at that moment we didn't know we should've share those details, but after TONS of correspondence informing you about different people(not 1 person) - you decided to ignore that.
What is untrue?

The community should also know that larin will not stop at any cost to undermine our efforts to run a business as transparently as we can.

Ignoring tons of users(not just involved in this situation) is transparently? Ignoring tons of correspondence for a month is transparently? Ignoring information about "different acc's - different people" is transparently? Stealing money for imaginary reasons is transparently?
Blocking at the middle of conversation at facebook is transparently?
At facebook we tried to inform you in all ways that accounts belong to different people - all we had is "it has been already dealt with" and blockage.

Yep, we will undermine your efforts to run a business FRAUDULENT, your IGNORE made us to.
So, you're still claimed as THIEF.

[Hodor_keeper_of_the_light]

Thanks you for posting these proves of your thievery, Seal.

[Hodor_keeper_of_the_light]

UPDATE: They have blocked their wall at facebook from posting anything by anyone. They don't want this to be highlighted, even tho Seal thinks he provided some "proves" here. Another evidence of their LIES AND THIEVERY.

Let's talk in public, Seal. Nothing to hide, right? We would talk in private with BTC.SX, but you IGNORE.

[Hodor_keeper_of_the_light]

larin, as a company our staff have been directed to ignore your messages due to the continued abuse you send us.

I see. But nothing is over, Seal. Besides your imaginary reasons of stealing money there is one more thing. As I mentioned higher, we didn't inform you about accounts belong to different people at start, coz there was no need in this, but you ignored when we informed you about that. So you have to respect that. Continuing ignore is not acceptable. We won't close any scam calls, every article about your company will be commentated with links to this story. Reputation of the btc.sx going down.

[Nagle]

Here, the people who have to pay up when they lose, and the people who decide who has to pay up and when, are the same.

Derivatives require debt collectors, because they are future promises to pay. The debt collector can't be the debtor. That's a good reason not to deal with them.

“He who sells what isn't his'n. Must buy it back or go to prison” - Daniel Drew, on short selling.

[clownius]

Hodor even i dont believe that all 5 accounts are not yours.  The reasons you give smell fishy to say the least.....

Im not sure who has the biggest credibility issue here you or btc.sx

[Hodor_keeper_of_the_light]

Hodor even i dont believe that all 5 accounts are not yours.  The reasons you give smell fishy to say the least.....

Im not sure who has the biggest credibility issue here you or btc.sx

Well, I'm the victim here. I'm not the trading platform. And I'm the one money has been taken from. They have to prove their point to take the money like that. Otherwise, they can take money from anyone on some ungrounded accusations.
I see no evidence at all.
What's unbelievable in - 5 friends try to make wire transfer with less fee?
And they've actually taken much more than it were initially depositted. Another reason for calling it a thievery.
At the moment all the money depositted is placed into their pockets. Of course they don't want to payout, all the payouts are from their pockets(as Nagle mentioned), but they claim all the money to be earned by using their platform, that's not true.
We'd even agree to cansel all the profits all and the losses and return initial deposits, if they are playing this scenario. But they don't want to go any other way except "take all money and ignore", there was no dialogue with BTC.SX for a month. Only by forcing this topic it became possible to have a conversation with them. That's how they act. I doubt anyone think it's "transparently" or that's the way solid platform acts.
And don't you think breaking their rules given in FAQ and taking withdrawed money is enough to claim this a thievery? Not a word written about "place big stop loss and we will take your balance(not deposit)". The only thing that's written "losses will never exceed your deposit".

[Hodor_keeper_of_the_light]

Seal, the way you disrespect this info is not acceptable. Scam call remain opened. The only way to close it - react to the provided info you've being ignoring for a month, bring conversation to a consensus.

[davepsilon]

Hi Bitcointalk,

In response to larin. I would like to share with the community some facts about his history with btc.sx.

His accounts were locked due to exploitation to unfairly game the system for selfish profits at any cost, to us and our honest userbase. Upon discovery of this exploit, he signed up with 5 different accounts and continued using it across an additional 72 trades. This is behaviour which the community should stand against.

The attached images below show these trades.

http://s9.postimg.org/5kzqmosr3/Screen_Shot_2014_03_22_at_10_26_19.png
http://postimg.org/image/rk659w9l7/full/

http://s9.postimg.org/7qu1h6w7j/Screen_Shot_2014_03_22_at_10_26_44.png
http://postimg.org/image/5ifuzup3f/

Through use of his exploit, in these trades he profited by 17.9 btc.

Where losses incurred costed btc.sx additional collateral, this was deducted from his profits (15.6 btc).

The funds which larin claims to be his are all profits he gained from the exploit. We have not taken a satoshi more and honoured remaining withdrawals against his account.

...

Hi Seal.  I'm inclined to believe you that Hodor / larin has gamed the system, however I cannot decipher your post.  Forgive my ignorance of your system, but I can't think of a way to abuse a stop loss order with my stock broker - if my broker later tried to claw back my trades I would definitely go to a lawyer to draft a strongly worded letter. 

So in the interest of letting the community fairly judge your operation could you explain like I was 5 years old what each line in the spreadsheets you linked means and why that would be an exploit of the trading system?