BTER.com hacked| 7170 BTC stolen | DON'T KEEP YOUR MONEY ON AN EXCHANGE |

[almightyruler]

Trying withdrawal of NMC, and it's showing the status as "Waiting for balance..."

I don't know if this means the hot wallet is temporarily empty due to higher than usual withdrawal activity for alts, and the wallet simply needs to be topped up (perhaps manually)... or that this coin is running fractional, and there's insufficient funds to complete the transaction.

Reminds me of the last days of Cryptsy........


edit: cancelled that withdrawal request and retried with the minimum 1.001 NMC amount - even that gets stuck with the "Waiting for balance..." message.

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[jujugoboom]

Maybe this is the fake hack and Bter's CEO hanlin did this to rip the investors off, you know they had major hack before this, aka NXT hack. They need to scam money from investors.

[almightyruler]

Just an update on the waiting for balance thing: that stalled withdrawal went through some time (up to several hours) after my post, and two subsequent withdrawals were processed within a couple of minutes.

[redsn0w]

Just an update on the waiting for balance thing: that stalled withdrawal went through some time (up to several hours) after my post, and two subsequent withdrawals were processed within a couple of minutes.

That's good, Will you continue to use bter as exchange? *I know, it's like a rhetorical question .

[almightyruler]

Just an update on the waiting for balance thing: that stalled withdrawal went through some time (up to several hours) after my post, and two subsequent withdrawals were processed within a couple of minutes.

That's good, Will you continue to use bter as exchange? *I know, it's like a rhetorical question .

To be honest, I'm just using it for arbitrage to make a bit extra. There's some risk involved because they could die and swallow up all my balances when I'm in the middle of a complicated sequence of 'temporary' trades. I lost funds at Cryptsy because of this.

I have no plans to store funds or use bter as a 'daily' in the near or even middle term. I no longer trust this exchange.

[almightyruler]

Noticed that bter have cleaned up the delisted currencies - there's now only two (MSC and DVC) available for withdrawal.

Silly thing is that many trade markets still show on the website, and via the API, even though they are delisted. It looks like a normal market - there's still orders in the book - but you can't submit a trade.

Some of these currencies were delisted more than a year ago.

I just manually created a blacklist with delisted currencies, so my system wouldn't waste time fetching the order books for their markets, and it ended up excluding a whopping 117 markets... which is about two thirds of all the markets.   There's probably a few more I'm yet to find...

[HI-TEC99]

Bter announced a new BTC-B reimbursement plan on 26 March. They are copying bitfinex by changing BTC-B into BTRX tokens, then starting a market where people can trade them. Bter says it will buy back some tokens each month, but doesn't say how many. The new BTRX token market opens on April 2.

https://bter.com/article/14192

BTC-B’ Reimbursement and Buyback Plan

2017-03-26 14:50:36    Author: BTER    Category:    Tags:BTC,ETH，DASH,ETC,LTC   

7170 BTC was hacked from Bter on Feb 14 2015 (
https://blockchain.info/tx/f5b0363f03e1ed8bb812c135361ea93590c831ce9f13a3750be1b93575baccc6) and we probed and tracked the stolen BTC flowing into a dark network BitcoinFog. A reward of 700 BTC was offered for recovery the stolen BTC and the bounty is still valid today.
In March, 2015, when Bter re-opened, the stolen BTC was recorded as BTC-B in affected users’ accounts; Bter began to reimburse and have repaid 10% of the stolen BTC.
However, as BTC’s price surges, Bter cannot afford to repay the BTC_B.
To continue the reimbursement and allow the affected users to receive their assets sooner, Bter has consulted lawyers and  decided to start a new reimbursement plan referring to that of BitFinex- which was stolen of 120, 000 BTC in 2016 and has solved the problem satisfactorily.
The new reimbursement plan is as follows:
1) BTC-B in the affected users’ accounts  is converted to  BTRX  tokens at the price of BTC in CNY  when it was stolen
2) Open BTRX market so that users can exchange BTRX freely.
3) Bter will buy back BTRX  monthly at the price of 1CNY/BTRX
4) BTRX  holders receive 10% of Bter’s profit every month (Profit is distributed in CNY )

Bter will release the details of buyback every month and complete the buyback as soon as possible

The BTRX trade is going to open a week later, that is April 2, 2017.

Once the stolen BTC is recovered, Bter will repay immediately.
We are appreciated if any analyst or expert in Blockchain technology is going to work with us to recover the stolen asset.

Thank you for your understanding and support
Bter
March 26, 2017

[almightyruler]

I thought BTRX was something to do with BTER points (ie a reward for trading), so I sold off a few at the market rate, then I set a sell order for a higher rate. Thought I might make a few bucks from my recent trading activity.

Then I look more closely at the news and realise what BTRX really is...

At current rates, the value of BTRX is about a tenth that of BTC_B

In other words, if you sell now you're getting back only 10% of your frozen BTC

In the time between setting the sell order, and discovering what BTRX really is, it executed.

So around 0.1 of my pretend BTC (stolen funds) turned into 0.01 "real" BTC *poof*  (except you still can't withdraw BTC. Hah!)

[almightyruler]

When looking at news I also found this, dated 2017-02-10: https://bter.com/article/12620

This says that both BTC and LTC withdrawals suspended.

But then the later news, dated 2017-03-08, only mentions BTC: https://bter.com/article/13524

Even though LTC is not mentioned in the second article, withdrawals of LTC are currently suspended.

[deisik]

I have very good reasons to believe this is a plan by bter. They are giving out tokens that are worth 10% of stolen btc. When enough tokens have been sold (to bter! they are buying silently!) they will then decide to pay 100% or nearly 100% to the token holders.

Don't spread the word too much, but I am buying btrx. I am sure that's what's going to happen, and if I sell my tokens I will only get 10% instead of my full 100%!

I'm curious if anyone is interested in analyzing trades at Bter to find out their true trading volumes

I guess the volumes should be miserable by now, and buying the btrx tokens may not be a good idea in these circumstances. After all, Bter is not Bitfinex, and the hack had happened more than 2 years ago already, by the way. How much did they pay out by now? Apart from that, Bitfinex like Bter is (was) a Hong-Kong based exchange, but now they seem to have moved entirely into cyberspace, and they don't care what PBoC might tell them anymore. Bter should have followed them if they really wanted to keep up their exchange

[almightyruler]

Don't spread the word too much, but I am buying btrx. I am sure that's what's going to happen, and if I sell my tokens I will only get 10% instead of my full 100%!

Yeah, I decided that for a net loss of about 0.002 BTC it was worth buying back the BTRX I had hastily dumped, because there's a (slim) chance that one day it could magically be worth the 0.115 BTC I had frozen at the time of the hack.

Or bter could end up being stuck in regulatory hell, the BTC and LTC withdrawals may never be re-enabled again, and their death spiral would continue at an accelerating rate.

[deisik]

Or bter could end up being stuck in regulatory hell, the BTC and LTC withdrawals may never be re-enabled again, and their death spiral would continue at an accelerating rate.

I don't think that will happen. That is not exclusive to bter, but happens to all chinese exchanges, that includes really large ones. It's a temporary thing.

Nothing is more lasting than temporary

These exchanges (where Bitcoin withdrawals and deposits had been frozen) at first said that they would allow cryptocurrency (Bitcoin and Litecoin mostly) withdrawals in the first decade of March. We are a month overdue already, and this may continue for long if not for good. Apart from that, nothing prevents these exchanges from moving entirely into cyberspace (like what Bitfinex seems to have done), where there are no governments and central banks altogether

[almightyruler]

So right now the game seems to be to use the CNY granted from the buyback to purchase more BTRX.

Could be interesting if BTRX is destroyed as bter buys it back.

There's still the risk that bter will not honour the agreement over time, or will abruptly close. The previous BTC_B scheme started out with big promises to recover from the hack, but in reality, over the next two years my account was credited with only a single, small repayment. I hope BTRX does better.

[wuhanyan21]

BTER IS FOOLING YOU FOR THE THIRD TIME AND I HAVE EVIDENCE THEY HARDLY WILL PAY YOU

BTER has an average 50 btc daily volume. Some trading markets have fee of 0.1%, and some have 0.2% . I'll consider then average 0.15% for both sides, which brings daily revenue to 50*0,003=0.15btc.
0.15*365=54.75 btc yearly.
I will not even add costs such as hosting, IT, employees, Lin's (freeworm) sallary etc, if I do that yearly profit would be close to 0 or even at a loss!

They are offering you 9 500 000 CNY for 10% of their company. That values their company at 95 000 000 CNY. A company with 54.75 btc (380 000CNY) revenue (not profit!).
They are selling you their company at a Price to earning of 250 years (95m/380k).
Even if they really wanted to pay, they aren't able to do so as the company does not profit enough to buy tokens back, not even close as I showed.
Even if they wanted to pay, only your great great great children will see that money.
Considering they will pay in CNY and BTC will keep on valueing, you'd be selling dollars for pennies.

As if that's not enough, there are also other problems:
China cracking down on bitcoin
BTER reputation smashed
There are lawsuits happening against bter. I know of a communist party member sueing them. They will pay first these people, and only then "pay" token holders (you are a fool if you still think they will buy tokens back).

They bought 2.5% of tokens back now just like they first paid in 2015. I'd be surprised if they do another payment, but I am sure they will not do a third one.
I wouldn't buy these tokens even at 0.00001btc or 0.1cny.
I am glad I sold 90% of mine already, and will sell the rest this month. Now that I'm nearly out I feel I should let you guys know about such things to help you make your decision.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Don't let someone fool you thrice. These tokens are a scam and I am glad I managed to sell nearly all mine.

[almightyruler]

Am I the only one being refused login? Goes back to main screen without any error, even though I haven't actually been logged in. I am entering captcha and 2FA correctly.

[bitbollo]

Am I the only one being refused login? Goes back to main screen without any error, even though I haven't actually been logged in. I am entering captcha and 2FA correctly.

Yes I can login without problem.
I have seen for the first time their token, but with btc/ltc withdrawal disabled sounds like a joke!
With this bonus I can recover just 10% of my old balance!!! I try to withdraw dogecoin and they ask for a passport simil-KYC.
Any idea? Just wait or ...  

[Hueristic]

Am I the only one being refused login? Goes back to main screen without any error, even though I haven't actually been logged in. I am entering captcha and 2FA correctly.

Check your JS blocker and/or adblockers. They will cause this most times. Funnily they completely block the images for the google captcha and i just click it without having to pick.

[wuhanyan21]

Am I the only one being refused login? Goes back to main screen without any error, even though I haven't actually been logged in. I am entering captcha and 2FA correctly.

Same thing is happening to me.

[deisik]

Am I the only one being refused login? Goes back to main screen without any error, even though I haven't actually been logged in. I am entering captcha and 2FA correctly.

Same thing is happening to me.

I got interested and decided to check it out myself

I haven't logged in for quite some time now, so I had to look up my password and login (which I have already forgotten), but apart from the usual stuff like "your connection is insecure" (probably due to an expired SSL certificate), I was able to successfully login. I am using Firefox 52.0.2 (64-bit) on Linux. Though there is nothing to do there. I looked at the Dogecoin orderbook (the coin which I used to trade at Bter), and it is a pale shadow of what it used to be in the past. The whole orderbook (bids and asks combined) is like around 3 bitcoins in total. I still remember the days when at just one price entry so much was offered

[almightyruler]

Login problem is still happening for me.

One unusual change here lately has been that I moved to a VPN a week ago, so my IP changed. I was forcefully logged out at the point I switched, which was expected, but I was able to log back in, and use the site for several more days.

I just changed back to my "real" IP and was able to get to the second stage login (the seemingly competely redundant part where you enter another captcha and EXACTLY the same 2FA value - what's that all about?) but once again was thrown back to the main page without a successful login. Subsequent attempts do not get to the second stage.

Tried https://www.bter.com/ but that redirects me to http://bter.com/ (unencrypted  ), needless to say I did not continue the login attempt.