This article is a stark reminder of the dangers of digital exchanges.
Never keep more than you are willing to lose in an online exchange
One might think that hackers are the only ones to own our digital currencies without our consent, but after the hacker gets caught this may happen.
The Alexander Vinnik follow up
After the arrest of the Russian hacker the cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e has said its downtime was due to “FBI agents entering its data center.” but previously they stated that the reason was due to “unscheduled maintenance”. BTC-e has been down for almost a week and the aftermath becomes bigger when their customers start to get worried about their virtual money.BTC-e announced that: ” if we cannot restart our service by the end of August, we’ll begin returning funds from Sep. 1.”“Anybody who thought about this for a second understood that law enforcement was working on a case against BTC-e,” said Jerry Brito, executive director of Coin Center. “The question was just whether the government would catch them.”He also stated that:“BTC-e’s system was designed so that criminals could accomplish financial transactions with anonymity and thereby avoid apprehension by law enforcement or seizure of funds,”Maybe it’s something larger that just Vinnik, but until we get more updates the speculations can go out of hand.
Is our money safe?
Everyone is waiting for future updates as the FBI has gained control where its wallets are located, and this is actually good news, although the same cannot be said about BTC-e. The company was hoping to resume its regular service by August 6 but as the days go by this seems less and less likely to happen.The US Securities and Exchange Commission announced last week it was seeking $110 million from BTC-e for flouting anti-money laundering rules but the news are still fresh and there are more updates to come. In the meantime the funds are in the hands of the FBI and the information about the refunds will be known in the coming weeks.
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