So 2 months ago, the bitcoin exchange BTCe was shut down by the US government, and the alleged founder arrested while holidaying in Greece. It was an anonymous exchange where users were not required to give their IDs to register, and the longest running bitcoin exchange. [Apparently it was run by Russian hackers, and primarily used for people who need anonymity for accessing online black markets].
Why should the US government have jurisdiction to shut down a site presumably in Russia? Good question, but the overreaching US govt is not the topic of this post.
When the site was shut down, the admins apparently released a statement saying they would relaunch and give people back their money. Nice idea, but come on, it's a bitcoin exchange run by anonymous Russian hackers. They will likely take the remaining money and run.
Then a week ago... the site relaunched! Well, it's under a different name (WEX) that issued a statement saying the new site has nothing to do with the original BTCe site. But the exchange is identical to the original, and all accounts were transferred over to the new domain name. Some funds were seized by the Feds when BTCe was shut down, but the 60% the exchange were holding in cold storage were put back onto the exchange and account holders were able to withdraw.
WOW!
That was unexpected. They also issued IOUs for the remaining money, which are now trading at about 50% of the original value!
These people could have just taken the money and ran, but it's a testament to the reputation system that instead they relaunched and continued to service their customers.
I chat with Maxim Lott, Senior Producer of "Stossel on Reason", about all of this in my latest video!
