BITCOIN | 66,000BTC Moved Within Hours Of BTC-e Operators Arrest
Shortly after BTC-e admin was arrested and the exchange went down nearly $170 Million in bitcoin was moved to 100s of Bitcoin addresses.
Authorities on Tuesday confirmed the arrest of Alexander Vinnik in Greece following an investigation led by the U.S. Justice Department and several other federal agencies and task forces into one of the longest running Bitcoin exchanges, BTC-e.com.
U.S. indicts suspected Russian 'mastermind' of $4 billion bitcoin laundering scheme | Reuters - 07/26/2017
NEW YORK/ATHENS/MOSCOW (Reuters) - A U.S. jury indicted a Russian man on Wednesday as the operator of a digital currency exchange he allegedly used to launder more than $4 billion for people involved in crimes ranging from computer hacking to drug trafficking.
On the same day as the websites operators arrest BTC-e, via it's official Twitter account, notified it's users that the site would be down for unscheduled maintenance.
A little over 2 hours after BTC-e first tweet 66,163.40004136 BTC worth a total of USD$169,341,914.24 was moved from a cold Bitcoin address and distributed to hundreds, possibly thousands, of other addresses splitting the the total sum into smaller 20BTC amounts.
This could be a coincidence but other Twitter users aren't so sure.
The site is still down at time of posting with very little updates from their Twtter account.
This absolutely feels like "The Gox'enning, 2.0".
Sorry to everyone who had funds there.
So far I'm wondering if the U.S. Justice Department may be behind the closing of the exchange (we shall see).
Remember, crypto threatens the Dollar as the world reserve currency. Further this is the bases of all recent wars basically taking out countries that have their own currency off of the dollar.. Naturally the war on crypto is going to be in the US because these companies are the easy targets. Assuming they are not international and they follow the regulations such as anti-money laundering regulations. These regulations will seek to impose KYC on every crypto transaction. Therefore I'm still wondering if BTC-e even did anything wrong, lets consider that the so called crime of "money laundering" might be an excuse to post pone badly needed change (the collapse of fiat money like the Dollar).
Yes, this is a very real possibility. Reading this post definitely brought to mind the closures of AlphaBay and the Silk Road and how the authorities used the events to demonize crypto in general (and seize millions in BTC).
Another theory: Many people know about the "war on drugs" so it is not enough to charge them with Drugs. They have to piggy back on the Hacking propaganda from the recent hype over the Russians hacking the US election.
We still have no evidence for that Hacking but the populations have been fed this big fat "nothing burger" (a term used privately within CNN to describe the Russian hacking propanganda). Something you can really sink your teeth in while having nothing inside.
back me vote
To the US govt, "money laundering" is any transaction they don't know about.
upvoted your comment.
back me vote
I always use changelly or shapeshift. The rule is for anything centralized: "small amounts only" .. These services automate this, every transaction is a deposit trade and immediate withdraw. It is actually done quite well.
If larger transactions are acceptable changelly is often the better choice.
BTC-e was the only exchange I kept a small amount on to day trade with. Up until now, they were the oldest, most reliable exchange.
The fact that, unlike Coinbase, you could move funds on and off anonymously HAD to piss off US regulators.
I've never used Changelly. I shall give it a go.
Thanks.
@fortified
be aware that changelly always tells you a wrong value for exchanges! shapeshift is in that regard more accurate but i have never had a transaction that "hit" its value on changelly.
Thank you for the advice.
Wow, interesting story, looking forward to the coming articles about this event.
@michiel i do think so
nice post @fortified
so... nice to meet you guys :D
Thanks. I shall try and keep us all updated.
@fortified
NEVER
KEEP
YOUR
CRYPTO
ON
EXCHANGES
I also feel like TPTB are trying to demonize BTC and associate it with purely criminal activity.
I'm getting very tired of reading "criminal activity" and "money laundering" in coverage of this takedown. And about all of the other takedowns. A crime is a crime only if some authority says that it's a crime, right? And why should the entire Internet be subject to US law, and law of subservient US client states?
Fundamentally, there is no law on the Internet. There is only the raw exercise of skill and power. I mean, consider the NSA. They don't even respect US law, let alone the rest of the world. Or Google and Facebook, for that matter. They do whatever they can get away with.
There's a revolution going on. Freedom is coming, perhaps, for everyone. Or if the kleptocrats win, there will be extreme subjugation. Time will tell.
The "criminal activity" is being done by the US Govt. Kidnapping and Grand theft.
Yes, basically. Yet, I gotta say that he took a risk leaving Russia. Better yet, he should have stayed as anonymous as possible.
I agree completely, you raise some very important points here.
We should keep these ideas in mind when we read about 'nefarious' activity online or on the darkweb.
Let me just repeat that for you...
KEEP
ALL YOUR
CRYPTO
ON
EXCHANGES
@jamesc1 rightly pointed out to me that keeping small amounts of crypto on exchanges has its merits, and makes sense for active traders.
So I should make a correction and say -
Never keep ALL your crypto on exchanges
@v4vapid Getting more accurate in each moment ;-)>
A sign of conscious evolution!
Maybe even better would be "never keep any crypto on exchanges unless you are actively trading and hopefully profiting!"
Agreed, this is material to spin BTC as a criminal thing.
Probably different from MtGox because:
If lawyers get involved over money laundering and change fees that come out of the exchanges funds then they will be committing a crime by stealing funds from the exchanges customers. This could very well be a crime compliments of the US Dept of Justice (justice for who?).
MtGox was the first thing that came to mind but i see your logic on this and it makes a whole lot more sense. If this is the case, then we can possibly see that the movement of the 170 million BTC may have been some kind of contingency plan to keep it out of the hands of the DOJ, since the Admin had been arrested.
This was my theory also. BTC-e may of even had inside knowledge of the arrest. But this is just speculation for the time being.
The 66K coins came from a Coinbase cold storage wallet. That's been posted all over reddit already.
Thanks for the info. If you have the time could you link me to a reddit post.
thanks
I'm sure it was a planned situation. Since this is not a logical arrest.
I keep reading not to leave BTC on the exchanges, but it takes so much more work to know how to remove the BTC. Ledgers are out of stock until September, etc. etc.
Once someone loses BTC by leaving it on the exchange then they will definitely learn how to properly do it because they lost money.
They'll go thru the exact same amount of work but they'll be poorer while they're doing it.
True
I like the Trezor.
Greetings @fortified !
Sorry I didn't feature this post sooner. I have hundreds of posts I am going through daily for this curation project!
I found this to be a great and valuable contribution to our Steemit community! So I have featured you AGAIN in this crypto essential episode of ~(~Q2C2~)~
I just posted a new episode of ~(~Q2C2~)~ which is a CRYPTO SPECIAL and featured your post in hopes to advertise it and bring in more support!
Keep up the great work!
SteemON!!!
You can check it out here here if you like.
Hey this is great news. Thank you kindly. Much appreciated. Checking it out now.
Yes keep educating the people on important topics and I will keep sharing your great works!
Hey!
Im just now reading this post and I find it very valuable. I especially like the comments of which are atleast as valuable as this post.
That makes it double awesome and part of what I like about your posts is that you get really high quality input on a regular basis on the post it self.
I will make it a point to check in on your content sooner rather than later!
Cheers~*~
Hey pal. All good. I'll keep posting regular content. I just appreciate the interaction.
Respect.
Awesome!
Me too, I really enjoy exchanging with you because your intelligent and you really engage.
Hope to have it more often!
Respect~*~