Frozen Cryptos in January 2018
Frozen Bitcoins
Thousands of users of Bittrex logged in to find that the exchange would not return their money. The story is that people must provide id. There are various reasons that people use crypto-currencies. One reason is, they are unbanked. If you cannot get a bank account or credit card because you earn money informally or you are someone who is a foreigner and doesn't want to leave your money in a bank in your own country, then crypto-currency is a way to pay others at a distance when your only other alternative is cash. Another reason is, they are speculators. They are looking for a refuge from inflation. They want to opt out of fiat when Bitcoin often goes up against the US dollar.
No Right to Trade on Bittrex
People who live in Iran and use Bittrex will have to say good-bye to their cryptos. In order for Bittrex to operate within the U.S. law they must descriminate against those who live in "trade embargoed" countries. I am no legal expert in international affairs but this is by definition trade and if the country has a trade embargo then its simply logical that users should not be able to trade on Bittrex. Now what is different though is property has been sent to the U.S. it only makes sense that they repatriate the money sent to those who sent it, regardless of identity. Some lawyer team representing some group of users to try to get a court order on this affect.
These trade embargoed countries are:
- Iran
- North Korea
- Syria
- Sudan
- Cuba
There are certain individuals who are embargoed.
People in these stories
Mobin Motaharifar says:
It's now over 3 months since Bittrex (an American based Cryptocurrency exchange) has disabled Iranian accounts with millions of Dollars being traped there. We hope @NIACouncil could do something for their Iranian compatriots. link
Sam Volkering says:
At this point I'm writing off around US$15K of #crypto on @BittrexExchange due to their lack of response to support tickets or frozen accounts. It leads me to believe they are in the process of failing. AVOID #BITTREX AT ALL COST.
link
Another user says:
It will be more fun if they freeze your Enhanced account with 386K$ inside it, with out any notice/ reason / reply for 86 days !!
Dash XjzjT4mr4f7T3E8G9jQQzozTgA2J1ehMkV
LTC LLXj1ZPQPaBA1LFtoU1Gkvu5ZrxYzeLGKt
BitcoinCash 1KVqnW7wZwn2cWbrXmSxsrzqYVC5Wj836u
Bitcoin 1Q1WX5gVPKxJKoQXF6pNNZmstWLR87ityw (too expensive to use for tips)
See my other recent article:
That's really bad. At the more positive side, solutions for this is getting better and better with decentralised exchanges acctually possible to use to a grater degree of user friendliness, and desentralized internet nodes. Still I think the community should pay attention to this, so that we can see what there is to do get the funds back to their owners.
Agreed. It is scary to have your money on centralized exchanges. We need to get more action on the DEX so we can say goodbye to these sorts of problems and also realize large gains on BTS/Obits!
In the moral sense, Someone should make atomic swaps for the most used and most useful coins.
I don't know what an atomic swap is. Lil' help @leprechaun?
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Atomic_cross-chain_trading
http://aaronjaramillo.org/libbitcoin-working-with-altcoins
Valuable post!