😬 Update on BTC-e - Is There Still Hope We'll Get Our Funds Back?

_{^{image sources: btc-e logo; handcuffs}}

What happened so far?

A few days back, btc-e had suddenly stopped working.

Police in Greece had arrested Alexander Vinnik, who is being accused of laundering money through BTC-e, including funds connected to MtGox.

U.S. law enforcement later released a list of charges against BTC-e and Alexander Vinnik. A $110 million fine was issued to btc-e by FinCEN.

The domain btc-e.com has been seized by the FBI.

This looked like the end. BTC-e themselves have remained rather quiet.

Until roughly 12 hours ago,

when btc-e suddenly tweeted:

The post on bitcointalk.org is again all Russian. But Here's what google-translate gives us (after a bit of manual cleanup):

More detailed information about what happened to the BTC-e service.

On July 25, 11:00 the FBI staff came to the data center where our server equipment was located and seized all equipment, the servers contained databases and [wallets] of our service.

For almost 6 days we could not get [any information] from our hosting provider, [about] what happened to our servers. Because of this, we are publish[ing this] only now.

July 28, the domain was confiscated.

To date, [all] of the service was [stopped] by the FBI

The next update will include information on what options are available to restore the service, and also the procedure for obtaining funds, in the event that the service is not [re]started. In the current situation, if the service is not started before the end of August, then from September 1 we will start the process of refund.
In the next 1-2 weeks, we will evaluate and publish information about how much money fell into the hands of the FBI and what amount of funds is available for return.

For all those who (buried)? us, I will remind you that the service has always worked on trust and we are ready to answer for it.
The funds will be returned to everyone!

The arrest of Russian Alexander Vinnik:
[We] Officially declare - Alexander was never the head nor an employee of our service.

Sincerely btc-e

P.S. On the subject write questions as far as possible we will answer them.

So there we have it.

Is there hope?

Well, I wouldn't want to get all excited, but maybeeeee...

At least btc-e claims they are not affiliated with Alexander Vinnik, and from all we know it is entirely possible that he did in fact not run btc-e.

Either way, btc-e really has been through all the tides of the crypto wild-west, and have always been reliable. If they have backups, they might be able to get something running again, or at least should be able to access the cold-wallets.

We'll see what comes from this.

So far BTC-e has not made any more comments.

edit: BTC-e made another hopeful statement on bitcointalk which translates to:

Current information:

1. We were able to access our databases and purses, we currently assess data and balance sheets Coin, this information will be made public before the end of next week.
2. We reaffirm that fundamental fiatnye flow enters the service via Mayzus Financial Services Ltd and at the moment they are arrested.

Yours faithfully support btc-e

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fingers crossed 🤞

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... it's free!

_{steem-on and prosper}

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Did You have money on BTC-e, too?

Does this get your hopes up?