Is HitBTC a Real Exchange?
HitBTC may be real in the sense that they started out as a real exchange
but what if they weren't trading real currency?
What got me kicking the idea around is the fact that today SBD was trading on HitBTC way over what the currency is valued at. I went to HitBTC and saw that the trading peaked at 0.02 BTC. WOW!
Here is why:
HitBTC has disabled STEEM and SBD transfers in and out of their HitBTC wallet. This happened back at the end of January. This created an island of STEEM and SBD that exist on HitBTC. No STEEM or SBD can go in or out.
Poloniex also has disabled their STEEM/SBD wallet.
Even though the wallets are disabled for transfers, both STEEM and SBD can trade with other currencies. The effect is that there is a very tiny local supply of STEEM and even a smaller supply of SBD on HitBTC.
Think of it like a super Bitcoin where the supply is even smaller than Bitcoin and the currency is stuck on the exchange. Traders apparently have come around to the idea that this small amount of SBD is going to be stuck on HitBTC forever. Inside that local environment, the price of SBD may very well be worth a bunch. It is highly volatile and the traders love it.
So when the price of SBD on HitBTC got so high today, it made me question what are they actually trading?
Exchanges choose to take STEEM and SBD from a single wallet to transfer the STEEM and SBD in and out. Transfers go into this wallet with a memo attached so the exchange keeps track of how much each person has. HitBTC has to create a virtual system of keeping track of the amounts of virtual SBD that is being traded. Since HitBTC has neglected the main wallet for so many months, then that invalidates the SBD that they are trading with. Anyone can go look at the HitBTC STEEM/SBD wallet and see that no currency is moving anywhere.
So the question is what is HitBTC trading? It is definitely not SBD. When HitBTC trades fake currency against BTC, then doesn't that also invalidates BTC? If HitBTC is not trading real currencies, then are they a real Exchange?
What are your thoughts?
Very possible that its not even real sbd. Other exchanges might be doing the same with other coins
Exchanges have to operate this way to make many thousand transactions per second. No coin can do that from wallet to wallet. Within the security of the exchange, the exchange creates a virtual environment to make transactions. The exchange acts like a middle man to handle the transfers and to keep track. Since they are not trading SBD, the question is what they are trading and what are they going to show if they get audited? Poloniex is in the same situation.
https://steemit.com/teamaustralia/@cryptoslicex/steem-monsters-card-game-built-on-steem-review
Thats what i ment. Its questionable if they really old the coins they trade. You can check tho but its hard to tell 100percent if its them or not
There are trading a fake currency and traders should beware
I think so!
I trade there, and I join the party, its about 1400 SBD there and when it hit 0.02 on the exchange, there was 70 BTC fighting for 1400 hence the volatility, it still lots of fun, the BTC volume has died off but there still some insane buy orders in the 0.002 to 0.006 range, so it could dance again providing more BTC joins the party, good luck with your SBD Binance listing campaign.... Let me give you a heads up, the folks here are all bullshitting people with a bunch of initiatives... whenever Steem jumps in BTC they are the first to dump, that same group does not have as much SBD, so its not really in their interest to get it done... Don't get to emotionally involve here lots of bullshitting especially with the witnesses, its sad because Steem actually works its just a big game here, anyway good luck
Thanks @daudimitch. That is a different perspective. Good if you can capitalize on that trading. I hope that HitBTC would fix their wallet. It is negatively affecting STEEM and SBD price. Admittedly not by much, but Poloniex is doing it too. The combined effect is not good. My goal was to point out that they are trading an asset that isn't real. Both HitBTC and Poloniex are looking to get certified in many countries as a legitimate exchange. Many of these countries will require audits. It is going to be a tough explanation during an audit why they were trading a fake currency.
@daudimitch, would you support voting for a witness that can accomplish getting STEEM or SBD listed on a major exchange or getting HitBTC or Poloniex wallet fixed? You have plenty of unused witness votes. Combine your witness votes with ours and we can convince a witness to get the job done.
https://steemit.com/sbd/@daudimitch/this-is-crazy-a-54-5-btc-buyer-on-hitbtc-for-steem-dollars-level-madness-on-a-monday-sbd-above-100-usd-coinmarketcap-takes
Alright I have no problem voting for witnesses if they have some serious business in their pipeline.... Steem has to focus on the circulating supply and get that part right, flooding the market whenever there is a jump in BTC value by a few actors isn't really attractive, not to mention witnesses are bullshitting folks telling them Steem low price is because of SBD high price...It does not really make sense telling them anything, I have tried but futile and circle-jerking is a theme here, so only a handful really makes and the bidbot owners send the payments to select few accounts that then dump it on the exchange so its a rinse and repeat cycle... I probably should have played that game from the beginning but I think this blockchain has potential, so if I see people who want this to grow I would gladly support them but for now I just see it as a BTC farm for a select few, we probably see the full potential of this blockchain when the token are better distributed and accounts stake aren't skewed to few...Feel free to share your witness I have to take a look
Than you so much. The witnesses may not be working with our needs in mind. At least this way, we can have an influence on what we want our witnesses to do. Thank you for participating!
SBD values were showing high on coincheckup and crypocompare as well. Although they are not exchanges, they have some form of legitimacy. So I'm not sure why SBD prices sky rocketed for a few hours yesterday. I don't think it was just HITBTC. Or was it the HITBTC prices influencing the overall pricing?
The issue is HITBTC has some coins like BTCP. U can't buy it anywhere else. I hope they are real.
I think what happened is these coin market reporting tools are taking price data from exchanges and merging the prices to make a consolidated price. Those tools are not smart enough to determine that a wallet is frozen and omit the data.
https://steemit.com/zappl/@sidsun/sidsun-zap-20180602t102935815z
The SBD wallets have been frozen and this has created an artificial scarcity within their internal system. Result is an inflated price, far beyond the coins market value.
I am not really confident with putting my money in HitBTC. A few months ago I send some ripple to my HitBTC account to start trading their but the ripple reached their in 5-6 days later. All the while I tried to contact them for what happened to my money but never even received a reply.
But a lot of folks here suggest that the exchange has a lot of new coins that others exchanges don't. For me Binance and a couple of other exchanges are more than enough.
Surprisingly enough I didn't know about the artificially inflated prices of SBD on HitBTC until a few days ago. I first saw it in a post by @kingscrown first and then looked it up further.
I like Binance, but they need to list SBD. That would help our community greatly by providing a safe and multilingual place to trade SBD earnings from Steemit.
Yes, we have BlockTrades, but it comes with hefty fees. The internal market has such low trading volumes that it makes it completely useless for large trades.
You can use Bittrex, but I they stole $1000 from me. I don't trust them or do trades with them anymore. If you want to use Bittrex, you have to know English which eliminates access to a huge world population.
Getting SBD on Binance will help solve the SBD problem and help our community.
Thanks for the comment @hashcash
https://steemit.com/steemmonsters/@hashcash/steem-monsters-why-am-i-invest-in-them
Your SBD listing campaign posts are a great work man. In fact I tried to initiate contact with a small Polish exchange for SBD listing after reading one of your posts. They didn't reply and it didn't pan out.
Thanks for visiting my post as well!
Bless you for trying!
I personally don't use HitBTC because of it's reputation for unreliability & lack of transparency, but it sounds like they've become closed-market products originally based on STEEM/SBD. I think the result is it becomes illiquid & forces them to be traded similar to derivative products, priced irrespective of the original assets. If the market has a large circulating supply I'd assume there would be a price discrepancy, but should become less volatile..
I think that eventually HitBTC will work out the bugs. Seems like the wallet issue could be fixed very easily. If they don't fix it, it could be a real battle for them to prove to auditors and to the users that they can be trusted.
Amazing @socky,success is always for you
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