Bitfinex Users Cannot Withdrawal; Management Blames "DDoS Attack," and "Heavy Withdrawal Demand"

I've been trying to warn people about this for days (and others, months.) Over the last few days, dozens of users are complaining in the Bitfinex subreddit about withdrawals not processing successfully (primarily BTC and ETH.)

Side note: A few users on Steemit have accused me of peddling FUD and conspiracy theories regarding the trouble at Bitfinex and Tether. So please allow me to clarify my viewpoint:

Crypto has a very bright future. The recent price increase is likely a result of both positive outlooks for the cryptocurrency ecosystem and Bitcoin (e.g., Bitcoin futures trading will be available within the next week)... but also the possibility of manipulation by Bitfinex and Tether.

What I am very concerned about is a short-term severe price drop and an exchange closure/bankruptcy/"hack" at Bitfinex. Given their recent actions and the mounting complaints, I strongly urge those that are reading this to consider withdrawing their currency before it's too late. From what I have read on threads, withdrawing your LTC is likely to be more successful and faster than other cryptocurrencies.

Here is the statement released by Bitfinex on the subreddit:

Over the last few days, we were hit by a mixture of huge real customer demand for deposits & withdrawals, at the same time as we experienced ddos in the form of malicious microdeposits and withdrawals (a heavily funded attack). On top of this, both the Ethereum and Bitcoin networks were under high congestion (blame the kittens, not us.)
This mix of factors caused a very large number of withdrawals to fail and be missed.
Although new deposits and new withdrawals are now back to working fine, all the withdrawals that failed during that period on the 4th-5th December need to be manually re-verified and added to a list for reprocessing (to make sure they are not processed twice or not processed at all).
This is why, frustratingly, some withdrawals have now been waiting for a very long time.
We dont have a function to just ‘resend all failed withdrawals’ because they failed to get broadcast to the network without us being notified which were successful and which werent. So now if someone says their withdrawal didnt make it, we need to manually check on our side that it definitely didnt go, and then resend it.
We did maintenance to improve our systems meaning everything is now back to normal. Please note that nearly every other exchange faced similar withdrawal issues during the same period, but due to the huge scale of customers, it is taking us longer to manually reprocess the failed withdrawals, and this is what is ruining your experience.
Most ETH and ERC20 withdrawals have now been re-queued. Please understand that we still have a lot to go through, and we beg you to remain patient. Our CTO hasn’t slept in 4 days and will not sleep until this is sorted. Our support staff is working day and night to answer your concerns but we have more users than those who make themselves heard on Reddit, and there are therefore a few who have yet to be answered.
-Bitfinex Team

The "our CTO hasn't slept in days" comment sounds awfully familiar to the comments released prior to the "last" major collapse...at least to me. I genuinely hope I am wrong.

Complaints are mounting fast...

Meanwhile, Bitfinex Raises Minimum Withdrawal Requirements...

Sure! Just "deposit more" to get your coins out. Good Lord.

My recommendation: GET YOUR COINS OFF OF BITFINEX IMMEDIATELY. Again, from what I read, LTC withdrawals are currently the most likely to succeed, but still not guaranteed. If you don't own your private keys, you don't own your coins, plain and simple.

This post is a continuation of my previous posts about the risks presented to the cryptocurrency ecosystem by Tether and Bitfinex. You can read them here:

Widespread Cryptocurrency Price Crash Imminent Due To Bitfinex and Tether

Do you have money on Bitfinex? You might want to read this.

Tether Prints $325,048,400.00 USD in the Month of November

How Tether is Pumping Up and Propping the Bitcoin Market in One Simple Chart

Tether Shareholder Report Leaked: Links Between Bitfinex and Tether Confirmed

Question to Bitfinex CFO Giancarlo Devasini: "Can you create a Willy Bot to take us to $10k?" His Response: "Currently working on it..."

Tether Deposits and Withdrawals are "Blocked"

Bitfinex Hires PR Firm and International Law Firm To Attack Critics ("Bad Actors")

Please feel free to share or re-steem this post to warn others. Your comments and upvotes are always appreciated, of course.