BTC-E

BTC-E logo

BTC-E was a currency exchange with market for trading between bitcoins and other currencies, including the U.S. dollar, Russian ruble and other cryptocurrencies Litecoin and Namecoin. The site has Russian, Chinese and English user interface translations.

BTC-e provides an online tool that allows users to freely trade Bitcoins for a number of different currencies worldwide. The Terms of Use described here apply to all transactions and activities engaged by the users of this website, data gathered, private messeges, online chat between the users and support BTC-e.[1]

In 2017, the exchange was shut down and revealed to have been the destination of stolen funds from Mt. Gox, Bitcoinica, and Bitfloor.[2]

Contents

History

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The site was first announced on July 17, 2011[3] with test mode trading. Live trading began on August 7, 2011.[4] By October 2011, they supported many different currency pairs, including Litecoin to dollars, Bitcoin to rubles and RuCoin to rubles.

On July 31, 2012, the service reported a security incident in which halted trading and caused financial loss to the exchange. The exchange says it covered losses from reserves and trading resumed in a matter of hours.

On August 2, 2012, the service added an API for trading, but still lacked an API for bitcoin withdrawals (something offered by every other major exchange). On August 20, 2012 the service added the BTC/RUR and USD/RUR trading pairs. On September 3 the service added numerous RUR deposit and withdawal methods as well as more USD deposit and withdrawal methods.[5]

During 2013 and 2014, BTC-e had many outages related to DDoS attacks. They later began using the reverse proxy service CloudFlare to help mitigate these attacks, reducing downtime for the exchange.

Until the 25th of July 2017, it allowed trading between the USD, RUR and EUR currencies, and the bitcoin, litecoin, namecoin, novacoin, peercoin, dash and ethereum cryptocurrencies. It has been a component of the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index since the index started in September 2013.[6]

BTC-e was operated by ALWAYS EFFICIENT LLP, which is registered in London and is listed as having 2 officers: Sandra Gina Esparon and Evaline Sophie Joubert and two people with significant control: Alexander Buyanov and Andrii Shvets.

The US Justice Dept attempted to close down BTC-e on the 26th of July 2017 when they charged Alexander Vinnik and BTC-e in a 21-count indictment for operating an alleged international money laundering scheme and allegedly laundering funds from the hack of Mt. Gox[7][8].

Features

  • A trading API is available, which allows using third-party programs, including automated trading systems.
  • Available two-step authentication using Google Authenticator (used on a separate device with no need to connect it to the Internet, but with the right time; you can use the application is not from Google, but using the same cryptographic standard).
  • In addition to Russian and English, there is a Chinese chat, which appeared after a surge of registrations from Chinese IP addresses. Initially, technical support was also provided via chats, but after increasing the number of users, all technical support was carried out only through the ticket system. When the message flow became too fast due to an even larger number of users, chat restrictions were imposed:
  • The time interval between messages of one user.
  • The chat can not write users with a total balance of less than $ 1000.

Shutting down

FBI Seizes BTC-E Wallets

25 July 2017, 13:49 in Moscow time, the sites btc-e.nz and btc-e.com ceased to function after 7 minutes on the official twitter channel was published the message on carrying out unplanned work. At 18: 41 it was published a message that the work will soon be completed, as of 10:43 on July 26, 2017, the sites did not work.

Subsequently, the Greek media and Reuters announced the arrest on July 25, 2017 of Alexander Vinnik on charges of money laundering. In the documents of the US Department of justice, sent to the Greek authorities, Alexander Vinnik named one of the leaders of a criminal organization that laundered money with bitcoin and BTC-e. Offered on BTC-E to impose a fine in the amount of 110 million U.S. dollars, winnik fined US $12 million. On the BTC – E channel on twitter reported work on the restoration of the service, the approximate terms of 5 to 10 days, as of 11:42 26 July 2017.

July 31 at the bitcointalk forum from the user “btc-e.com” it was reported that on July 25, FBI officers seized all BTC-e equipment in the data center.on July 28, the domain was blocked. Some of the funds of the service were arrested by the FBI (the amount of the arrested funds is unknown). It is assumed that if the service is not resumed until the end of August, then September 1 will begin a refund. In the same message it is claimed that Alexander Vinnik never was the head or the employee of BTC-e service. [9]

August 3 at the bitcointalk forum from the user “btc-e.com” there was a message that employees of the service have access to databases and wallets, promise to clarify the situation until August 13. Also, according to the user, the main flows of fiduciary money passed through the company Mayzus Financial services Ltd, whose accounts were arrested. The owner of the company Mayzus Financial Services Ltd. confirmed that all accounts which in his opinion had relation to BTC-e are blocked. This was notified to the financial regulator and information about account holders was transmitted to law enforcement agencies in the UK.

30 August on forum bitcointalk the user “btc-e.com” announced plans to launch the service in three stages: 1) the old company will transfer personal data of users to the new company by September 15, 2017 in accordance with European legislation in this area; 2) the licensed financial investment company will undertake the restructuring of the digital assets of the new company and register user data with itself; 3) the same financial company will audit and register personal data in accordance with anti-money laundering laws and Know your customer procedures. Further transactions will be conducted by this company under its financial license. To check the balances and update the data temporarily (until September 2, 2017), the service is resumed on the old btc-e domain.nz.[10]

On September 15, 2017, the wex website started to work.nz. It is reported that the new site has not received funds from BTC-E, nowhere to say about succession. At the same time, WEX received from BTC-E registration information about customers and the state of their balances, which are planned to be credited in the form of real assets (61.79% of the previous balance in monetary and cryptocurrency forms) and in the form of bonus tokens (38.21% of the previous balance). Tokens can be used for transactions as a separate payment instrument. It is planned that in the future tokens will be redeemed for money and cryptocurrencies.

Criticism

Bitcoin community member Luke-Jr claims that BTC-E has frozen his account and funds on their own accord.

See Also on BitcoinWiki

External Links

References

  1. https://btc-e.com/page/1
  2. Breaking open the MtGox case
  3. Btc-e.com exchange for the exchange of BTC <-> USD
  4. Btc-e.com
  5. News / Update commissions deposit & withdrawal + add new methods withdrawal
  6. What’s a Bitcoin Really Worth? CoinDesk Thinks It Has the Answer.
  7. Russian National And Bitcoin Exchange Charged In 21-Count Indictment For Operating Alleged International Money Laundering Scheme And Allegedly Laundering Funds From Hack Of Mt. Gox
  8. Vinnik Superseding Indictment Redacted for U.S. District Court Northern District of California San Francisco Division Case No CR 16-00227 S
  9. News / Trade is stopped
  10. Start trading on a pairs of BTC/RUB, LTC/USD, RUC/RUB, USD/RUB!