If you’re into crypto then it’s a good bet you’ve heard of Bittrex and likely even use it.
Be warned though, they can take your account hostage anytime, like they’ve done with mine.
I explain what’s going on below.
In early November I got a message from Bittrex that my account info did not match public records.
Mind you, this was not an email. The account just opened up in the Settings page one day with this message.
The problem is that I have a name that can be shortened and did not use my full first name when originally signing up. My public records have my full first name.
Unfortunately, you do not even have an opportunity to correct the small mistake.
Instead, I had to upgrade to an Enhance account which requires you to upload your ID.
No problem, I did that… a month ago.
Bittrex promises to respond in a week. That’s a load of bull.
The only correspondence I receive was an email asking if my problem had been resolved. Are you kidding me?
Apparently, Bittrex can’t even keep track of customer issues.
In the meantime, my account has been frozen! I cannot transfer any funds off the exchange.
To make matters worse, I can’t even access my records.
It’s no surprise to me to see Bittrex now consistently out of the top 5 exchanges in terms of volume.
So what you can do?
Take this as a lesson to not hold any funds on centralized exchanges.
I’m fortunate that 95% of my crypto funds are in cold storage. If they were all on Bittrex I’d be having a heart attack now.
As for Bittrex, once I get my coins off, I’ll never use them again.
Besides, Binance is so much better.
Anyone else out there getting screwed by Bittrex?
boycot bittrex i would never put any coin there...
Would you try Bitconnect? It has been up and running for a while and has seen a huge increase in its coin value, rising with Bitcoin. They make you money and pay you interest on your loan .
If you put as little as $100 dollars into Bitconnect, you can start earning daily. They allow you to compound the interest which increases the amount earned every day. Use this link to sign up
https://bitconnect.co/?ref=Matthew5099
By signing up under this link, this person receives a commission, and he pays back 80% of it. So you invest $100 and get 80% of the commission he makes from that investment.
i dont trust bit connect big scam i am sure
for me Bittrex is still the best option to trade Steem Dollars
I did get back on fwiw... I just try to keep as little coin on there as possible... just in case
Oh wow, so sorry to hear they locked your account. When I first heard of accounts being frozen, I panicked and withdrew all my funds immediately. I had to sell off some altcoins at a loss that I was holding because I didn't have wallets (or didn't want to bother), so now most of it is in cold storage. I only keep my funds on exchanges for short periods of time now.. at least that is the intention. Hm.. good that you mention it, I probably should get my IOTA back off of Binance again just to be sure.
I am still using Bittrex though, because I am occassionally cashing some of my Steemit profits out and it's one of the few places where you can sell STEEM or SBD (SBD is trading at $9.50 each holy cow!). And with the high withdrawal fee, and since my cash outs aren't that significant, I kind of have to wait a while before it's worth withdrawing it to my private wallet.
I wish Binance would support STEEM. Then I would move and never look back...
although Binance annoyed me too, to be honest. It turns out if you have the Discount Trading with BNB turned on, but don't have BNB you actually pay the fees out of the crypto you bought. So if you buy 100, you only get 99.9 or so. HOWEVER.. Binance doesn't support fractional buying or selling in many pairs!! So I end up with 0.9 that I cannot sell... and I cannot buy 0.1 to make it a whole either. And Etherdelta isn't an option either with CryptoKitties clogging the network making transactions super expensive.
It's not like 1 RDN token is that much money, but still I'm kind of bugged out about this.
I'm signed up to about a dozen exchanges now so I have options. Recently bought Steem on HitBTC. I may still end up using Bittrex for STEEM and SBD if I ever can again. You kind of have to go with what works in crypto these days and be flexible.
Agree on Binance they need more info on exactly how those BNB fees work. I have some stranded coins as well. I'm hoping in the future they'll be some sort of feature where you can cash them out all at once.
I've been using EtherDelta more too. I think the whole cryptokitty thing is bullish for ETH overall.
Sorry to hear that. I had been trading on Bittrex for a few months, and then had a gut feeling in Nov. to take off my money off the exchange even though I am fully verified, and I trust my gut without needing confirmation on the outside. I'm not planning on going back there.
Oh yes definitely CryptoKitties is a good development, but I didn't realize the network was clogged up so much... so being used to low gas cost, I deposited some ETH on it with only 0.5 gwei. This did the trick in afew minutes before.. but now I fear I may have to wait a long, long time for those funds to arrive to Etherdelta. Resending it is pointless too because I'll end up sending it twice..
Great read overall! Thanks for sharing! Looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts on the crypto markets!
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@college-is-dumb/bitcoin-crash-sunday-bitcoin-overpriced-investment-banks-manipulating-futures
Ouh, I keep noticing the same, if you do simple mistake in any of the exchanges, because of the huge demand, it's hard for them to reply and fix the issues. That's the growth challenge.
Thankfully yes, there are a lot of exchanges, keeping coins in cold storage or your own wallets always works.
I guess just a reminder to be careful and really great @g-dubs, that you were smart enough to put most in cold storage.
Good reminder for everyone else (including me) to be careful and watch the coins like a hawk :D
I also have 0.9 of a few coins on Binance . Well hopefully in a few years they will be worth thousands and I will happily exchange the 0.9 then .
Binance is better than Bittrex until it's not. As you said,you're safe to keep the funds on cold storage if you're not trading them , otherwise no place is safe at this time.
Having your trading acc frozen during the best alt buying opportunity in the past several months is really messed up. I hope Bittrex settles this horrible situation very soon.
Just gave you a re-steem.
Seriously I got some $$$ tied up there for over a month... all over paperwork they've received 3 times now.
Decentralized exchanges can't come fast enough.
Thanks for the re-steem!
Thanks for the heads up. I just moved all of my crypto off Bittrex. I only keep a little to swing trade, but other people are also complaining about Bittrex as well, so I feel much safer having everything in cold storage. I just recently signed up for Binance and purchased a few BNB. Is Binance considered decentralized?
Binance is centralized but plans to go decentralized. Timeline is like late 2018, early 2019. Check out the CEO, he's legit. They've done a great job since launching in July imo. If you decide to pay fees in BNB for the discount make sure to keep some on the exchange.
Sounds good. Yea I'm keeping my BNB on the exchange. It's chump change right now. I used some ARK delegate payouts to pick up some BNB. Decentralized seems to be the way to go. Do you have any trading experience with AEX or Bitshares?
Not AEX but yes with Bitshares. It's been a pain frankly. Right now I can't seem to send BTS to my account so I need to find some time to figure it out.
I own some ARK, where can I learn more about delegating?
I like delegating on Steem too btw.
I voted for Arkpool. I get 2 payouts daily like clockwork. But, I got into Ark back when it was .20-.25 cents so I have a pretty decent amount. I'm not sure how it works if you have a smaller amount. The nice thing is that you don't even have to keep your wallet open. The payouts come automatically once you open your wallet. It's called DPOS Delegated Proof Of Stake. I believe it costs one Ark to vote for a delegate.
Can you recommend a delegate for Steem?...I haven't looked into that. Is it similar to Ark, where you get small payouts depending on how much you own?
I got early too ;-p I'll be checking out Arkpool this weekend.
For Steem delegation there's usually offers on https://www.minnowbooster.net/market, 19.9% less fees, generally for 4 week periods. Keep in mind though after the delegation period is up it takes another week before you get your SP back. Not exactly sure why... but fyi.
As I said in another comment, I'd recommend never holding coin on an exchange for an extended period. Do your trading, and get it out of there until you need to do more trading. Control your own keys!
Sorry to hear that. That sounds unacceptable to me. Good luck with deblocking your account. Upvoted.
Oh man that really sucks, Its funny we here all these warnings but most ignore everything until it happens to yourself. Its an aweful thing to have to go through ;(
Yea it's a pain... but I'll survive. Keep ur cryptos safe!
Centralized exchanges always get into trouble when bitcoin have a high surge.
Let's hope they figure it out!
I was finally verified using the 2FA trick, but I had to do it twice to get in contact with the right guy. Join the following Telegram group if you have questions regarding the 2FA trick: https://t.co/9XZpuldx4p
Oh cool a hack... I'll be sure to check it out, thanks!
Well, this is highly concerning. Not only have I been solely using Bittrex, but there are rumors afloat that Bittrex may have been compromised and a whole slew of passport data was compromised.
I really might have to start looking into Binance... is it worthwhile using your referral code?
Binance is good. I took out the referral code... I can't tell if referral codes are ok on Steemit.
I don't see why not... it'd be crazy not to include it if you've got one.
I'm having this same issue right now. I've been waiting a couple weeks and have issued a support request and nothing. I started doing research on the issue and their twitter is blowing up with thousands of people in the same boat as you and I. I feel like I've been dooped. I wish they would just let me transfer my coins back to my private wallet. I feel so stupid for just assuming that they are fine since so many people use their exchange. I really hope it's just backlogged and not something worse...
I don't think it's something worse, just a backlog. It's not in their interest to keep people from trading. I guess getting the KYC right is more important for them. Anyways all we can do is be patient, and trade elsewhere for now.
I have also been screwed by Bittrex. I opened one account without issue. I then opened a second account to do some trading with money that has to be kept separate and that account then got locked for using a duplicate ID.
Their 'support' system is a joke - email only and nothing but an initial automated reply. No phone numbers on the site and I found one on the Internet that I tried and I just got someone's voicemail.
Regardless of 'growing pains', not being able to provide basic customer service makes me consider them not a legit business. I'm going to follow up with the Secretary of State's office in Nevada with the hope of at least getting my frozen BTC out of Bittrex.
If you use them for trading I would move all funds off into wallets you control as soon as you complete a trade.
And I have also used Binance a bit as a few others have mentioned. No issues so far.
I had a similar issue. I had some crypto stored there from a while back. Coins that I didnt want to create a new wallet just to hold them. I was going to make some trades the other day and sent a decent sized amount of coin. The problem was that when I tried to move the new crypto out it told me I couldnt. This was weird b/c I had move stuff in and out in the past. It told me that I would just need a simple email verification first. Did that. Still didnt work. Now I needed the full verification, even though that is meant for large sums of money being traded. It finally cleared my info and I believe i can move my coins now. Scared to try though, actually.
Pretty much my situation as well... but mine hasn't been resolved yet... patiently waiting.
Best of luck!
Bitshares DEX. FYI.
I'm on Bitshares but such a pain to use.
Damn, that's bad. I use Bittrex and Binance since they both have different good coins. But yes, keep your cryptos in your local wallets as much as possible!!!
Live and learn! I try to be flexible w the exchanges and yes I'm moving all coins off right away now!
I can finally get my $50.00 in Bitcoin off of BitConnect since Bitcoin value has gone high enough for me not to be locked in to their system anymore.
BitConnect is a ponzi... better off just hodling BTC
I agree and that is why I wanted to get that last little bit of Bitcoin I had sitting there away from that platform................
Nice
I havent used bittrex but i do use binance and they have my ioat on lockdown
Your post was mentioned in the hit parade in the following category:Congratulations @g-dubs!
Thanks!
It keeps asking me to verify to enhanced. I'm guessing I'm next to be frozen out of my account. It say's I can't withdraw until I do
Yep, that's how it started for me. It says it can verify in 10 minutes but thats bullshit.
The amount of negative reports about Crypto exchanges is horrible. Half of these exchanges are a complete scam. I use GDAX and Poloniex but honestly GDAX/Coinbase is the only one I trust.
I like GDAX... no problems. Thinking I might use ShapeShift and Changely more.
Take this as a lesson to read the ToS and facilitate exchanges to comply with KYC by simply entering legit details.
What's unpardonable on the Bittrex's part is that they do not inform users before depositing coins that it requires users to complete verification to withdraw funds. This is outright cheating.
exactly
Bittrex held me up too using their verification process as if I was a criminal.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@darthnava/looking-for-a-bittrex-admin-member-of-steemit-to-address-my-complaint
i feel you
All this Bittrex noise is freaking me out, they have worked perfectly for me however I keep hearing stuff like this. @nanzo-scoop said exactly the same thing about a week ago or so.
I'm pretty sure I didn't do what you did, but not completely, as I, like you use a shortened form of my name for pretty much everything; I'm too scared to check, in case that triggers off some kind of sequence of events that sees me in the same position as you and Nanzo.
Although I have already been through their 2nd tier verification, so I'm hoping everything's OK.
What we need for this next phase of crypto, is a good solid exchange that can handle gazillions of transactions every micro second!
Good luck getting everything back to normal, I'm sure it'll be OK in the end.
Cg
There's nothing wrong w the exchange per se but if I were you i'd keep as little coin on it as possible.
Warning heard. I got my LTC that were in funding all out of Bitfinex, was not problem at all. Seems there are more problems with exchanges on the rise. Same with Bittrex. So don't keep your coins in any exchanges unless you want to trade.
They're definitely having issues handling the surge in users. Great advice!
Your post had been curated by the @buildawhale team and mentioned here:
https://steemit.com/buildawhale/@buildawhale/buildawhale-curation-digest-12-13-17
You have received a Whaleshare Token upvote by the account @officialfuzzy thanks to the whaleshares community and @buildawhale
Keep up the good work and original content, everyone appreciates it!
Big fan of the @buildawhale team. Thank you!
Hello, I lost access to my account due that I updated my Iphone to an iphone X and I didn't know that google does not back up your 2FA information. Anyways, I requested Bittrex to remove the 2FA from my account weeks ago after I provided all the information they requested. I'm planning to take legal action if they don't release my digital assets. Please comment here if you have a similar situation.
I know what you mean , I almost screwed myself from 3 exchanges a couple months ago when I changed phones. I was about to sell previous the same day. I guess I was lucky I didn't because I didn't get the chance to reset it and hand it over. It's pretty BS you can't backup the 2FA info somehow
if we didn't have enough to worry about. I might have to get a backup phone.
I haven't had that happen. They just can't handle the volume now... frustrating.
Bittrex is one of the worst exchanges running.
For anyone needing a Binance referral link to join while public registration is closed: https://www.binance.com/?ref=16937568
Also try KuCoin exchange if Binance is lagging or down: https://www.kucoin.com/#/?r=1yPs5
Sounds like a nightmare! I am very weary of exchange wallets. I always transfer what I want to trade directly to the exchange wallet, do my trade, then get my coins the heck outta there.
A lot of these companies are being run by a very small team of inexperienced, shall I say, children with no real work ethic or understanding of good customer service or business practices. Then the company blows up huge and they are left completely lost as to how to deal with the sheer customer volume. Or they get hacked like the recent Nicehash event. I would not want to be those guys right now!
I am following your advice to a tee now... agree these guys are over their heads. Hopefully with all the money rolling in they can get some professionals in there.
I heard that they are having issues over at poloniex with receiving transfers. Tough time to move crypto around. Thanks for the heads up @g-dubs. I'll be giving you an upvote shortly on Steem Follower.
Thanks!
It's precarious for sure... I know people arbing between exchanges... saying it's risk-free. I disagree.
Thanks for sharing us. I din't use Bittrex. I use Ponoliex and it is great.
I use a few so if I have problems with one I can go to another.
That's ok
So much intresting, thanks, I use bittrex and very good
Had something similar happen with Poliniex. They kept my funds for several months before I was finally able to transfer them to Steem. You can't trust exchanges these days..... They will soon be completely under government control anyway.
Months !?!?
I may be having an expensive lesson here.
Fortunately I store most offline.
My policy now is to move out as soon as possible.
thanks for the info ..ill check my account as well
Thanks!
ill give that a try
Kinda same here. Though I guess I'm lucky I'm a poor shmuck, and there's not much in there, I guess :))
I guess that's centralisation, eh?
Yep, that's exactly the risk w centralization. Never a problem until it is.
Thanks for your good info my friend @g-dubs
Cheers!
Stay clear of "Cryptopia"!
Would like to know why?
Really, why? I've used it recently and found it to be good. Moved my funds off no problem.
Nice post
Good luck on getting your money back. I have saw a few other posters with your exact same issues. I dont think the ride is over just yet.
Yea I'm not expecting a quick resolution
Well, hope you get it back...thanks for sharing
Me too! Cheers!
I got a scare like that about a week ago. A week before everything was fine, but then Bittrex said my withdrawal limit is 0 BTC until I verify my account. Public info verification failed for some reason, so I had to do the extended verification but thankfully in my case that process only took half an hour or so and I could withdraw my money again.
Of course then I figured out Bittrex charges a 0.001 Bitcoin tx fee for withdrawals, which is $18 right now, so I just exchanged everything for Dash, sent it to another exchange and withdrew the Bitcoins there.
But yeah, be careful with exchanges in general, never store money on there, just do your transaction and get out. My father bought his first 1.2 Bitcoin on Bitcoin24 which was the biggest European exchange at the time I believe. That's worth $23k right now. 2 weeks later, they stopped withdrawals and the exchange shut down. I've had to call their lawyer again and again and he always promised me they'd send the money soon but they never did and then they apparently fired the lawyer so I couldn't even contact them anymore. My father has hated crypto currencies ever since and gets mad if anyone as much as mentions Bitcoin, especially seeing how much it is worth right now and since he could really use the money.
My situation similar to yours, but w/o the half hour verification. If I could just get a human my problem could be fixed in 5 minutes.
You're father's story is a good lesson on the risks, thanks for sharing.
OMG .... This is very important information. Crazy, it could happen something like that. System blank and what else ...?
Thanks bro for your great info.
When it's a centralized exchange they have possession of your coins. It's yours unless something happens and in crypto shit happens.
Sorry about your bad experience with Bittrex. Luckily I signed up with Bittrex long before the mad rush of new signups and before the BTC boom. Maybe I should have a back-up plan and have other exchanges accounts ready...
I use Polo, Binance, HitBTC, Cryptopia, Liqui, Kraken, Coss, EtherDelta. Binance my favorite right now.
I've signed up Bittrex, Cryptopia, EtherDelta, and Binanace to test their platform and functionality. So far my hats goes to Bittrex because of ease-of-use; everything I need is on one screen (if my monitor is flipped vertically)
Overall I liked Bittrex too... but freezing my funds for a month, i have to look elsewhere.
I got all my coins off exchanges after my sbd disappeared on polo, it took months to get my sbd back! I did the same with bittrex. I’m soooo sorry. I read don’t keep your coins on exchanges and I have diligently followed that advice.
I had problems w Polo and Steem/SBD as well. Actually part of the reason I gravitated more to Bittrex. Oh the irony. Anyways, most coins I do have stored securely. But I could have moved more off Bittrex if I was more diligent. Lesson learned!
great topic thank you
have a nice day
Thanks!
Thanks so much for sharing this info. I tried to open an account with them, but started encountering similar hurdles upfront. Basically I can log in and look at the exchange but I can't transact because like you say they keep rejecting the ID
Last night I spent close to 45 minutes getting all the scans they wanted (and a photo of myself holding a signed piece of paper next to my drivers).. after I pressed submit their website went into the please wait screen then eventually gave up on itself and closed.
If anyone wants a tip for taking those photos, I sticky taped my drivers to a mirror then took a photo with my reflection in the background. Much easier than trying to hold the paper in one hand and take a selfie with the other. Or try and get in position for a timer photo. Then again I guess most people would just ask someone else to take the photo of them :)
Anyway I don't get why they bother making us do that nonsense. I've seen some sites that use live video technology so you first show your ID, then you look into the laptop camera and it verifies you.
I know that the photo upload is supposed to do the same thing, but let's face it, anyone who's played around with Gimp or Photoshop could probably create acceptable fake IDs in png format.
I'm not trying to give anyone ideas of how to open accounts in false names. I just know that this type of stuff goes on a lot more than we'd like to think. I used to approve home loans for a major Australian bank, and part of my job was examining all the documents and even though most applications were legit, I got at least one or two a day where people were clearly trying to fake their way through it.
Well I relate to that experience. The time I've spent taking selfies and driver's license pics... all you can do is laugh about it.
You think they'd be incentivized to fix the problem... they're leaving $$$ on the table.
I too am a hostage
I feel you
I'm sure there's many of us
Keep fighting
Bittrex also declined my upgrade due to missing middle name. I prefer Binance also, will take another week to move everything off their exchange at this rate. Alts capital getting sucked into BTC so they are at least more portable now(smaller in BTC terms) lol..
Lol the silver lining.
I think the solution is to just keep as much off the exchanges as possible.