It is interesting the amount of disinformation and disaccreditation that is going on in the world at the moment. Be it someone complaining about political figures or the dark web or bitcoin itself. The truth is not always going to jump out at you or be presented at its face value. Often times, truth takes research and dissemination.
Here is an interesting conversation that took place on Russian radio regarding the recent events of BTC-e:
Pyotr Kosenko: Is the situation with Alexander Vinnik talking about crime or something more? Many experts believe that the goal was precisely the closure of the largest Russian online trading platform for crypto currency.
Andrei Nikonorov: To begin with, I know Mr. Vinnik perfectly well and I can say for sure that he is not the owner of the exchange, he was simply an employee who performed a number of technical functions - provided verification of users, AML and KYC procedures, communication with Banks - that is, help in support.
Oleg Bogdanov: And who is the owner then? Who owned and controlled the situation on the exchange?
Andrei Nikonorov: Unfortunately, nobody knows this.
Pyotr Kosenko: From your point of view, is it a coincidence that his detention in Greece and the termination of the site coincided with an accuracy of several hours?
Andrei Nikonorov: I think, no, of course, this is not a coincidence. Most likely, this is the systematic work of special services that conduct people's detention, perhaps there will be some withdrawals of servers or something.
Oleg Bogdanov: Accounts have now been frozen for a large number of Russian citizens -bitcoins, other coins, real money on the stock exchange, and the amount is quite large. What do people do now?
Andrei Nikonorov: Nothing. Wait and hope. I hope that the owners will revive the exchange and allow users to withdraw, at a minimum, their crypto assets. The BTC-e exchange has always been reliable to users, they have been repeatedly hacked, but they compensated for all user losses always. Some complaints against them could not be presented, so it was popular, they always used it.
Pyotr Kosenko: Now there is a message on the Exchange's website about some technical problems.
Andrei Nikonorov: Technical problems are most likely related to server porting - to move to another location on the server, they need to be deployed and recovered, it takes quite a lot of time. Approximately a week is required.
Oleg Bogdanov: How will this affect everything in the industry?
Andrei Nikonorov: As usual, we will survive all, and this, too. It's not the first exchange losing money to users, not the first stock exchange is closing. Probably, this is a good example, that the future is behind decentralized exchanges. Here is the platform Waves has created a decentralized exchange, I think in the near future they will complete it completely, and there will be the main trades made when users can keep their money in their purses.
Oleg Bogdanov: Americans thus blocked the work of one of the largest sites, how far can they go in this matter in principle? They make Mr Vinnik complain about the attack on the Mt.Gox stock exchange.
Andrei Nikonorov: I think that Mt.Gox practically has absolutely nothing to do with BTC-e. Most likely, they stuck to the arbitration, which occurred between the exchanges. Everyone knows perfectly well that there are different prices at the stock exchanges. And when traded on one or another exchange is more expensive, they buy on one exchange, and sell on another. This happens constantly between all exchanges. Thus, it is possible that the bitcoins with Mt.Gox or back chased back and forth for banal arbitration.
Pyotr Kosenko: Can not it be that we are talking about a competitive struggle in which the special services used formal claims?
Andrei Nikonorov: This is not a competitive struggle, it's just that the special services are trying to control all financial flows, and they are closing down what they can not control.
Pyotr Kosenko: And in the United States, such exchanges operate legally?
Andrei Nikonorov: Yes, some states have introduced special licenses for stock exchanges, but on these licensed exchanges, the trading volumes are small enough because there are mainly Americans trading there, people from other countries do not particularly want to trade on US stock exchanges because the AML- And KYC-procedures, which are sometimes difficult to perform - such exchanges sometimes ask where you took bitcoins. And if you are the owner of the bitcoins long enough, it is very difficult for you to prove, to explain where you took them.