BTC-E Offers Users Free Trading for Exchange Issued Debt Tokens
Late last month, BTC-e’s domain was seized, shortly after 38-year-old Russian national Alexander Vinnik was arrested for laundering $4 billion in bitcoin. At the time, it was believed that he was the exchange’s admin but, as updates started rolling in, the exchange revealed that he was never an employee. According to reports, the Russian national allegedly laundered funds through the exchange, including over 300,000 bitcoins stolen from Mt Gox.
BTC-e, later on, revealed through various updates on the Bitcointalk forum and on Twitter that authorities didn’t just seize the domain, but managed to get 45% of the funds tied to the exchange. The admin behind BTC-e’s accounts also added that the exchange had control of over 55% of the funds, and that it would cover the rest and repay users by issuing Bitfnex-like tokens.
At the time the exchange announced the distribution of these tokens to repay users, it revealed one token would be wort 1 USD. BTC-e further added that it would rebrand, given that it wouldn’t be possible to continue using the BTC-e brand, due to “unresolved issues from the Office of Financial Crimes of the US Treasury.”
Recently, through another forum, the exchange has revealed new details about its Bitfinex-like token, the BTCT. BTC-e revealed that it will offer free trading of these tokens, so that users can buy and sell them at the prevailing rate. The tokens can be traded “at any price, but no more than their face value”, and will all be redeemed by the exchange. Moreover, according to the exchange, available balances will be recalculated taking available assets into account.
BTC-e’s post, translated, reads:
“For example, you had 1 BTC. You will receive 0.55 BTC and 0.45 BTCT. 0.55 BTC you can withdraw immediately. The remaining 0.45 BTCT you can either exchange for BTC at the market rate, or wait for their exchange at face value.”
Furthermore, the exchange has previously revealed that it was in the process of negotiating with unnamed investors so it could in the future relaunch the service and pay back its users.
The admin behind the account finished the update with a warning about posts claiming to have a link to their new website. The admin stated that all official information will be posted from official forum accounts and on Twitter, meaning everything else are presumably possible phishing attempts.
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