"This shit is convoluted as fuck"

Introduction

This is part of hopefully of a 12 part series I've decided to do on the issues of centralized exchanges in the crypto space. Primarily focused on the issues of liquidity, transparency and of course a large amount of dubious speculation around conspiracies.

The title " The Ghost of Mt. Gox" comes from a comment from a person who unfortunately deleted their account. For those that don't know Mt. Gox (Magic The Gathering Online Exchange) was at one point the biggest BTC exchange in the world. Handling nearly 70%+ of all BTC trades. It was founded in Jed McCaleb who was one of the first ~2000 people in the world to start actively start talking and using BTC. Legend has it that McCaleb didn't know how to purchase BTC so he repurposed a Magic The Gathering card trading site he had built to facilitate the purchase. The truth is probably less entertaining but I like the idea that a multi trillion dollar asset started its first exchange because a bunch of nerds wanted to change their Magic Cards for Magic internet money

However McCaleb didn't stay at Mt. Gox for Long. He eventually sold the exchange to a man who would go on to lose 850,000 BTC ( $42,5 Billion currently); Mark Karpeles! McCaleb leaving to eventually create XRP and XLM.

Mark is a special man. From the time he attempted to make a bot to trade against his customers but ended up losing money. To renting the most expensive offices he could find in Japan while a hacker siphoned thousands of BTC from the Mt. Gox account. A running joke in some crypto circles is that Mt. Gox was run on cracked screen laptop with a faulty power supply. I'm in the belief that even if Mt. Gox was run on quantum computer, Mark would have found some way to fuck it up. Actually I'm in the belief that Mark's actions or lack of action in handling the Mt. Gox crisis lead to the myth of the 4 year cycle

For you see it was the hack and the subsequent collapse of Mt. Gox that assured in the end of the first BTC bull run. If the farce of Mt. Gox hadn't occurred BTC may have continued its run with out pause. However we entered a bear market and the 2017/18 run while different ended in the same tragedy of greed and hubris. A -85% crash that nearly 90% of the crypto industry never recovered from. However BTC and others such as ETH and ADA where rebirthed like phoenixes powered by both the Federal Reserve's and Tether's fiery p

Note

This is the seventh part of a twelve part series I'm doing on centralized exchanges. This part focuses on how CEXs work

Part 7: The CEX system

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"- Denis Diderot 1713 - 1784

"A purely peer to peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution" - Satoshi Nakamoto ???? - ????

The general belief among investors and traders is that CEXs act a Middle man to facilitate faster and reliable trades, purchases and sales than utilizing a DEX or peer to peer services. The CEX charges a fee for this service and all three parties involved are satisfied. The buyer gets to convert his crypto/fiat to his/her desired asset. The seller gets to exit the market and the CEX receives his/her fee. However as shown in part 2, it is the CEXs and their founders that have benefited the most. Becoming some of the wealthiest individuals on earth. While on average 50,000 Traders accounts worth $200,000,000.00 are liquidated a day. With nearly ~1 162 629 BTC (5.53% of total BTC) being lost by CEXs

Yes, since 2011 CEXs have lost at current value (~$50,000 per BTC) $58, 131, 450,000 worth of their customers property just in BTC

Furthermore they have a bad habit going down during peak periods of volatility completely negating their main purpose

But how?

How did an asset class who's main purpose was to remove middlemen become beholden to them?

We answered part of this in Part 1: centralizing the decentralized , but it is now time we unravel the madness of the CEX system:

The Business

Most CEX's are split into three distinct product lines:

1. A "regular" service that offers buying and selling of crypto aimed at small investors and those interested in purchasing/ selling smaller amounts of crypto
2. A Trading platform focused on traders usually offering [Leveraged trading](https://support.kraken.com/hc/en-us/ar

Note

This is the tenth part in a twelve part series on centralized exchanges. This part and the last will focus on possible solutions to the issues around CEXs and crypt in general

Previous parts:

Introduction

Part 1: Centralizing the decentralized

Part 2: The Founders

Part 3 : Valuations

Part 4: HODL to Poverty

Part 5: False Cycles

Part 6: The worst case scenario

Part 7: The CEX System

Part 8: CEX tokens and Crypto

Part 9: The Center must HODL

Part 10: Regulation

Bitcoin (BTC) was a direct response to the financial irresponsibility that had become rampant before and after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). In particular the proliferation of Quantitative Easing (QE) which has only become worse in the aftermath of the global pandemic. With The US Federal Reserve (The FED) *p

Note

This is the eleventh part in a twelve part series on centralized exchanges. This part and the last will focus on possible solutions to the issues around CEXs and crypt in general

Previous parts:

Introduction

Part 1: Centralizing the decentralized

Part 2: The Founders

Part 3 : Valuations

Part 4: HODL to Poverty

Part 5: False Cycles

Part 6: The worst case scenario

Part 7: The CEX System

Part 8: CEX tokens and Crypto

Part 9: The Center must HODL

Part 10: Regulation

Part 11: Apotheosis

*"There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who i

Note

This is the ninth n a twelve part series I'm doing on centralized exchanges. This part will focus on Ifinex and its possible role as the center of the CEX system

Disclaimer

This part is going to cover a hypothetical market structure for the purpose of discussion and education. It isn't meant as slander or as an accusation. It is a product of analysis of publicly available information and represents the interpretation of that data and information. If any of the parties involved have new information that will disprove the hypothesis in this section. I will gladly take it down and restructure it to be more inline with the data provided

Part 9: The Center must HODL

"I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people."- Isaac Newton 1643 -1727

In 1720 England suffered the South Sea Bubble. A period of speculation so bad people invested in a company that claimed to manufacture a gun to fire square cannon balls. The cause for this madness was an agreement between the British government and The South Sea Company (SSC). In which the the SSC would take on all the British national debt for 5% interest payment from the government. The debt converted into SSC stock which was backed by exclusive trading rights in the South Sea ( South America). Speculation over the possible profits from the new world and the constant issuance of discounted stock lead to the price jumping from £100 to £1,000. Making the SSC more valuable than all the land in England. When the bubble finally burst the SSC had barely any ships or even conducted any profitable trade

Tether (USDT) by all metrics now is several times the size of Paypal by customer funds at $76 billon USDT issued and nearly $50 billion daily trading volume. With Binance being the main CEX today with over $10 billion in USDT traded. The company has 26 employees making it the by far the biggest employee to asset company in the world with each employee on average accounting for ~$3 billion worth or assets. While this in itself is mind boggling a more

I haven't seen this brought up anywhere else, so I'll ask it.

When we receive our payout, for the sake of taxes does this count as normal income, or would this be capital gains since it's a partial payout of an investment made eight years ago?

I understand that no one on here can give official tax advice, but I'm just curious if this is something anyone else has looked into.

Note

This is the second post in a series I'm doing on centralized exchanges

Part 1: Centralizing the Decentralized

The crypto currency market is a world of dualities. Or to be more precise it is a world of reality and false narratives. Bitcoin (BTC) is the be all end all while simultaneously old technology that needs to be replaced by newer better tech such as Ethereum (ETH). While ETH it self is considered fundamentally broken not only by the public but the developers themselves. Resulting in the now fabled ETH 2.0; a version that moves away from Proof of Work (POW) consensus to Proof of Stake (POS). Similar to the endless stream of ETH Killers such as ADA, SOL, DOT, EOS, XTZ etx..... Regardless of the fact that most don't address the BTC Trilemma including ETH itself. Which up to this point has no clear monetary policy

Now are you confused?

If no, congratulations you are one of the many people in the world that pretends to understand this nonsense

If yes, then we can continue our journey

If you feel offended by me saying that it is nonsense then let me take some time to break it down. BTC was created by a mysterious individual/ group going by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. As "A peer to peer electronic cash system" utilizing block chain technology. Which in its simplest terms was meant to create a system in which individual market actors world verify not trust transactions. In theory liberating the financial system from the bureaucracy and red tape of modern day payment systems. Most impotently the idea of irreversible final settlement. For the most part this system works. I can send BTC from my wallet to any other wallet in the world without fear of a third party halting the transaction. However there where and are issues around transaction speed and fees. Which to an extent have been addressed by layer 2s such as the lightning Network

So now you should be wondering if BTC works to an extent why do we have ETH and thousands of Alternative

Note

This is the third part in a 12 part series I'm doing on centralized exchanges.

This part is less fact based but more focused on explaining the "value of crypto" and more importantly why after 10years its the exchanges have benefited the most from this

Part 3: Valuation

*"There are three ways to win this game, be first, be smarter or cheat" -*Margin Call 2011

Satoshi's greatest mistake was to underestimate the imagination of the human mind. If he had understood that people will worship a turd if it promises them wealth we may not have SHIBA INU. However I may be being hyperbolic as he did create BTC as a financial Trojan horse. In that the number go up quality as a result of its digital scarcity in combination to resource trapping via POW. Leads to people instinctively wanting to horde it. Similar to precious metals and jewels

A common retort is that BTC "isn't a tangible asset", which I reply yes but so is the money in your bank account. You can print a physical representation in cash but you can, not as common now print a physical representation of BTC. Which still needs to be verified, but so do bank notes. The problem is that Satoshi both did and didn't understand that BTC, or more broadly cryptocurrency democratized the issuance of value. As while there is a system of professionals, regulators, law makers, diplomats, police and international institutions (e.g VISA) that validate the value of my bank account when I make a purchase online. In crypto it can be anyone. While those that are deep into cult of the Blockchain may argue that it is the code that decides. It is not! The value is ultimately decided by the market participants. This is why we have forks, BTC = BCH,BSV, ZEC etc.... ETH = ETC

But this doesn't mean that the forks are in inherently worthless and the original chain itself obsolete. As long as at least one market participant decides that the original or fork has a value then it has value. However the fork will always base its initial value off its association with the original chain and its perceived superiority to the "obsolete" original. Creating the paradoxical nature found in all Altcoin markets. As while ETH may market itself as the successor to BTC, it ultimately is still dependent on the success of BTC's integration into financial markets. BTC will be listed before ETH, BTC will get an ETF before ETH, BTC will become legal tender before ETH etc... If BTC fails a milestone then ETH and any other Alt-coin w

Note:

This is the sixth in a twelve part series I'm doing on centralized exchanges. This part is going to focus on the why the collapse of Mt.Gox was so devastating and also start building the case of the issues with modern day CEXs with a story from my personal life

Introduction

Part 1: Centralizing the decentralized

Part 2: The Founders

Part 3 : Valuations

Part 4: HODL to Poverty

Part 5: False Cycles

Part 6: Worst Case Scenario

It is hard to articulate how bad of a scenario the Mt. Gox hack was. Not just in financial terms but in human suffering. I hope that Parts 3 to 5 have shown you how the crypto-currency space is designed to conduct some kind of Psychological Operation (PSYOP) and this helps you understand the kind of mental stress the victims of Mt.Gox went through and are going through. There is a reason why the suicide prevention hotline was up top on r/cryptocurrency at one point

The customers of Mt.Gox lost millions if not billions of dollars each. More importantly the lives that money could have given them. It was a worst case scenario

The CEX was essentially insolvent and the BTC was just gone

200,000 BTC was eventually recovered and hopefully will be distributed as the creditors agreed. However it is

Note

This is part four in a twelve part series I'm doing on central exchanges. This part explores the proliferation of Alt-coin marketing in particular the spread of the memes HODL, FUD and the corruption of DCA

Part 4: HODL to poverty

" I type d that tyitle twice because I knew it was wrong the first time.  Still wrong.  w/e.  GF's out at a lesbian bar, BTC crashing WHY AM I HOLDING? I'LL TELL YOU WHY.  It's because I'm a bad trader and I KNOW I'M A BAD TRADER " - GameKyuubi Dec 18 2013

​

There is a man, he is most likely the most trusted man on cypto-Youtube. That man is Benjamin Cowen. If you have never heard of him; he is a PHD Nuclear Engineer with zero financial background that runs an entertainment channel focused on crypto-currencies. He has 657,000+ subscribers and has interviewed other major players in the space such as Michael Saylor and Plan B. Now the obvious question would be how can a man with no background in cryptography, economics, finance, trading, business or the stock market be an expert?

The answer is he isn't! He is an entertainer that his viewers think he is an expert. In truth if you read the quote above from the first use of the word HODL. Then you have basically seen and read Cowen's discography. He may change up the presentation and add detail on both the micro and macro scale. But he ultimately just promotes a strategy of HODL combined with a mantra of Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA)

A strategy that brings him an estimated $450,000.00 a month via his Premium package; based on an average price of $90 a month ( including specials) and his subscriber base of 5000+ users. Meaning this year a man who claims that he hasn't bought a desk due to the "opportunity cost " at minimum made $5,400,000.00 just by using basic TA and indicators. There is nothing wrong with this but unless proven otherwise it can be assumed that Cowen is making significantly more off the business of discussing crypto than owing it

This is because as discussed in Part 3 ; the majority of Alt-coins are worthless and the maintenance of a cult of prosperity around them and their paradoxical relationship with BTC is what drives their artificial valuations. In this space an actor such as Cowen can prosper as anyone can be an expert when there is no base subject. I can draw a line on any crypto graph and state to it will go above, below or continue along that line and because the market is based on sentiment not fundamentals. I can shift my position towards

Note

This is the 2nd part in a 12 part series I'm doing on centralized exchanges

Part 2: The Founders

The great game has attracted several players over the years. From the infamous such as the eccentric antivirus mogul John McAfee and debauchery incarnate "Wolf of Wall-street" Jordan Belfort. To the more academic and inquisitive Adam Beck and Nick Szabo. Each playing the game in their own unique way, but that is a subject for tomorrow. Today we are going to focus on the men and women that facilitate the great game; the founders of central exchanges.

Our first being Jeb McCaleb the creator of Mt.Gox. McCaleb was and is a prolific character in the cryptocurrency space. He started his journey in the early 2000s by being part of the team behind EDonkey a popular peer to peer sharing site. That after a $30 million copyright settlement was forced to shut down in 2006. Over the next four years McCaleb tried his hand at several projects including the now infamous Mt.Gox, originally a Magic the Gathering card exchange in 2007. According to him in an interview on What BTC Did he became interested in BTC early on but didn't know how to acquire it. So he repurposed the site to exchange BTC to get some. The site soon became popular in the early crypto community. However McCaleb claims he never made money from operating Mt. Gox. In 2011 he would sell the site to "Magical Tux" better known as Mark Karpeles. Claiming it wasn't intellectually stimulating, it should be noted that a hack had occurred at the time before the transfer to Mark of 25,000 BTC ( $1,250 Billion today). Furthermore McCaleb still held a 12% stake in Mt. Gox till its collapse in 2014

McCaleb would go on to create Ripple the company behind the crypto project XRP in 2011. In 2013 he would leave Ripple to found Steller that similar to Ripple was

I keep seeing fud about MT. Gox repayments and don't understand how it would affect bitcoin. Aren't the "repayments" going to be in dollars anyway?

Yesterday a dormant Bitcoin address transferred funds for the first time after 7 years and it turns out it probably belongs to the Mt. Gox hackers. 2,720 BTC equal to 126,010,161 USD were transferred out of the wallet. The funds have a direct connection to the old cold/hot wallets of the Japan based exchange Mt. Gox that was hacked several years ago.

The Whale Alert detected the wallet.

Here is the TXID: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/d2d5f92d23567292a6ec40a911b2dbe9b326abeb4909a5e351a83c36cd580a65

The hacker wallet movements on the blockchain.

https://preview.redd.it/e4c2o96lton71.jpg?width=1892&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4f4dcb0b9ae6c4567f5fd66ce349669a7614acd4

Most of the funds will probably never be sold since large amounts require KYC nowadays at exchanges and the funds can be tracked/linked directly to the hack, which makes them "dirty coins". The sudden movement after 7 years seems odd, it could be due to prison time, cold storage re-organising or a lost wallet found again. Here you can check the wallet movements from Mt. Gox to the hackers on the blockchain yourself: https://explorer.crystalblockchain.com/visualization/ZtCKHMmpD672LZ73?x=-239.49240112304688&y=-402.4735412597656&k=1.3195078372955322

Mt. Gox was an exchnage, the first big exchnage for cryoto based in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Launched in July 2010, by 2013 and into 2014 it was handling over 70% of all bitcoin transactions worldwide, as the largest bitcoin intermediary and the world's leading bitcoin exchange.

Mt. Gox filed for bankruptcy in 2014 saying hackers had stolen the equivalent of $460 million (740,000 BTC aka 6% of all BTC in existence at that time) from its online coffers. The news rocked the bitcoin world, and news outlets allover the world said it could even bring down the much-hyped digital currency forever...

Mt. Gox was a messy combination of poor management, neglect, and raw inexperience. It was initially created by XRP co founder Jed McCaleb in 2010, sold to Mark Karpeles in March 2011 who was a big reason for the rise and uktimate failure of the exchange.

At the time Bitcoin had reached an ATH of 1200$ After the gigantic crash and fud in the market it reached a low of 170$, the market recovered and it managed to climb back up to new ATH in as little as 3 years reaching 20k$.

Bitcoin is forever folks. Dont lose hope.

I read like a last month that former customers of the Mt.Gox exchange should get back their buttcoins - something like 1500 in total.

Anyone seen any news? I am curious what happens when people start selling

I keep seeing people talking about how Bitcoin is going to crash in a few weeks because of a Mt Gox payout? I'm a little out of the loop here, what does this mean? And is bitcoin going to crash?

Here are 3 reasons why I think the 144000 BTC (8.5 Billions dollar) that will be drop on Exchanges by the liquidator of Mt Gox won't crash the market in 26 days:

1 - Most Mt Gox victims that was a weak hand was offered to sell his position to a third party for 14000$ in 2018. Majority did. So very few of the victims should sell at "any" price.

2 - There are big institutionals that are buying. They can swallow this 144000 BTC.

3 - The liquidator will be sending most of the 144000 BTC to Exchanges wallets of the victims. Previously the liquidator was selling the BTCs and it was suspected of crashing the market.

144000 BTC is a lot. Last week it took only 840 BTC to create the flash crash to 8500$ at Binance.us because their order book on the spot Exchange is 2000 BTCs at the most at anytime. But I think Mt Gox liquidator will spread the 144000 BTC drop over many days to prevent a crash. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2021/10/21/bitcoin-price-flash-crash-on-binanceus-attributed-to-trader-algorithm-bug/

Edit: Conclusion, most of the creditors (victims) were not even asked yet about there wallet address or bank account information. This means the repayment will take months from now. But about 50% of creditors are said to be willing to sell once they will receive their BTCs.

There is a sub for the insolvency Mt Gox: https://www.reddit.com/r/mtgoxinsolvency

Note

This is the fifth part in a twelve part series I'm doing on centralized exchanges. This part will focus on Crypto market cycle theory

Previous Parts:

Introduction

Part 1: Centralizing the decentralized

Part 2: The Founders

Part 3 : Valuations

Part 4: HODL to Poverty

Part 5: False Cycles

Where nature plants chaos, man sees God

There is a misconception that BTC has a fixed supply. That there are only 21 Million BTC and thus the greater the adoption the less there is to go around. This is true to an extent however the fact is BTC is an inflationary asset. There may only ever be 21 million BTC but the journey to that maximum supply is governed by the code of the Halving Cycle. A monetary policy programed by Satoshi to decrease the rewards to miners by -50% every 210,000 blocks:

1. 2009 50 BTC
2. 2012 25 BTC
3. 2016 12.5 BTC
4. 2020 6.35 BTC....

It is this cycle that is used as the bases for a range of other theories around the valuation of BTC. Most notably the 4 year cycle

1. 2009 - December 2013 ( high of ~$1,171)
2. 2014- December 2017 (high of ~$19,624)
3. 2015- (if we follow the cycle) November 2021 (high of $69,066.57)

Due to the nature of Alt-coin valuations discussed in Part 3 : Valuations. The BTC cycle therefore becomes the Alt-coin cycle. As due to them having $0 value they can only gain value based on the valuation of BTC at a par

You know that KYC process you went through when you registered on Coinbase or Binance or Kraken or whatever exchange you use now? A lot bitcoin exchanges didn't have it way back in 2011 (many were shut down in America domestically as a result, and one that didn't fully comply with KYC / AML policies had their CEO (Charlie Shrem) arrested and imprisoned for a few years), and it was only integrated in 2012 on Mt Gox specifically because the FBI got involved with them and started threatening to block all international remittances going to their establishment if they didn't comply and set up some KYC methods.

Oh, and by the way, MT Gox was considered the safest place to buy bitcoin before they got hacked, and in order to get money in to their exchange to buy bitcoin you would have to do an international remittance to MT Gox's bank account in Japan.

With regards to working with middlemen, you would have to send money via paypal or some other medium and hope that the middleman you were working with was not working with another guy to steal your cash and disappear. I can't be too certain, but maybe back in those days paypal would have banned you for buying bitcoin via a P2P money transfer / trade.

Just some food for thought, and I hope you guys learned something new.

EDIT: spelling in paragraph 1 and beefing up some content there.

Most of the coins returned from Gox to creditors will have to be sent to an exchange first. This was decided upon years ago, shortly after the exchange went into receivership. It's likely that the sole exchange partner will be Kraken, as this too was arranged early on, before other exchanges became much bigger than they were back then.

we all know what exchanges do when the market isn't going the way it is 'supposed to, but it can get even worse than that if Tether is still around by then.

Kraken is comparatively small these days, and will certainly not have cash on its books nor the pool of buyers on hand equal to the total of 140,000 BTC it suddenly now has to find a place for. It may be that due to HODLbuggery only 10 or 20% of the coins go up for sale immediately, but that's still around 20,000 BTC suddenly made liquid (setting aside the almost certain total instant selloff of 140,000 BCH as well).

What will Kraken do to compensate for not having the fiat capacity to settle these trades? My hunch is, they will contrive a way to force some or all Gox coins to be sold only for USDT or USDC, as a condition of signing up for a Gox-credit funded account. Voila, Liquidity crisis solved.

Note

This is the eighth part in a twelve part series on centralized exchanges. This part focuses on the tokens and crypto eco-systems built by CEX

Part 8: CEX Tokens and Crypto

"He's got the Midas touch but he touched it too much" - Harry Wayne Casey / Richard Raymond Finch Goldmember

In the previous part we talked about the business of CEX, however I omitted a fourth product line. Primarily because we do not know how much each exchange makes from it. I can make generalizations but this series is focused on facts and building a clear picture of the current crypto market. However that business brings some revenue. That businesses being listing tokens and crypto projects to the CEX. Estimates range from $1 Million to $3 Million for an ICO, at least ~$100,000 on Binance Smart Chain (BSC) and from several sources the price for major exchanges is between $500,000 to several $X,000,000 depending on the coin. There are also Initial Exchange Offerings (IEO) which are done via CEX's launchpads

How much an individual project paid to be listed on Binance, FTX, Coinbase or Kraken I can't tell you and if anyone has information ( that won't get us in trouble) you can DM me. However I assume such agreements are kept under lock and key. To maintain the narrative that a CEX listing is based on merit rather than a financial transaction

But there are two types of coins it can be assumed that do not need to be kept secret:

1. The CEX's official crypto
2. CEX backed tokens and crypto

1) CEX tokens and crypto

These are projects such as Binance Coin (BNB) which initially offered -50% discounts for use during trades and eventually will be -6.25%. It is part of the BSC which has become infamous as Shit-coin factory with the high number of low quality tokens, scams and questionable development happening on the network. On websites such as /biz/4chan it is commonly referred to as the BSC Shit-coin casino as traders often engage in pump and dumps of low liquidity tokens in the hopes of tricking other traders out off their BNB

The BNB funding rounds resulted in [

Binance suppressing Monero Prices - Stop It!

Monero is a private blockchain, tracking volumetric activities on its blockchain is rather very hard if not completely impossible. Exchanges are carrying on some shady and dangerous activities such as offering more Moneros (XMRs) than they actually own in their reserves. This was seen at times, when exchanges such as Binance stopped XMR withdrawal for weeks (because they didn't have it). The reason they provided was "Network congestion" (May 2021). The real reason may be far from that. They lacked Monero liquidity.

Kevin Wad in his interview provides "factual reasoning" on how exchanges (esp. Binance) are playing a dangerous game of continuously suppressing Monero pricing. Monero is one of the most mature blockchains out there, with worldwide use, widely adopted in darknet marketplaces - and growing by the day at rapidest pace, most private cryptocurrency, lowest fees, and offers the best private digital currency as we know - it is still where it was back in 2017 ito. its price - something is not right if you think - and you're absolutely right.

Some bad actors - are taking advantage of Monero's design - its private blockchain.

Binance forms close to 20% of daily trading volumes for Monero off all exchanges, and that is already quite a lot. Followed by HitBTC, Bitcoin.com exchange, and OkEx.

Battle for Monero

Battle of the price may not be the first battle but is to become the more important battle for Monero. Monero community with all resources and all its intelligence must do something about it - IT IS HIGH TIME.

Q. What is Monero community doing about this, inspite of facts staring at our face?

[Very Interesting Interview Link]

https://preview.redd.it/wyv026xrj0p71.png?width=1024&format=png&auto=webp&s=b3e2d0f85d3e332801124a5bb1f77bcb94006f00

The exchange Mt. Gox was hacked multiple times with over 850,000 Bitcoin stolen.

Mt. Gox was the largest Bitcoin exchange, being responsible for over 80% of all trades at its time.

I have found these private chat logs, which were linked to in an ancient Reddit thread, the link was no longer working but I have found an archieved version of it.

All this chat has gone over Skype, which itself had some weaknesses and that time and was apparently used by them to share confidential information (never seen any media outlet reporting on that)

usual talk for Mt. Gox

https://preview.redd.it/r6atx8xg4zm71.png?width=359&format=png&auto=webp&s=3c31fe108f9e409b017f599a9dca102eff9e8aa5

https://preview.redd.it/ixxt3clu4zm71.png?width=778&format=png&auto=webp&s=7dcf6b0091869cb3de0beb0f469e45e12a6d9abd

very secure 5 letter password being shared via Skype

Actually \"unsalted md5\" should never be used and is extremely insecure

sharing passwords on Skype again

even more professionality

This look into Mt. Gox at one of its first hacks perfectly shows that they were doomed from the very beginning

In 2014 the Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox handled 70% of all Bitcoin transactions, and was hacked:

It could not stop Crypto

China outlawed all Crypto mining as of September 2021, making Bitcoins hashrate drop more than 60%:

Bitcoins hashrate recovered in less than 60 days

Media reports on the next "Crypto/Bitcoin killer law" every few months since at least 2017, as recent the Infrastructure bill:

Still could not stop Crypto, Bitcoins price is up following the approval of the bill which media and some people here say would be the end

"This shit is convoluted as fuck"

Introduction

This is part of hopefully of a 12 part series I've decided to do on the issues of centralized exchanges in the crypto space. Primarily focused on the issues of liquidity, transparency and of course a large amount of dubious speculation around conspiracies.

The title " The Ghost of Mt. Gox" comes from a comment from a person who unfortunately deleted their account. For those that don't know Mt. Gox (Magic The Gathering Online Exchange) was at one point the biggest BTC exchange in the world. Handling nearly 70%+ of all BTC trades. It was founded in Jed McCaleb who was one of the first ~2000 people in the world to start actively start talking and using BTC. Legend has it that McCaleb didn't know how to purchase BTC so he repurposed a Magic The Gathering card trading site he had built to facilitate the purchase. The truth is probably less entertaining but I like the idea that a multi trillion dollar asset started its first exchange because a bunch of nerds wanted to change their Magic Cards for Magic internet money

However McCaleb didn't stay at Mt. Gox for Long. He eventually sold the exchange to a man who would go on to lose 850,000 BTC ( $42,5 Billion currently); Mark Karpeles! McCaleb leaving to eventually create XRP and XLM.

Mark is a special man. From the time he attempted to make a bot to trade against his customers but ended up losing money. To renting the most expensive offices he could find in Japan while a hacker siphoned thousands of BTC from the Mt. Gox account. A running joke in some crypto circles is that Mt. Gox was run on cracked screen laptop with a faulty power supply. I'm in the belief that even if Mt. Gox was run on quantum computer, Mark would have found some way to fuck it up. Actually I'm in the belief that Mark's actions or lack of action in handling the Mt. Gox crisis lead to the myth of the 4 year cycle

For you see it was the hack and the subsequent collapse of Mt. Gox that assured in the end of the first BTC bull run. If the farce of Mt. Gox hadn't occurred BTC may have continued its run with out pause. However we entered a bear market and the 2017/18 run while different ended in the same tragedy of greed and hubris. A -85% crash that nearly 90% of the crypto industry never recovered from. However BTC and others such as ETH and ADA where rebirthed like phoenixes powered by both the Federal Reserve's and Tether's fiery p

Note

This is the tenth part in a twelve part series on centralized exchanges. This part and the last will focus on possible solutions to the issues around CEXs and crypt in general

Part 10: Regulation

Bitcoin (BTC) was a direct response to the financial irresponsibility that had become rampant before and after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). In particular the proliferation of Quantitative Easing (QE) which has only become worse in the aftermath of the global pandemic. With The US Federal Reserve (The FED) purchasing to at least $80 billion a month in Treasuries and $40 billion in residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities . The obvious result being an inflationary environment with nearly 7% inflation. While the FED has outlined an aggressive tapering and rate increase regime going into 2022 the damage may have already been done

Crypto supporters will unsurprisingly use this as both a defense and a reason for their industry. The " A hedge against inflation" chant heard from Miami to San Salvador.

However it is debatable if crypto has actually outpaced inflation or has itself been inflated through the CEXs system detailed in Part 7, Part 8 and more importantly the printing of USDT in Part 9

With the fair price of BTC being ~$25,000 a little over its adjusted for inflation price of ~$22,500

Based on this I can state that BTC is not an inflation hedge, rather it is in an asset class that is in a speculative bubble. Which is the result of unregulated, unaudited external USD valued debt creation through the CEX system and stable-coins. Which has outpaced inflation

However this does not negate that BTC as an asset has value, just that it is in need of defined regulation and classification in global financial markets

Before I continue there is a myth in crypto that regulation is bad. This myth stems from the origins of

Note

This is part four in a twelve part series I'm doing on central exchanges. This part explores the proliferation of Alt-coin marketing in particular the spread of the memes HODL, FUD and the corruption of DCA . I highly suggest you read part 3 before reading this

Previous part:

Introduction

Part 1: Centralizing the decentralized

Part 2: The Founders

Part 3 : Valuations

Part 4: HODL to poverty

" I type d that tyitle twice because I knew it was wrong the first time.  Still wrong.  w/e.  GF's out at a lesbian bar, BTC crashing WHY AM I HOLDING? I'LL TELL YOU WHY.  It's because I'm a bad trader and I KNOW I'M A BAD TRADER " - GameKyuubi Dec 18 2013

There is a man, he is most likely the most trusted man on cypto-Youtube. That man is Benjamin Cowen. If you have never heard of him; he is a PHD Nuclear Engineer with zero financial background that runs an entertainment channel focused on crypto-currencies. He has 657,000+ subscribers and has interviewed other major players in the space such as Michael Saylor and Plan B. Now the obvious question would be how can a man with no background in cryptography, economics, finance, trading, business or the stock market be an expert?

The answer is he isn't! He is an entertainer that his viewers think he is an expert. In truth if you read the quote above from the first use of the word HODL. Then you have basically seen and read Cowen's discography. He may change up the presentation

Note

This is the ninth n a twelve part series I'm doing on centralized exchanges. This part will focus on Ifinex and its possible role as the center of the CEX system

Disclaimer

This part is going to cover a hypothetical market structure for the purpose of discussion and education. It isn't meant as slander or as an accusation. It is a product of analysis of publicly available information and represents the interpretation of that data and information. If any of the parties involved have new information that will disprove the hypothesis in this section. I will gladly take it down and restructure it to be more inline with the data provided

Pervious Parts:

Introduction

Part 1: Centralizing the decentralized

Part 2: The Founders

Part 3 : Valuations

Part 4: HODL to Poverty

Part 5: False Cycles

Part 6: The worst case scenario

Part 7: The CEX System

Part 8: CEX tokens and Crypto

Part 9: The Center must HODL

"I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people."- Isaac Newton 1643 -1727

In 1720 England suffered the [South Sea Bubble](https://www.historic

Note

This is the eleventh part in a twelve part series on centralized exchanges. This part and the last will focus on possible solutions to the issues around CEXs and crypt in general

Part 11: Apotheosis

"There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever"- George Orwell 1984

I have come close to death only twice; to my knowledge. Once when I was in high school and caught pneumonia and the second a few years ago in a car accident. The first was unremarkable and would only have been a tragedy of youth. The latter however would have been a farce of middle age. The man or women who nearly killed me fled the scene and has yet to be identified. As for the car it was repaired and I have driven it several times after that. My body has healed, but my mind not so much. Not in a tangible way but in an ethereal sword of Damocles. I sometimes feel this dull dread at traffic lights and stop signs. Like something is about to hit me. Just like that day, out of sight out of mind then boom! You are gone

I sometimes get that feeling when I look at the crypto markets

There is a belief that what happened with Mt. Gox was a once in a lifetime occurrence. Or should I more precisely say there is a willful ignorance that it was a black swan event. I say willful ignorance because most market participants do not or will not research this market. Maybe of fear of what they will find or belief in that it will be more profitable to live in bliss. I've found its easier to YOLO into a 100x leverage position when you really don't know what you are doing. Rather than explore the systemic risks to BTC caused by stable-coin international shadow banking. However to be honest it is deeper than that. There is, for lack of a better term almost a religious belief in Meme-magic. That is if the crypto body ( cumulation of market participants) truly believe that Mt.Gox can not and will not happen again then it will become reality

Which sounds absurd but if you have been paying atte

Note:

This is the sixth in a twelve part series I'm doing on centralized exchanges. This part is going to focus on the why the collapse of Mt.Gox was so devastating and also start building the case of the issues with modern day CEXs with a story from my personal life

Part 6: Worst Case Scenario

It is hard to articulate how bad of a scenario the Mt. Gox hack was. Not just in financial terms but in human suffering. I hope that Parts 3 to 5 have shown you how the crypto-currency space is designed to conduct some kind of Psychological Operation (PSYOP) and this helps you understand the kind of mental stress the victims of Mt.Gox went through and are going through. There is a reason why the suicide prevention hotline was up top on r/cryptocurrency at one point

The customers of Mt.Gox lost millions if not billions of dollars each. More importantly the lives that money could have given them. It was a worst case scenario

The CEX was essentially insolvent and the BTC was just gone

200,000 BTC was eventually recovered and hopefully will be distributed as the creditors agreed. However it is nearly 8 years later and some of them are not with us

It frightens me that nearly all market participants are now in a similar position to those poor souls in 2014. Full of hopes and dreams of a promised crypto bull run that will make them "financially independent". Built on the back of a shady business that can go tits up any second. At the end of the last part I hinted at doing a deep dive into what many consider to be crypto's biggest systemic risk; USDT. But feel a lot of people who cover USDT don't cover the entire system. They are fixated on just one part of a complex web. So to try and show how complex and bad a system can get. I will tell you the tale of:

The Beverage Heist

Background:

A couple of years ago I worked as an administrator for a large resort during one of the most complex and baffling case of employee negligence and theft

Anyway this resort was divided in to three sections each wit

Note

This is the third part in a 12 part series I'm doing on centralized exchanges. You can find the previous parts below

This part is less fact based but more focused on explaining the "value of crypto" and more importantly why after 10years its the exchanges have benefited the most from this

Introduction

Part 1: Centralizing the decentralized

Part 2: The Founders

Part 3: Valuation

*"There are three ways to win this game, be first, be smarter or cheat" -*Margin Call 2011

Satoshi's greatest mistake was to underestimate the imagination of the human mind. If he had understood that people will worship a turd if it promises them wealth we may not have SHIBA INU. However I may be being hyperbolic as he did create BTC as a financial Trojan horse. In that the number go up quality as a result of its digital scarcity in combination to resource trapping via POW. Leads to people instinctively wanting to horde it. Similar to precious metals and jewels

A common retort is that BTC "isn't a tangible asset", which I reply yes but so is the money in your bank account. You can print a physical representation in cash but you can, not as common now print a physical representation of BTC. Which still needs to be verified, but so do bank notes. The problem is that Satoshi both did and didn't understand that BTC, or more broadly cryptocurrency democratized the issuance of value. As while there is a system of professionals, regulators, law makers, diplomats, police and international institutions (e.g VISA) that validate the value of my bank account when I make a purchase online. In crypto it can be anyone. While those that are deep into cult of the Blockchain may argue that it is the code that decides. It is not! The value is ultimately decided by the market participants. This is why we have forks, BTC = BCH,BSV, ZEC etc.... ETH = ETC

But this doesn't mean that the forks are in inherently worthless and the original chain itself obsolete. As long as at least one market participant decides that the original or fork has a val

Note

This is the second post in a series I'm doing on centralized exchanges. You can find the introduction and previous parts below

Introduction

Part 1: Centralizing the Decentralized

The crypto currency market is a world of dualities. Or to be more precise it is a world of reality and false narratives. Bitcoin (BTC) is the be all end all while simultaneously old technology that needs to be replaced by newer better tech such as Ethereum (ETH). While ETH it self is considered fundamentally broken not only by the public but the developers themselves. Resulting in the now fabled ETH 2.0; a version that moves away from Proof of Work (POW) consensus to Proof of Stake (POS). Similar to the endless stream of ETH Killers such as ADA, SOL, DOT, EOS, XTZ etx..... Regardless of the fact that most don't address the BTC Trilemma including ETH itself. Which up to this point has no clear monetary policy

Now are you confused?

If no, congratulations you are one of the many people in the world that pretends to understand this nonsense

If yes, then we can continue our journey

If you feel offended by me saying that it is nonsense then let me take some time to break it down. BTC was created by a mysterious individual/ group going by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009. As "A peer to peer electronic cash system" utilizing block chain technology. Which in its simplest terms was meant to create a system in which individual market actors world verify not trust transactions. In theory liberating the financial system from the bureaucracy and red tape of modern day payment systems. Most impotently the idea of irreversible final settlement. For the most part this system works. I can send BTC from my wallet to any other wallet in the world without fear of a third party halting the transaction. However there where and are issues around transaction speed and fees. Which to an extent have been addressed by [layer 2s](

Note

This is the seventh part of a twelve part series I'm doing on centralized exchanges. This part focuses on how CEXs work, I suggest you read part 6 before this one

Previous parts:

Introduction

Part 1: Centralizing the decentralized

Part 2: The Founders

Part 3 : Valuations

Part 4: HODL to Poverty

Part 5: False Cycles

Part 6: The worst case scenario

Part 7: The CEX system

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"- Denis Diderot 1713 - 1784

"A purely peer to peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution" - Satoshi Nakamoto ???? - ????

The general belief among investors and traders is that CEXs act a Middle man to facilitate faster and reliable trades, purchases and sales than utilizing a DEX or peer to peer services. The CEX charges a fee for this service and all three parties involved are satisfied. The buyer gets to convert his crypto/fiat to his/her desired asset. The seller gets to exit the market and the CEX receives his/her fee. However as shown in part 2, it is the CEXs and their founders that have benefited the most. Becoming some of the wealthiest individuals on earth. While