"Change" Whales Forget About on Dead CEXes...
Zoltan (@ph1102) mentioned the ranking by liquid HIVE in a conversation we had yesterday, and I had the curiosity to check it out. Obviously, many exchange accounts at the top, as custodians for customer funds. Much better than being at the top for stacked coins, lol... People who have been on this chain for a good while will understand the reference...
But here's what I discovered among them:
Bittrex, an exchange that terminated its trading activity since last year and only allows withdrawals currently for its global business (non-US), still has over 550k liquid HIVE in their main Hive account. That's HIVE on the exchange not withdrawn by anyone... yet.
The news of its closure was pretty well covered from what I remember. For example, at first hand I discovered a short article on CoinDesk about it.
I know I am pretty thorough with my funds, crypto or otherwise, but maybe not all are like me. And maybe I don't have enough to run into such issues. But what I know is if I don't want to track something anymore, I get rid of it and buy something I want to be involved in.
Anyway, it's not once I heard people say: "Hey, look, I discovered some holdings I forgot about! And... " here come the two options: " they went to zero!" or, "I have something there that is mooning, wow!". Well, I guess it's great if it's the latter and the right timing, not so much if it's the former.
So, I wonder why aren't these funds withdrawn from Bittrex... Here are the options I could think of:
- they missed the news about Bittrex closing down
- they forgot they had an account at Bittrex
- they forgot they had anything of value on Bittrex (but wasn't it worthy to check?)
- did Bittrex require KYC recently to move funds away? Most likely. Maybe someone simply wants to remain anonymous and prefers to lose the funds than to give up their privacy.
- I know it's not nice to talk trash about the dead, but are HIVE withdrawals still frozen on Bittrex, lol? And since trading is terminated, if that was the case, that HIVE would be trapped inside this dead CEX.
Whatever the case may be, I hope whoever hasn't withdrawn these HIVE takes action before it's too late. I haven't seen a deadline until which the withdrawals remain open, but I assume there is a time limit. I see they still pay support staff too, and they have no revenues, so, how long could this go on?
One other rather good piece of information I recently saw regarding HIVE and CEXes was in yesterday's stats report for HIVE supply on exchanges by @dalz. It is encouraging to see what could be a reverse in the uptrend of liquid HIVE on the exchange with highly restrictive access, Upbit, and an uptrend on Binance, which is at least a global exchange (well, except the US, because they like to be on the list with all the countries they impose sanctions to... Half joking, although I don't think it's funny for the regular Americans that have to go through the isolationism phase their country is moving through - I know it's not funny for us Europeans either, or at least not for me, in other situations).
What can I say? Adventures in the CEXes world... It seems like DEXes will eventually take over the majority of their operations, once DEXes become more convenient and easy to understand for users who don't adopt new things early on. It will likely be a mixture of rather centralized platforms working over more decentralized protocols, where the former hides some of the complexities of working with the protocol until the users find their interfaces simple and competitive enough to switch.
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G it's surprising to see how many forgotten holdings linger on exchanges like Bittrex. I always make sure to keep track of my funds, crypto or not. It's very very crucial to stay vigilant and take action before it's too late. These are some great insights you had good friend
Yeah, I was surprised to see those liquid HIVE there too... Thanks for the kind words...
You're most welcome dearest friend
I have an opinion, maybe these accounts are previously steem account that are no longer functional. It could be a whale that owns that 500k plus. Better still maybe these people are just unaware of the bittrex news.
In this case, if there was no other reason, they could've withdrawn to another CEX (Binance) and sold HIVE there or traded it.
Well we wouldn't really know. However I have a feeling that it just might not be long before it's taken out.
That is probably good. I don't like "lost" HIVE, regardless who the owner is.
Hopefully, they get recovered
Or maybe those people forgot that they have some Hive tokens there cos 550k Hive is a lot and can’t just be abandoned anymore
Yep, that is an option I took into consideration and mentioned it. But, as someone who is quite careful about my funds/finances, I prefer not to insist on this possibility, although I'm sure to other people this happens... often.
There's definitely a time limit for withdrawing funds. Perhaps Bitrex may decide to sell it if no one shows up after the deadline has passed. I'm guessing it's more of the third option, users simply forget about their funds. Maybe the upcoming bull run will make them remember but I hope it wouldn't be too late by then :)
Yes, I've seen cases where in the hype of the bull market people check all the wallets they have in the hope of some leftover coins to sell at the ATH.
I assume there is a time limit as well.
Thanks for the mention! It's always nice to see posts inspired by discussion from the comment section... 😀
Who knows the real reason why those tokens are still stuck there, but if that happens on Bittrex, it happens on other exchanges too!
Yep, discussions are often a great inspiration source for new posts, and I know you use this source as well.
It's true, we don't know why that HIVE is still there, and your assumption may be right. There may be other important amounts of HIVE and other coins forgotten (or not) on other exchanges as well.
I’m really shocked as a newbie that some people are forgetting a large amount of Hive on an exchange when someone like me wants to stack a lot of it for my future😁😁
Maybe there is something wrong with them and they can’t access their accounts or the forgot their keys
You need a password on CEXes, not keys, and if you forget it, you can restore it. The downside is the famous "not your keys, not your crypto". The CEX holds the keys to all the crypto in their custody, not users.
Ooh wow
Thanks for telling me this
That is an interesting predicament. I wonder what will happen to any tokens left there if not withdrawn. Can the dev access it and keep it, or is it stuck there forever?
You mean our devs or their devs?
With a hard fork anything can happen from our side. But that would be stealing, and I don't think anyone would do anything like that. Their devs? Depends who holds the private keys of the wallet and what kind of security measures they have in place.
It looks like they want to wrap this up cleanly after the bankruptcy of their US operations, so whatever decision will be taken holders will have plenty of time to take action.
For example, BlockFi went through a bankruptcy process, and, although I had less than 1$ in the account when they went under, I received notifications at home about my options via mail, even though I am not a US citizen. I am pretty sure these guys with holdings in Bittrex get informed about their options, if they went through a KYC process. Otherwise, if they valued their privacy (and it's very good if they do), they should make sure they track their funds and take actions at the right times.
Yeah, the devs/owners in Bittrex. Thanks for the explanation.
It sucks to see the tokens stuck there. I wonder if someone will move it eventually. I think it's more likely to be KYC or they didn't realize that they had Hive. Maybe if Hive price pumps, we might see some movement.
They wouldn't have to check specifically for HIVE. I, for example, even though I knew I had nothing that could be transferred out on Bittrex, on the day I saw the announcement I logged in and double checked. Any non-zero balance would have been displayed.
That is a possibility. If that happens, they might check markets for HIVE and see where they have them (although Bittrex may not be listed as a market by that time).