@Poloniex Now Holding 28 Million in Uncredited Deposits, Does the Steemit Community Provide a Solution? Or Are We Helpless?

in #steemit7 years ago

Two weeks ago, I had a power down payment. My account wasn’t huge, but the count was just over 1040 shares. As I’ve shared already, I didn’t think a lot about it, sent it over to Poloniex, to start the process of converting, with the end in mine, of buying a used car this summer using some of my Steem. No such luck. After many requests for help, it’s apparent that Poloniex either lacks the capacity to respond, or has no intention of giving anything but canned responses, and that’s a problem.

After ups and downs for two weeks, they posted a notice the other day saying they would start crediting accounts with deposits on July first, the first came and went, with no word. The wallet, by my count, has been back up and receiving deposits at least four times in the past two weeks, with the results being, their liquid steem, in their steemit wallet, going from 23 to 28 million.

To all of you who will say, “Just move to Bittrex”, done and done, but that changes nothing regarding the more than $1600 in Steem still in limbo in the Poloniex account, which brings me to my point. This type of thing, right here, is why anarchist’s can’t have nice things. It’s all well and good to talk about people acting in their own best interests, and not needing oversight, but when the shit hit the fans, what are we supposed to do?

It strikes me, that since this one account has collected at least 5 million additional shares of Steem, since I last posted on this topic a week ago, that this is effecting the entire Steem economy. It has to have an effect on the price of steem, which is going down, pretty steadily since this whole thing started. How much, as a percentage, of the overall reward pool is now congregated in that account, and what, if anything, can be done to fix it, and prevent this from happening again?

Yes, I know, many of you will call me a crank, but here’s the thing. If that was your bank, would you just walk away from it? With no actual response, no knowledge of if your funds will be restored, and no recourse? While I’m not inclined to assume they are somehow working an angle here, the idea has crossed my mind.

So, as a Steemit community, is this something you are all okay with? An exchange that is one of a few working with our currency, being able to just horde the steem in their account, not credit your deposits and not respond? I get it, it’s a new technology, if things got screwed up, fine, that’s great, fix it, but why at my expense?

I think Poloniex needs to take a look at a mechanism for restoring that steem, without taking their usual cut, to the Steemit accounts from whence it came, immediately.
So, I’m here asking @Dan, @Ned, @Poloniex, anybody?

Is there any mechanism in the Steem blockchain for dealing with bad actors? Is there anything the witnesses can do to sanction this account, or at least prevent them from accepting further transfers? If not, is it possible to build this in? I’m very frustrated on my own behalf, but it’s bigger than that. I’ve already shared how I feel that this is where anarchy ends and centralization begins, as people grow unwilling to overlook such huge problems and start to call for action.

If there is hope that this will be corrected, or if anyone has any other information regarding this, please share. I’m sorry to be bringing this up again, and I don’t want to be a negative voice here, but I think unless we take positive steps to police ourselves, this could become a huge problem.

Perhaps it is not hitting enough of us at the level it is hitting me? Perhaps others in my position have more Steem than they need? I don’t know, but I can’t be the only one thinking that something needs to change.

Here are some suggestions. I think exchange accounts should be treated differently, in that an average user should not be able to just log on here and start one. There should be some accountability. Secondly, private messaging needs to be a viable thing.

Since Poloniex has opted not to share posts, there is no means of reaching out to them, other than their website, which gets canned responses, and Twitter, which gets you nothing in particular.

This, I find, is the most frustrating thing about libertarian and anarcho enterprises, everyone wants to shrug off government, but very few seem ready to acknowledge, that even if it’s simply within the community, some standards and enforceable rules, with penalties, should be put in place to prevent people being taken advantage of with no recourse.

@Poloniex, you’ve got our attention. I suggest you use your power to share a statement about what you intend to do. If this goes very much longer, I’m going to be investigating legal remedies if no one within the community is willing to step up and offer a solution. Sorry that it’s been tough for you, Poloniex, but you’ve got to act more responsibly since we are all at your mercy.

I also recognize a problem here. We all have sent voluntary contributions to a single user account, with no receipt, and other than the obvious intent, no way to prove what we were sending that money for. With Bittrex, there is a tax ID with each and every transaction, but here inside Steemit, there is no such thing, and as long as they keep our wallets on Poloniex offline, we have no access to any IDs generated there. This is a serious issue that seems like it could be rectified, and should be rectified.

Again, I’m not terribly technical, all I know is this, if I send someone something for a specific purpose, that purpose should be fulfilled, or my investment returned within a reasonable amount of time. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions as to next steps, or ways to prevent similar things in the future (other than simply using other services, which I am doing and fully intend to do from here out) thanks!

Note: I am a big boy. I'm not crying. If I never get it back, I'll make more and count it as stupid tax, but I don't willingly pay stupid tax, so just attempting to right this wrong, for myself and others.

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Money polo distributes in manual mode .... I have for example money in the steemdolar went to the deposit for three days ... before that sent a ticket in support with the data on the transfer .... the ticket remained unresponsive but the coats fell on my deposit. ..

This is a big concern - I assume no announcement yet from Polo on what they are doing with these funds? That's a wack of money....

Thanks to the author of the article for the aphorism "Tax on stupidity"

yeah, and what is going to happen to the steem price when all of that is returned right to the market, down, down, down. But in a true free market/anarcho capitalism it will work itself out by the consumer simply not using the exchange anymore.
I hope you get your money back soon.

Well, we will see what happens. and I don't think market correction is enough. This has gone beyond a simple mistake, they are compounding it by not even explaining, or offering any apologies.

We're talking big money here surely this can be resolved!

When you add it all up, if it doesn't get returned, we're talking Bernie Madoff money.

It should get returned, just taking a while

Nope, not good enough! It's 28 million shares. They need to make a public response. I thought blockchain was about transparency, this is sure looking a lot like centralized bankers bullshit to me.

True, they must be making profit te longer they hold it also

Well, I guess they could be buying at the artificially low price, but where from? All these shares being locked up must be putting a kink in the supply lines.

I stopped use Poloniex a month ago.. After been affected and vittnes in realtime how they scam people by insider trading.
e.g HUGE pump and dump scheme where they freeze the site at the top and when it start work again 10 minutes later the price is down 10-15% ... While no one been able to trade .... Sound valid and true ...... NOT!
(i've seen this with my own eyes both regarding XRP/Ripple (Twice) and Btc .. And also Dash where someone bought for 100 Btc in a few chunks during 1-2 minutes .. While the price went DOWN!
LMao.. Its so obvious its silly .... Except that i lost quite some $$$
Ps. I have a few posts about it on my blog.

This is a serious problem that we need to find a solution.

Thanks for sharing your issue!

Thanks, I'm hoping we can get some kind of consensus. This is something that shouldn't be happening.

I send Stellar to poloniex. They never arrive. They never respond my emails or tickets. and my money is on limbo. Theres a lot others case.

That's what I keep hearing, but I guess the powers that be don't care anymore than those who run poloniex.

Poloniex has nothing to do with anarchy and/or decentralization. Using polo requires a lot of trust, and it's absolutely a one-way street.

It's similar to the unregulated online poker scene back in the day; you're extending a ton of trust to a faceless organization and you have no recourse if things get fucked up.

Therefore, you either (a) realize and accept that risk or (b) do your business with an organization that doesn't reek of shit.

Well, this may be true of the exchange, but that Steem is sitting right here in a Steemit wallet, so, I'm hoping there's something that could be done to sanction them against further abuses.

I am so glad I did not put my funds into there, I use Bittrex and Coinbase.

Yeah, I've had accounts at both bittrex and poloniex all year, and have switched everything to bittrex. I use coinbase wallet and bitpay to transfer to my bank account.

Use openledger & bittrex during meantime for this. Some even use wallets on phone Or convert some at blocktrades

I use bittrex and coinbase, then go to bitpay to transfer USD to my bank. I'm good on that part, just want these bastards to pay up.