🧵1/Ω
➤ #Binance announcing increasingly dire issues w/its fiat on and off ramps.
➤ #CryptoCom's Euro bank accounts were frozen or seized by #BankOfLithuania on 1/21 for money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions violations (screenshot)
Let's dig...
Ω👇Ω
➤ #Binance announcing increasingly dire issues w/its fiat on and off ramps.
➤ #CryptoCom's Euro bank accounts were frozen or seized by #BankOfLithuania on 1/21 for money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions violations (screenshot)
Let's dig...
Ω👇Ω
🧵2/Ω
Recently users of #CryptoCom were surprised to receive an email saying that #SEPA transfers of $EUR were being “migrated to a new provider” and thus Euro-denominated deposits and withdrawals were temporarily suspended.
Yikes.
Ω👇Ω
Recently users of #CryptoCom were surprised to receive an email saying that #SEPA transfers of $EUR were being “migrated to a new provider” and thus Euro-denominated deposits and withdrawals were temporarily suspended.
Yikes.
Ω👇Ω
🧵3/Ω
#Cryptocom customers couldn't deposit/withdraw for ~100 hours yet #CDC did not send any kind of prior notice to their customers. Many redditors confirm problems began > 24 hours BEFORE #CDC sent out the first (and only) email about the disruption.
Some got 0 emails.
Ω👇Ω
#Cryptocom customers couldn't deposit/withdraw for ~100 hours yet #CDC did not send any kind of prior notice to their customers. Many redditors confirm problems began > 24 hours BEFORE #CDC sent out the first (and only) email about the disruption.
Some got 0 emails.
Ω👇Ω
🧵4/Ω
As someone who has migrated a few payment systems in my day #Cryptocom's behavior immediately sent up all kinds of red flags, air raid sirens, horsemen of the apocalypse, etc.
Ω👇Ω
As someone who has migrated a few payment systems in my day #Cryptocom's behavior immediately sent up all kinds of red flags, air raid sirens, horsemen of the apocalypse, etc.
Ω👇Ω
https://twitter.com/Cryptadamist/status/1617243131535101952
🧵5/Ω
Found out #CryptoCom's European bank was #TransactiveSystemsUAB in Lithuania, where all legitimate companies go to find high quality providers of banking services. Went to their site and got a shall we say "alarming" pop up warning.
Ω👇Ω
Found out #CryptoCom's European bank was #TransactiveSystemsUAB in Lithuania, where all legitimate companies go to find high quality providers of banking services. Went to their site and got a shall we say "alarming" pop up warning.
Ω👇Ω
https://twitter.com/Cryptadamist/status/1618777145639317505
🧵6/Ω
At that point I checked out the website of #BankOfLithuania, where I found an announcement posted Jan. 21st about how #TransactiveSystemsUAB had been mostly frozen or seized for money laundering, terrorist financing, or sanctions violations.
Ω👇Ω
At that point I checked out the website of #BankOfLithuania, where I found an announcement posted Jan. 21st about how #TransactiveSystemsUAB had been mostly frozen or seized for money laundering, terrorist financing, or sanctions violations.
Ω👇Ω
🧵7/Ω
Personal observation: not sure how much people in #Vilnius really care about money laundering and "terrorist financing" can be interpreted a lot of ways but seriously Do Not Fuck Around With Vladimir Putin. At least not if you want to hang out in the Baltics.
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Personal observation: not sure how much people in #Vilnius really care about money laundering and "terrorist financing" can be interpreted a lot of ways but seriously Do Not Fuck Around With Vladimir Putin. At least not if you want to hang out in the Baltics.
Ω👇Ω
🧵8/Ω
The bad blood between #Latvia, #Lithuania, and #Estonia vis a vis their other neighbor¹ - the one with orders of magnitude more money, guns, and bad intentions - goes back millennia.
¹ Russia
Ω👇Ω
The bad blood between #Latvia, #Lithuania, and #Estonia vis a vis their other neighbor¹ - the one with orders of magnitude more money, guns, and bad intentions - goes back millennia.
¹ Russia
Ω👇Ω
🧵9/Ω
Imagine you are a small chihuahua just living yr chill chihuahua life. Suddenly you find that next door to your chihuahua chill zone is a pack of snarling half-wolf Alaskan Malamutes that are 100x yr size and want to eat you
Oh and now they have rabies.
This is #BalticLife
Imagine you are a small chihuahua just living yr chill chihuahua life. Suddenly you find that next door to your chihuahua chill zone is a pack of snarling half-wolf Alaskan Malamutes that are 100x yr size and want to eat you
Oh and now they have rabies.
This is #BalticLife
🧵10/Ω
Point being the fine folks of Lithuania will overlook many shenanigans, money laundering or otherwise. But they get kinda riled up about helping Putin or angering NATO. Without NATO Putin just has to fart in their direction and it's back to the gulag again.
Ω👇Ω
Point being the fine folks of Lithuania will overlook many shenanigans, money laundering or otherwise. But they get kinda riled up about helping Putin or angering NATO. Without NATO Putin just has to fart in their direction and it's back to the gulag again.
Ω👇Ω
🧵11/Ω
I say "again" because the Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians share a rare misfortune among civilizations: they live on the flat land between Russia and Germany.
Let's just say that historically this has really not been an advantage.
(See also: Poland, Belarus)
Ω👇Ω
I say "again" because the Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians share a rare misfortune among civilizations: they live on the flat land between Russia and Germany.
Let's just say that historically this has really not been an advantage.
(See also: Poland, Belarus)
Ω👇Ω
🧵12/Ω
Anyways back to the point: my guess is that #BankOfLithuania was willing to ignore many non-Russian shenanigans and bank many suscos like #CryptoCom. But then it turned out all this ransomware and darknet #crypto was... Russia. #notagoodlook
Ω👇Ω
Anyways back to the point: my guess is that #BankOfLithuania was willing to ignore many non-Russian shenanigans and bank many suscos like #CryptoCom. But then it turned out all this ransomware and darknet #crypto was... Russia. #notagoodlook
Ω👇Ω
https://twitter.com/FBI/status/1618637314972086272
🧵13/Ω
You may have noticed that #Bitzlato was... also Russian. My guess? #CryptoCom's bank, #TransactiveSystemsUAB, got mixed up in some Russian sanctions violations and someone in #Lithuania said enough is enough. #BOL seized all assets that touched Russia.
Ω👇Ω
You may have noticed that #Bitzlato was... also Russian. My guess? #CryptoCom's bank, #TransactiveSystemsUAB, got mixed up in some Russian sanctions violations and someone in #Lithuania said enough is enough. #BOL seized all assets that touched Russia.
Ω👇Ω
🧵14/Ω
[INTERMISSION]
The substance of this 🧵 can be read in prose form over on Substack. I'm going to tweet this first half of it because I start to get nervous about misclicking and losing all my work but it is leading up to 👇
(to be continued)
cryptadamus.substack.com/p/are-cryptoco…
[INTERMISSION]
The substance of this 🧵 can be read in prose form over on Substack. I'm going to tweet this first half of it because I start to get nervous about misclicking and losing all my work but it is leading up to 👇
(to be continued)
cryptadamus.substack.com/p/are-cryptoco…
🧵15/Ω
Final Baltics thought: it's maybe worth contemplating that these tiny countries are bombarded with Russian disinformation on a scale that makes even my Trump-weary mind grope for a suitable point of comparison.
Thankfully they also seem to have developed natural immunity
Final Baltics thought: it's maybe worth contemplating that these tiny countries are bombarded with Russian disinformation on a scale that makes even my Trump-weary mind grope for a suitable point of comparison.
Thankfully they also seem to have developed natural immunity
🧵16/Ω
Now I knew why #CryptoCom did this unplanned "migration". Turned out that beyond the lack of prior warning #CDC didn't warn users with, say, an app notification saying "hold up don't send $ here for 72 hours!" in fact the app let them send money to the wrong bank!
Ω👇Ω
Now I knew why #CryptoCom did this unplanned "migration". Turned out that beyond the lack of prior warning #CDC didn't warn users with, say, an app notification saying "hold up don't send $ here for 72 hours!" in fact the app let them send money to the wrong bank!
Ω👇Ω
🧵17/Ω
This one's for those who've ever set up or even looked at production monitoring for a largish web app:
Tell me the last time you remember an engineer on yr team thinking it was fine to show "all systems go" when fundamental shit was offline?
🚩
This one's for those who've ever set up or even looked at production monitoring for a largish web app:
Tell me the last time you remember an engineer on yr team thinking it was fine to show "all systems go" when fundamental shit was offline?
🚩
https://twitter.com/Cryptadamist/status/1617243131535101952
🧵18/Ω
So there's these #CryptoCom users who sent $ to the IBAN of a #TransactiveSystemsUAB account in the name of a shell co. What happened to the cash?
Seems like it fell into a black hole. Some users even got confirmation.
no one's gotten a refund yet
So there's these #CryptoCom users who sent $ to the IBAN of a #TransactiveSystemsUAB account in the name of a shell co. What happened to the cash?
Seems like it fell into a black hole. Some users even got confirmation.
no one's gotten a refund yet
https://twitter.com/Cryptadamist/status/1619113519689134080
🧵19/Ω
Update: At least some #Cryptocom users who used #Revolut to send money into the black hole of #TransactiveSystemsUAB on the same day of the government seizure seem to be getting their automated refunds
That tells us that CDC's accounts were frozen.
reddit.com/r/Crypto_com/c…
Update: At least some #Cryptocom users who used #Revolut to send money into the black hole of #TransactiveSystemsUAB on the same day of the government seizure seem to be getting their automated refunds
That tells us that CDC's accounts were frozen.
reddit.com/r/Crypto_com/c…
🧵20/Ω
#CryptoCom users who had previously been instructed to send their deposits to a company called #ForisDAXAsia were now instructed to send them to bank accounts owned by a company named #ForisDAXMTLimited (FKA #McoMaltaDaxLimited) located in Malta instead of Lithuania.
#CryptoCom users who had previously been instructed to send their deposits to a company called #ForisDAXAsia were now instructed to send them to bank accounts owned by a company named #ForisDAXMTLimited (FKA #McoMaltaDaxLimited) located in Malta instead of Lithuania.
🧵21/Ω
Which all sounds great right up until the point you realize your bank and #Cryptocom's Maltese banks are not on good terms and your bank prohibits all transfers.
Perhaps its because journalists and whistleblowers keep getting murdered in #Malta?
Which all sounds great right up until the point you realize your bank and #Cryptocom's Maltese banks are not on good terms and your bank prohibits all transfers.
Perhaps its because journalists and whistleblowers keep getting murdered in #Malta?
🧵22/Ω
But after all the drama believe it or not SEPA worked sometimes for some people. couple of #CryptoCom users reported depositing to the new bank account under #ForisDAXMTLimited, managed by a company called #OpenPayd.
Guess who else loves #OpenPayd?
#Bitfinex AKA #Tether.
But after all the drama believe it or not SEPA worked sometimes for some people. couple of #CryptoCom users reported depositing to the new bank account under #ForisDAXMTLimited, managed by a company called #OpenPayd.
Guess who else loves #OpenPayd?
#Bitfinex AKA #Tether.
🧵23/Ω
Sadly the good times didn't last, because yesterday afternoon #CryptoCom users were back on reddit complaining that the #CDC app was telling them they could not make deposits.
Sadly the good times didn't last, because yesterday afternoon #CryptoCom users were back on reddit complaining that the #CDC app was telling them they could not make deposits.
https://twitter.com/Cryptadamist/status/1619466140480323584
🧵24/Ω
Through all the ups and downs, maintenance windows and disconnects, and complete lack of support there is still one incredible important question no one has answered:
Will customers be able to get their € out of #cryptocom and back in a bank? 👁🗨
Through all the ups and downs, maintenance windows and disconnects, and complete lack of support there is still one incredible important question no one has answered:
Will customers be able to get their € out of #cryptocom and back in a bank? 👁🗨
https://twitter.com/Cryptadamist/status/1619466140480323584
🧵25/Ω
During all this I stumbled on something else that surprised me. Look at the wire transfer instructions 👇. The bank that receives your #CryptoCom wires is $SI / #Silvergate which isn't exactly surprising.
But why is the company name @circle, AKA the $USDC issuer?
During all this I stumbled on something else that surprised me. Look at the wire transfer instructions 👇. The bank that receives your #CryptoCom wires is $SI / #Silvergate which isn't exactly surprising.
But why is the company name @circle, AKA the $USDC issuer?
🧵26/Ω
Isn't that like, kind of.. not kosher?
In general when you wire money to a company you are supposed to wire it to their bank account and not their friend's bank account. This is one of the many ways #SBF got in trouble - cash deposits to #FTX were instead sent to #Alameda
Isn't that like, kind of.. not kosher?
In general when you wire money to a company you are supposed to wire it to their bank account and not their friend's bank account. This is one of the many ways #SBF got in trouble - cash deposits to #FTX were instead sent to #Alameda
🧵27/Ω
Turns out @circle had set up a whole bunch of partner exchanges where a customer could wire $ to the @circle account over at $SI. (#CryptoCom, #Bybit, etc)
$USDC would be minted directly into their wallet at the exchange. Kind of a clever end run around KYC/AML rules, no?
Turns out @circle had set up a whole bunch of partner exchanges where a customer could wire $ to the @circle account over at $SI. (#CryptoCom, #Bybit, etc)
$USDC would be minted directly into their wallet at the exchange. Kind of a clever end run around KYC/AML rules, no?
🧵28/Ω
Perhaps #CryptoCom needed @circle to do the whole "banking" thing for them because its CEO has "long history of red flags"?
cnbc.com/2022/12/09/cry…
Perhaps #CryptoCom needed @circle to do the whole "banking" thing for them because its CEO has "long history of red flags"?
cnbc.com/2022/12/09/cry…
🧵29/Ω
If you peruse the complaints of #CryptoCom customers that show up on reddit one common theme seems to be that many banks refuse to deal with #CDC's new Matese bank but one always seems to work: @RevolutApp.
Which seems to be... not the most legit.
If you peruse the complaints of #CryptoCom customers that show up on reddit one common theme seems to be that many banks refuse to deal with #CDC's new Matese bank but one always seems to work: @RevolutApp.
Which seems to be... not the most legit.
https://twitter.com/DanNeidle/status/1612751000913448961
🧵30/Ω
Also odd that one of the two ¹ #Cryptocom "blockchains" suddenly kicked a bunch of validators off of its network.
¹ yes, there are two, #Cronos and #CryptoOrg. Jesus is also weeping.
Also odd that one of the two ¹ #Cryptocom "blockchains" suddenly kicked a bunch of validators off of its network.
¹ yes, there are two, #Cronos and #CryptoOrg. Jesus is also weeping.
https://twitter.com/Cryptadamist/status/1603710878372724736
🧵31/Ω
Even better the @koinly app which helps folks figure out their tax burden is suddenly unable to connect to both #Cryptocom's #Cronos as well as #KuCoin's private "blockchain". $CRO $KCS
Even better the @koinly app which helps folks figure out their tax burden is suddenly unable to connect to both #Cryptocom's #Cronos as well as #KuCoin's private "blockchain". $CRO $KCS
https://twitter.com/Cryptadamist/status/1620313881553014784
🧵32/Ω
There's more but for the rest yr gonna have to read the substack 👁🗨
Ω👇Ω
There's more but for the rest yr gonna have to read the substack 👁🗨
Ω👇Ω
https://twitter.com/Cryptadamist/status/1619556689824616449
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