From Mt. Gox to Bitfinex

The speculators used to trade in a large exchange, which is said to be called Mentougou (MT·GOX). It has been closed down for a long time now, and the owner has been detained. He was just released recently. Even the last transaction was more than two years ago. It seems that there were some internal shady dealings. But at that time, it was a paradise for many speculators.

Needless to say, the first Bitcoin listing, the rising market, the ups and downs of the K-line, the inexplicable theft; needless to say, the dealer set up a game in the exchange, the fat exchange boss leaning over the desk, and the fast-running coin speculators (players) suddenly changed from buying at a low price to selling at a high price. Just the single form of trading there is infinitely interesting. Various news emerges here in an endless stream, and players here talk about whether the United States will ban Bitcoin. When you open the chat records about Mentougou, you will sometimes meet many ancient figures; for example, if you press your finger on its spine, oh no, you look through his previous information, you will find that he once said that he had bought more than 100,000 coins. Other exchanges are also entangled with Mentougou, some buy coins from Mentougou, and some move bricks from Mentougou. Some people say that Bitcoin is worth 100,000 dollars, and you can make a fortune if you hoard it, but players often buy and sell it, which involves constantly manipulating the market. They have also broken the K-line because of this, but have never seen a time when the price can be maintained at a high level for a long time. If you are not afraid of missing out, you can also play low selling and high bidding, just like stock trading, which is exciting and profitable, and feels much more exciting than playing other investment products.

But later, the traders gradually left because it was said that there was a big technical loophole in Mentougou.

An old crypto trader once told me a story: Previously, there was a crypto trader who relied on K-line trading to trade crypto. At night, while enjoying the cool air in the yard, he suddenly found someone logging into his account. He didn't care at first, but when he looked again, he saw that the market was rising, and he was very happy; but the old programmer customer service who came to talk at night saw through the trick. He said that there was some black air in his account, and he must have met a "big hacker"; this is a monster that specializes in finding program loopholes and can steal people's coins. If you are not careful, it will come to steal people's coins at night. The crypto trader was naturally scared to death, but the old programmer said it was okay and gave him a few patches, saying that as long as he had the patches, he could sleep soundly. Although he did the same, he always couldn't sleep, of course he couldn't sleep. In the middle of the night, as expected, the account was scanned by someone else again! Rustle! When he was shaking, he heard a bang, the patch program was running, and there was no sound outside. The account was running normally, and the coins were still there. What happened next? Later, the old programmer said that this was the complementarity between cold and hot wallets, which prevented thieves from stealing coins, and the big hackers returned empty-handed.

The lesson learned at the end is: If a strange IP logs into your account, you must communicate with customer service in a timely manner.

This story made me feel the danger of cryptocurrency speculation. On summer nights, I often feel a little worried and dare not put my coins on the exchange. I also want to get all kinds of patches from old programmers. I often think this way when I log into my account in Mentougou. But until now, I still haven't got it, but I haven't met a big hacker. There are often people who steal the coins of cryptocurrency speculators, but it seems that they are not big hackers, but big hackers take the blame for others.

Mentougou is relatively boring when it is sideways; it is different when the price is flat. Bragging (bragging about your own cryptocurrency trading deeds) and moving bricks. However, these two things require others to appreciate or help. In the later period, there are fewer and fewer people in Mentougou, so no one believes it even if you brag, so you can only cheat newcomers. It is not okay to say that Bitcoin is speculation; you must say that Bitcoin is a hope for the future and will definitely reach $100,000, so that people will think that "not hoarding coins is stupid." Pointing to the K-line, saying that you will definitely make a lot of money if you follow me to speculate in coins, just ask for more coins, and wait for the coin speculators to pay the "membership fee". After the coin speculators pay the money, who cares whether you lose money or not? Anyway, the money has been paid. Most of those who are deceived by this are stupid players, and there are even more stupid coin speculators who are very impatient and don't hold coins overnight.

I don’t know why Mentougou suddenly closed down, and it was only closed after restricting withdrawals for a long time. Maybe it’s because its internal management is more chaotic, maybe it’s because the exchange’s legal bosses have reaped a lot of profits, maybe it’s because the financial loopholes can’t be covered up anymore... I don’t know. In short: Mentougou has completely stopped trading. Ade, the hardcore players of Mentougou! Ade, the Bitcoin in Mentougou!

After climbing over the firewall and going through some registration procedures, you can go to Bitfinex to trade cryptocurrencies. Enter the portal website and you will find more trading interfaces. The URL in the middle is very eye-catching: Bitfinex; below the URL is a picture with large candlesticks intertwined with various K lines. There is no RMB trading, so we log in to the URL to trade foreign currencies. The first one is to trade Bitcoin, and the second one is to get more foreign exchange.

When it comes to withdrawing money, Bitfinex will ask for all kinds of explanations and proofs. The customer service is not very friendly, and sometimes you will encounter robots, but the requirements are still very reasonable, and "make people feel" that they are for the sake of users. Many cryptocurrency traders are very respectful of this platform, because I heard a long time ago that several big Vs in China repeatedly called for people to trade in cryptocurrency on Bitfinex, which simply fattened up this platform.

I don't know where I heard this from, but some people are well-informed, saying that programmers have always doubted Bitfinex's security signs, and that it may become the "second Mentougou". However, the coin holders don't care about these voices, and always think that it's okay. Over time, this information will disappear. I really want to know this story in detail, but many people don't know it, because many people are not well-informed after all. Now I have the opportunity to ask their customer service.

"Customer service, someone said that there are great security risks in Bitfinex. What's going on?..." I went to the website and asked using the online communication tool.

"I don't know!" He seemed very unhappy, with anger on his face.

I just realized that cryptocurrency traders shouldn’t ask these questions. As long as they trade in cryptocurrency, Bitfinex is a large foreign exchange after all, so they definitely know about it. The so-called ignorance is that they are unwilling to say. This kind of unsafe exchange is often like this, and this has happened several times over and over again.

I only bought and withdrew coins, and I withdrew coins after buying them, commonly known as "buy buy withdraw". The customer service staff thought I was troublesome at first, but later they got used to it. However, they later asked me to go to a domestic platform and withdraw all my money from Bitfinex.

Bitfinex also has some hidden backend interfaces. Although small, they can also load cryptocurrency robots there, which go back and forth to harvest leeks through high-frequency trading. The best job is of course to kill manual cryptocurrency traders, quietly and without any sound. However, if there are too many robots of the same type for too long, it will not work. The programmers shouted in the group:

“Stop running high-frequency trading!”

The robots were withdrawn one by one; many robot developers were unwilling to go back together. Platform operators can obviously shut down the backend interface completely, but this measure is not often used. There are also rules for penalties, but they are not often used. Usually, they just glare at them and say loudly:

“Coin speculation!”

So the speculators started speculating in cryptocurrencies in a messy way. It was really chaotic. Some said, "How far is benevolence? I want to speculate in cryptocurrencies to earn fiat currency." Some said, "Laughing at people with missing teeth is the way to hoard cryptocurrencies." Some said, "Don't use fiat currency above nine." Some said, "Short and long everything depends on news, only I am the only one who is supreme." Who would have thought that the platform itself would also speculate in cryptocurrencies. Later, the voices of the speculators became lower and quieter, and only the Bitfinex platform was still smashing and pulling the market:

"First go short, and the long positions will be blown up, and everyone will be shocked by the crash; then go long, and everything will be turned upside down, and shorting will be ruined..."

I suspect this is a very clever trick, because whenever there is a big market, the platform always freezes, and even if they make a lot of money, they just send out various announcements and apologize.

When the platform was speculating in cryptocurrencies, it was also very suitable for the bricklayers. A few people who knew the technology started to do various bricklayers. I took a unique approach and wrote articles to tease all kinds of people. I used a website called "Babbitt" to publish various voices in the cryptocurrency circle. I described the images of various characters and platforms one by one, just like writing some novels. The more books I read, the more exciting it was to tease; I didn't make much money from speculating in cryptocurrencies, but I wrote a lot of articles. There is a whole book of column stories about speculating in cryptocurrencies. Later, because I was busy with work, I wrote less. Babbitt's website business is getting bigger and bigger; many new authors have also emerged, and the quality of articles is getting higher and higher. I guess not many people have read the things I wrote.

August 4