by Tyler Durden Could Bitfinex, the world's largest, Hong-Kong based cryptocurrency exchange, be headed for a Mt.It's starting to look that way.Gox first halted customer withdrawals in February 2014, it waited more than two weeks to admit the truth to its customers: that hackers had stolen more than $450 million of their assets, leaving the exchange bankrupt and them holding the bag.That hack effectively crippled the entire digital currency ecosystem, ushering in a two-year bear market that at one point carried the bitcoin price below $200, from what was then a record high north of $1,200 reached in November 2013.So when another exchange engages in similarly shady behavior - withholding critical information about customer funds, or failing to produce audited financials despite promising to do so - it should prompt crypto traders to ask themselves why, with dozens, if not hundreds, of cryptocurrency exchanges operating around the world, they're choosing to do business with this one.

That's the question that customers of Bitfinex should be asking nearly two weeks after the exchange, once one of the world's largest, first revealed that it had been cut off from sending outbound dollar-denominated wires to its customers.Of course, halting customer withdrawals isn't uncommon in the cryptocurrency world: All three of China's largest exchanges suspended customer withdrawals in February.And last year, Kraken, one of the biggest U.S.-based exchanges, suspended withdrawals temporarily because of a glitch in its trading software.But this freeze is particularly troubling because, like Mt.Gox, Bitfinex inexplicably decided to wait before informing customers of a critical problem.It also has implications that stretch beyond the bitcoin market, to another cryptotoken called tether that was launched by Bitfinex back in January 2015, and has since been dogged by allegations that it's a scam.The halt is already costing Bitfinex's customers money.On Tuesday, bitcoins were going for $1,547 on Bitfinex's platform, a premium of more than $100 over most of the other popular exchanges.

Investors, apparently, feel that eating a 7%-8% loss is preferable to leaving their assets in Bitfinex's care any longer.bitcoin solo mining 2017Reddit users reported that wire transfers requested as early as March 9 were cancelled, and that the exchange offered only vague excuses as to why.earn bitcoin gpuIt took the exchange until April 13, after it had filed a lawsuit against Wells Fargo & Co., whose correspondent banking division had effectively shut Bitfinex out of the global financial system, that the exchange disclosed the problem to its customers.bitcoin wallet irelandAnd while Bitfinex has repeatedly said it would make things right - it has promised to either establish a new banking relationship and to allow customers access to other fiat currencies  - only a handful of customers have been able to get their assets out of the exchange.acheter bitcoin a paris

As part of the freeze, Bitfinex has established a moratorium on cashing in tether tokens held by its customers.bitcoin namecoin litecoinThese tokens were created by Bitfinex in 2015 to allow customers to exchange an asset that's pegged to the dollar at a one-to-one ratio, allowing them to avoid costly wire transfers that must be processed through the banking system.bitcoin loan no verificationBut the withdrawal freeze has put pressure on the tether market; for only the second time since they were introduced, investors are selling these tokens at a discount.reddit bitcoin surveyThe price of a single token has been languishing below the $1 level for more than a week.bitcoin usage in singapore

More troubling still is that Bitfinex has so far refused to provide an audit of the fiat funds that allegedly backstop the tether float, despite promising that it would be "fully transparent and audited to demonstrate 100% reserves at all times" when it first launched the token.bitcoin utopiaThis has lead some to speculate that the exchange could be commingling tether funds with other customer assets.While evidence of this could cause irreparable damage to Bitfinex's reputation, leading to a wave of withdrawals that could add further strain to its already thinning bitcoin reserves, as Twitter user @Bitfinexed points out, it's not technically a violation of the tether terms of service.Here's an excerpt: "There is no contractual right or other right or legal claim against us to redeem or exchange your tethers for money.We do not guarantee any right of redemption or exchange of tethers by us for money.There is no guarantee against losses when you buy, trade, or redeem tethers."

Given the preponderance of scams in the cryptocurrency market, investors who haven't already, should probably take what's left of their money and run, if they can of course.Top 5 Crypto Currencies To Invest in 2017HomeNewsCrypto Cryptocurrency – Looking Ahead from May 2017 Crypto, NewsAdvertise Jobs at BTCManager BITCOIN PRICE: 2,714.29 HIGH: 2,744.20 LOW: 2,666.83 BTC = USD #TRENDING STORIES Next Event Money 20/20 Europe • June 26-28, 2017 European-focused event on Fin-tech, providing an overlook of the disruptive ways in which consumers and businesses manage, spend and borrow… → BTCMANAGER TWITTER: TOTAL TWEETS: 3850 total FOLLOWERS: 16159 official hashtag:#BTCManager BTCMANAGER SegWit and Litecoin: Is Activation Imminent?This way or that way?The protocol upgrade SegWit is on the verge of a breakthrough to activation on Litecoin.Chief developer Charlie Lee announced to push it through with an UASF if push comes to shove.

started to signal readiness.Bitcoiners have good reason to follow the development of the altcoin closely.While the protocol upgrade SegWit is still far from being activated on Bitcoin, Charlie Lee seems to succeed in implementing it in Litecoin.The major breakthrough was that F2Pool recently started to signal readiness.F2Pool provides nearly half of Litecoin’s hash rate.However, the signaling rate remained below the activation threshold of 75 percent.Charlie Lee reacted with the announcement to implement a so-called User Activated Soft Fork (UASF) in the next release of Litecoin.The UASF enables users to trigger the activation of a soft fork even if not a sufficient share of miners signal readiness.The users could build SegWit transactions and punish SegWit rejecting miners with orphaning their blocks.Message from Litecoin users and markets is loud and clear.We will add UASF BIP148 SegWit to Litecoin 0.14 & backports./SgoZc2qKlb — Charlie Lee (@SatoshiLite) April 12, 2017 Lee’s commitment to an UASF raised enthusiasm both in the Litecoin as in the Bitcoin community.

It would be fascinating to learn how it plays out - if the activation of a soft fork is possible with UASF, or if it ends in chaos.While the Bitcoin community also started to promote UASF and the first companies show a willingness to participate, it seems that Litecoin will not need to become Bitcoin's test field for an experimental soft fork activation.Good for Litecoin, bad for Bitcoin., a pool which provides six percent of Litecoin’s hash rate, mined the first block signalling for SegWit.With this newest supporter, more than 75 percent of the miners go with Lee’s upgrade plan.Currently, the rate of prepared miners is still at 73 percent, but it can be expected an imminent breakthrough above the 75 percent threshold.If Litecoin keeps this rate for one or two weeks, SegWit will officially be activated.For the Bitcoin community, this turn of events with the small brother of the cryptocurrency should be extremely thrilling.While it might be a bit disappointing to not see a UASF in action, a massive production of knowledge should still be expected.

Will the SegWit soft fork activate without trouble - or will it result in a hard fork like with Syscoin?Will the Litecoin users use SegWit transactions or will they just ignore it, as Litecoin is nowhere near its capacity limits?Will the new transaction format really extend the block size - and by how much?Will the unspent outputs (UTXO) of standard transactions and SegWit transactions remain fungible?And will the activation of SegWit make Litecoin the laboratory to test the Lightning Network under real conditions and with real crypto money?The results will be interesting and answer such questions.Depending on how it plays out, the SegWit activation on Litecoin will become a strong reason for or against SegWit on Bitcoin.I'm all good for $LTC.It looks like we'll get activated soon./aVcdnHPtl1 — Wang Chun (@f2pool_wangchun) April 12, 2017 The near future of Litecoin will become exciting.Either, because we see how SegWit activates on Litecoin - or because we will experience the implementation of an UASF and with this a possible change of the governance of cryptocurrencies in general.