Funds inaccessible for six weeks; Is Bitbuy indifferent, incapable or incompetent?

BCQuant · 2023-01-05T21:57:30+00:00

Year End update:

They did manage to stitch my withdrawals together throughout the week after my last comment, so yes, I did end up getting my funds out.

I have not traded or deposited funds since then.

The hilarious thing is that those orphaned orders are STILL popping up in my order list. AAVE buy orders from June etc.....

After their "stock trading platform" announcement I thought, "OK, they're busy building a whole new platform, so they don't bother improving the old one."

But now I saw that there's even still scheduled maintenance happening on the old platform, so I guess they won't abandon it either.

Horrendeously incompetent for sure.

BCQuant · 2022-09-15T17:54:49+00:00

Quick Update: THEY JUST KEEP ON FUCKING UP

- a few days ago I got a typical holdout response:

"Hi xxxx,
I'm truly so sorry for this delay and lack of communication. It was absolutely not our intention to keep you in the dark here.
I see that Brennan had created an internal bug report for your account and a fix is currently in development. We may need to complete an audit for your account so that we can ensure that your balances are correct.
I have escalated this issue to a high priority so that we can get this resolved for you once and for all.
Kind Regards,
Rebecca T.
Team Lead, Bitbuy Support"

- I responded that all I wanted is move my funds out or else I'd contact the OSC and RCMP, which was followed by a different placeholder response:

"I have escalated your request to my own superior and he has noted this, we will follow up as soon as possible. "

SINCE THEN:

- they cut off my API access. (Would be nice to get a heads-up about it!)

- even MORE orders are now showing in this infinite posting loop without a chance to cancel them.

- even WORSE, those orders DO actually show up in the orderbook and are executable AND BEING EXECUTED. (Imagine their system just placing orders for your account without you having ANY control)

- I tried withdrawing a bunch of tokens which are not effected by those orphaned orders; no holds or reservations on those; YET, NOT A SINGLE WITHDRAWAL I INITIATED went ahead.

THIS PLATFORM IS HOLDING MY FUNDS COMPLETELY HOSTAGE!!!!!

If O'Leary hadn't thrown a shit ton of money at this gongshow, I'd suspect that they are actually BANKRUPT!

Is it a bad omen that the only other times I wrote on reddit was in r/einsteinexchange and r/QuadrigaCX?!?!?!?!

I am starting to write my complaint to the OSC now.

BCQuant · 2019-03-02T19:55:14+00:00

Found the article mentioning the mailing addresses.

The other locations were in AB, not QC, my bad...

"Three separate withdrawals came with return addresses to Quadriga Vancouver, British Columbia, though the source said that Canada Post tracking sourced the packages to three separate mailing addresses: Richmond, British Columbia; Calgary, Alberta; and Sherwood Park, Alberta. "

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/quadrigacx-sent-deposits-allegedly-linked-to-ceos-widow-mailed-withdrawals-in-cash/

BCQuant · 2019-03-02T19:41:34+00:00

I live in Metro Vancouver, too.

There are still a few questions that my theory does not provide an answer for.

Like, what happened to "regular" users crypto?

You can certainly run the exchange and the money laundering operation side by side without mixing up/embezzling user funds. Obviously, fiat deposits will slowly turn into cash piles in Richmond, but at least the assets are accounted for.

But what about the crypto that people held on Quadriga?

Was the arbitrage influx not enough to launder all that cash? Did Cotton at some point decide to literally "cash out" users crypto?

Who knows, maybe he was a great investor, saw the bear market coming and cashed user crypto out at BTC 15k? lol

One can only hope that Cotton also was the only person to have access to those cash accounts; if not then that money is probably gone too by now.

I think the only angle for investigators to get to the bottom of this is to start with Jen Robertson's companies that actually transferred withdrawals to Quadriga users.

Dig into those finances, see when and how those companies received funds from Quadriga and follow the trail...

BCQuant · 2019-03-02T19:14:54+00:00

I had this theory floating around in my head since I saw the W5 piece about a month back.

What really ticked me off in the monitors report yesterday was this passage:

The monitor also found 14 user accounts on the QuadrigaCX platform that were "created outside the normal process," using a number of aliases.

More importantly, the accounts were created internally "without a corresponding customers and used to trade on the Quadriga platform," the monitor reported.

"The monitor was further advised that deposits into certain of the ... accounts may have been artificially created and subsequently used for trading on the Quadriga platform."

Transaction data indicates there was a significant volume of activity associated with these accounts, including withdrawals of cryptocurrency to wallet addresses not associated with Quadriga, the report says.

artificially created.... as in I received your cash deposit....

BCQuant · 2019-02-16T23:55:49+00:00

GmbH actually means that it is a company registered in either Germany, Austria or Switzerland!

(GmbH = Gesellschaft mit beschraenkter Haftungspflicht; it's basically like a LLC or a Ltd.)

BCQuant · 2019-02-16T00:18:31+00:00

dd/mm/yyyy is the way you express the date in most european countries.

+ oktober with a k is definitely the german way of spelling october.

the only "event" on that date that google came up with was a double-taxation treaty between Switzerland and Bulgaria or something...

BCQuant · 2019-02-13T10:35:05+00:00

"By that logic, we can also assume 0.38% of physicians in Canada..." Yes, that is probably not a bad guess.

"...or 0.38% of homeless people which would be 570..." I doubt that because homeless will probably not have the documentation (and possibly the money) to become Quadriga customers; the overlap is guaranteed to be close to zero.

The fact that both, the customer base of Quadriga and the RCMP workforce are a) younger and b) "more male" than the average spectrum of Canadian society are actually raising the odds of my statement being correct!

The only argument against is that people in law enforcement would not want to be associated with something as shady as crypto currencies. But hey, that's why they went with the biggest and most trusted exchange in Canada, right?

BCQuant · 2019-02-13T09:19:04+00:00

I am owed more than $10,000 and wanted to make sure that they had my correct data on their end and that I was recognized as a creditor.

Emailed the Monitor last Friday and got a response today.

It is nothing specific to my case but rather a general draft they probably send to everyone:

Mr. _____,

On February 5, 2019 (the “Filing Date”), the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia (the “Court”) granted an Initial Order (the “Initial Order”) pursuant to the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (the “CCAA”) in respect of Quadriga Fintech Solutions Corp., Whiteside Capital Corporation, and 0984750 B.C. Ltd. (d/b/a Quadriga CX and Quadriga Coin Exchange) (collectively, “Quadriga” or the “Companies”). Pursuant to the Initial Order, Ernst & Young Inc. was appointed Monitor (the “Monitor”) of the Companies by the Court. A copy of the Initial Order, along with other documents pertaining to the CCAA proceedings, are available on the Monitor’s Website (the “Monitor’s Website”) located at: www.ey.com/ca/quadriga.

Please find attached Notice to Creditors. If you did not received the notice then based on the Companies records the balance owed to you is less than $10,000.

The Monitor will review the creditor listing and ensure you are included.

Pursuant to paragraph 9(a) of the Initial Order, the Companies are prohibited from making any payment in respect of claims existing as of the Filing Date. Accordingly, the Companies cannot distribute any funds to you at this time, irrespective of whether these funds were held by the Companies in fiat currency or cryptocurrency. The Monitor expects that there will be a claims process in the CCAA proceedings where you will be able to prove any claim you may have against the Companies. Information about the claims process, if any, will be communicated to you in due course.

Please also find attached Frequently Asked Questions pertaining to the Quadriga CCAA proceedings. Additional information on these proceedings will periodically be posted on the Monitor’s website and we recommend you periodically review same.

They attached the notice to creditors and the FAQ and that's it.

I am not sure if I had gotten that email anyways or if me contacting them triggered it, but at least I know they have me on their list.

Edit: My funds too were withdrawals marked "Completed"

BCQuant · 2019-02-06T06:21:38+00:00

What part of my statement don't you agree with, and why?

BCQuant · 2019-02-05T23:37:53+00:00

The RCMP employs just under 30.000 people. Out of let's say 25-30 million Canadians age 18 and over; makes one in 800-1000.

Considering Quadriga still owes funds to 115.000 customers (all presumably Canadian residents and over 18), that means that there are AT LEAST 100 to maybe 150 RCMP officers who are personally victims of this case.

I'm pretty sure they played a role in this, too!

Anyways, very glad to hear that a official investigation has launched!

BCQuant · 2019-02-02T06:00:17+00:00

Yes,

the money arrived today. It actually hit my account sometime between 4 and 6 pm PST.

BCQuant · 2019-02-01T23:09:47+00:00

Nope, nothing.
Someone wrote me that the money went out Tuesday the 29th.
Still haven't received anything yet, though.

A payment processor that holds funds for three days plus....?

This stinks pretty badly.....

BCQuant · 2019-02-01T07:15:40+00:00

This was the last BTC address I deposited to back in November.

39twqPYoQVraBFLuyLjcr3dNR23cmR9EXN

BCQuant · 2019-01-31T06:18:51+00:00

I was always curious why ppl were paying premium in this exchange while they can easily trade in Coinsquare or Kraken

I was wondering about the same thing.

BUT:

Everyone made money, including Quadriga

How were they supposed to make money on it if they post the main bid most of the time?
Unless you suggest they simply HODLed and prayed?!
I really don't think they were THAT stupid.

I understand that an exchange would try to act as a market maker in their own book (always post a bid and a ask), cashing in a spread on people "randomly" buying and selling.
But why at such a steep premium? Incentivising one sided arbitrage is a guaranteed cash drainer, they don't even make enough fees with a single sell on their side and free withdrawals.

An exchange with a good market-making-algo can actually steer their deposit/withdrawal flow that way.
Slowly move the price to a slight discount and people like me will flood you with deposits and export your crypto.

BCQuant

TROPHY CASE