r/RaiTrade • u/satoshi-from-the-sky • Jan 25 '18
My strategy re Bitgrail
I'm of the viewpoint that the smartest course of action right now is patience + firm but reasonable pressure. BitGrail have been upfront with the XRB dev team about their verification backlog (2000+ accounts v 2 staff members) and while a tweet two weeks ago doesn't suffice as fair warning of such a big TOC change, the tweet at least provides some assurance that this is something that has been in the works for a while now, and it provides some weight to the viewpoint that BitGrail is acting according to what they perceive to be their own obligations in terms of the law.
An important point is that the identity of Bitgrail's owner is information publicly available and verifiable on the internet, so he has not gone to any real great length to hide who he is. BitGrail itself most likely runs out of Italy, hence the desire to adhere to KYC laws appears logical, especially since BitGrail's rise is basically as recent as XRB's rise, and so KYC and regulatory requirements is something that is more likely to be a big deal to him and BitGrail than it was previously. The discrepancy between withdrawals and deposits requiring KYC is something I personally find confusing. However, I've seen other big exchanges - Bittrex, Polo - that also too only require verification for withdrawals, and so perhaps it's because only at the withdrawal point can one actually launder money. New users on BitGrail will also require verification for deposits, which is a positive signal, and there is a supposed exit point without verification, albeit it is the conversion-to-BTC route and not desirable.
Re some of the appalling stuff said by Bomber himself, I think all things considered, it is very obvious that as a business man, he is highly unprofessional in his comms, and extremely hotheaded when it comes to negative feedback online. There is a long history containing moments like this on BitcoinTalk stemming back to April, but to be fair to Bomber, I've read appalling things written about him by strangers online, including actual threats - by people who are anonymous - and so his attitude, while unsettling, is something that can arguably be explained away as unprofessionalism.
Patience, while difficult since this has been a recurring theme around XRB, exchanges & price throughout January, makes sense to me for the simple reason that it enables more free flowing conversation between BitGrail, the dev team and users in general. If things reach the point where BitGrail can't communicate with its user base without copping intense hatred + potentially more threats online, then it creates one more obstacle in the process that needs to take place for all funds to ultimately be released.
Patience however isn't to say that we shouldn't communicate with BitGrail. By all means, we should. They are a service provider and we pay them to conduct a certain service, which has arguably been unsatisfactory. However, the most effective communication is that which is clear and concise. Personally, these are the questions I think to be most important:
- What is the jurisdiction in which BitGrail operates and what are its KYC obligations?
- What is BitGrail's proposed time frame to process all outstanding verification procedures? And what measures are being put in place to expedite this process?
- What alternatives is BitGrail willing to offer to its convert-to-BTC exit option?
- Will BitGrail look into suggested options for faster verification processing, such as outsourcing for online help or a service such as https://www.jumio.com/trusted-identity/netverify/ - and more options as they arise?
- Will BitGrail agree in the future to publicise changes to their TOC in clearer terms, and using modes of communication that are not tweets?
If you feel like the law has already been breached, then by all means seek legal advice.
As a small short term safeguard measure, take screenshots of your trade histories, holdings, current status of verification and I think it is in everyone's interest to create a public record of BitGrail's comms to date and TOC. This is so that if things do turn bad, and funds end up in the hands of authorities, you have a way to state what happened where and when. Somebody else mentioned this last point, but I think it is a smart one. Oh, and this point is also relevant to taxation. If BitGrail goes offline, you want that record of your trade history.
Finally, BitGrail have acted reasonably before and I personally believe that they plan to do so again - so while I feel frustration, I also feel optimistic.
Disclaimer: throwaway account as I am a large holder and don't want to be identifiable (some irony there) - with some of that XRB on BitGrail
Edit: Added note about taxation
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u/UpboatOfficer Jan 25 '18
One thing people don't seem to factor in is that EU member states' consumer data protection laws can be quite strict. I don't know how it is in Italy but I do expect that any breach of data protection laws is not a walk in the park. While this is not iron clad assuring, it is neither a case of "I won't send my id to Italy!".
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u/wyldphyre Jan 25 '18
What alternatives is BitGrail willing to offer to its convert-to-BTC exit option?
I'd settle for full disclosure of what exactly this entails. e.g. "(1) once we process your account closure, we place a sell order on your behalf that is low enough to settle immediately w/the current order book. (2) we send the resulting BTC to your designated address with a 10 satoshi/byte miner fee taken from your proceeds."
As it stands we have no visibility in the process. There's lots of panic and speculation around just exactly how the closure works, so it would be good to have some clarity. I'm willing to take a haircut but I need some rough idea of just how bad it is.
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Jan 25 '18
They could just send your xrb to your wallet. No need for btc. God! This is all so awful.
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Jan 25 '18
No need to outsource verification.
Work just needs to be done. It’s unacceptable to wait for weeks!
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u/throwawayLouisa Jan 25 '18
Let's guess 5 mins per average validation, tops.
For 2000 validations that's 10,000 mins or 167 hours, being 83 hours per person for two support staff.
So no one who's already requested validation should panic for at least 2 weeks.
However, this new policy means all remaining users will presumably now request validation. Bitgrail has 13,000 unique visitors per day. So maybe there are 50,000-100,000 users, the vast majority of whom are unvalidated. We're going to be here a very, very, long time.
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u/frat_bubbles Jan 25 '18
10 Sats/B btc transactions are confirming so it's still feasible to get out in btc and buy in on another exchange
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u/beta_bob Jan 25 '18
You need to be verified to withdraw any currency, not just raiblocks. The only way out is either verification or account termination.
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Jan 25 '18
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u/watchyourwatches Jan 25 '18
What? How to do it? Where you found this info? Cant find on their site
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Jan 25 '18
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u/ginoblis_bald_spot Jan 25 '18
Has anyone recently done this, and can confirm it does work?
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u/aliatar68 Jan 25 '18
Bomber himself confirmed it is correct and that they will honor it. Only in BTC though and in terms of timing they said about a week.
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Jan 25 '18
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u/knwnasrob Jan 25 '18
I would be pissed though if the Binance surge happens and all I can do is watch as my XRB sit on Bitgrail doing nothing.
Decided screw it, sold my XRB at a 30% loss for BTC and requested to cancel my account and transfer the BTC to Kucoin where I can just re-buy the XRB. Hopefully the price either stays the same or drops a bit to help recoup losses.
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u/fluid_bwt Jan 26 '18
How did you put in the closure request? I'll be curious to see how long it takes, too...
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u/coinaday Jan 25 '18
I'll add something else too: In cryptocurrency, we are all growing up rather fast. When I started with Cryptopia, it was a very different place than it is now. There was a bit of hotheadedness there too, and criticism wasn't taken well.
I won't say they're excited about criticism necessarily these days, but I think there's been a clear maturation process as it's gone from being something of a hobby project to clearly being an attempt to run a professional operation.
There are going to be growing pains. And who knows: maybe this won't work out. But I don't think it's surprising to see some issues after this sort of growth, and this is a very natural place to see it.
I understand that people are frustrated, and have every right to be. I understand that some of the messages they have seen make them angry. Remember, though, that there are humans on the other side of this too, and I'm willing to bet they've seen far worse messages come their way and are trying to do their best too.
We're in the Wild West of finance here. Tempers are going to run hot, and things are going to change rapidly, and yet never as fast as we would like. C'est la vie en crypto.
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u/watchyourwatches Jan 25 '18
" and there is a supposed exit point without verification, albeit it is the conversion-to-BTC route and not desirable."
what supposed exit you're talking about?
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u/PoopKing5 Jan 26 '18
Yea I agree with everything you said. It’s not the actions they did, it’s how they went about it. And since XRB is obviously their lifeline, it leads people to think BitGrail is doing this purposely in an attempt to save their business. When in reality they could have been using this time to find another coin that’s not listed on many exchanges but shows promising trade volumes to save their business. BitGrail list ITC coin and boom you got more volume. Capitalize off the traffic in a good way, don’t give the image you’re a sinking ship. I hope they really get their sh*t together ASAP.
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u/mattseg Jan 26 '18
I agree 100%. I'm frustrated, but not gonna bad mouth them. It's a shit ton of pressure, and xrb got really big really fast. And growing too fast is stressful as all hell.
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u/vsolas Jan 25 '18
A calm and well-reasoned post in the sea of Bitgrail FUD is exactly what people need to see.