Pretty bad article. Author is more interested in detailing their own hunt for the guy and inserting themself into the story (apartment trashed after booking a plane ticket?) than establishing basic facts about the crime.
I’m not even sure about the most important thing after reading the entire article — how much did the guy actually steal? It’s reportedly $2B from 400k people at the time, but the dude claimed in court that there were only 2027 claimants claiming $45m (is that true? Should be easy to establish from court documents), and dude claimed to have paid back $10m to 1000 people, after which “when the cold wallet was empty, he threw it into the Ionian Sea” (wat?). There’s zero comment from the author on this two orders of magnitude discrepancy, wtf.
> Two days later my apartment in Istanbul was ransacked in a way that seemed like a stern message. The wood on my front door was split open by force, and the contents of every drawer and cabinet were tossed around. The lock to a safe was snipped open, its contents—expensive camera equipment and cash—remained untaken. Even a laptop on the entry table appeared untouched. I canceled the trip.
This is a crazy part of this story! Presumably this means Ozer had friends in high places, but he didn't seem to implicate them in the trial?
Not really involved with crypto, but if I had large sums of money in it, I would never store this on an exchange. Seems so risky. Can anyone ELI5 why people do this?
1. Self custody is hard. You need to understand how to setup a wallet. If you lose the keys to that wallet, your money is gone. Opening an account on an exchange is so much easier, and there is usually a way to reset your password if you forget it.
Exchanges provide an online-banking style experience that most people are already familiar and comfortable with.
2. Access to markets. If you hold funds somewhere else, it takes quite a bit of time and effort to move it back onto the exchange so you can sell it later. It only really works for people who want to buy some coins and stuff them under their mattress until later. For anyone who wants to play the markets, you kind of need to keep your coins on the exchange.
Additionally, holding coins on the exchange is free. You don't have to pay the transaction fees to withdraw and deposit, which can add up, especially on congested blockchains like bitcoin and ethereum.
I found that many exchanges/custodial wallets (I've tested Kraken and CashApp) charge fees or imbalanced exchange rates for converting fiat into crypto and sending crypto to another address (often using a bulk transaction exchanging money between the exchange's wallet), so I wouldn't say you avoid transaction fees that way (they may or may not be reduced). I ended up using them anyway because it's easier to purchase crypto as a number on an exchange than to have it sent to your personal address.
Non-KYC exchanges outside the US and sharp deranged claws of the FTC and DoJ typically depend on exchange held crypto if you want near instant clearing for futures and securities trading etc.
In the case of something like bitcoin, lower latency / no confirm time means you are avoiding the very blockchain that is meant to be the bedrock of the currency's value. What's the point?
It all just reminds me of Steve Martin's old comedy routine about banks.
I mean, like, take, say you get out college or whatever you're doing. You're gonna go into business; say you're going to open a bank. Now you, just for example, you've got to give it the right name. It's got to be something big and strong like Security First Trust and Federal Reserve. And you have to name a bank that because nobody is going to put their money in Fred's Bank. "Hi, I'm Fred. I have a bank. You got $1,500? I'll put it, I'll put it here, in my white suit. White suit, right-hand pocket. Ok, you gotta remember that."
Legitimate question (I expected this will read poorly).
If you don't trust that seed phrases, which are a fundamental piece of how bitcoin key pairs are designed, will work why would you ever consider investing in bitcoin?
I totally get the stress of self custody. I just don't get why anyone that stressed about it would bother buying bitcoin.
During the Terra collapse, there was a 2-day period where Terra's price was supported by a massive BTC reserve. Those with Luna on exchanges could quickly exit their positions, but those with Luna in wallets or locked in Anchor Protocol faced hours-long delays for their currency to be confirmed and traded.
By the way, because a lot of people are keeping their crypto on exchange, would it be possible for an exchange to have fractional reserves like for banks? It is probably doable for big exchanges as trades happen on a platform they control anyway and crypto only goes out when a customer sends money to an external address. They may be able to keep only a third of customers account balance and still operate as usual.
Most exchanges are suspected to secretly run fractional reserves.
Binance in particular has its own blockchain and gets to run fractional reserve on most of the assets bridged to that block chain - the bridge keeps the real copies of the assets while only "shadow copies" are "projected" onto the Binance chain and traded.
I often leave up to $1k on my account to pay for occasional stuff that I need to pay for. May be people who leave huge amounts of money there do the same, but they're rich and their stuff is much more expensive?
CTRL+F “AS “WANTED” FLIERS with Özer’s picture went up” if you actually want to continue what the headline was about
This is long form essay has completely unnecessary exposition. Turkey has high inflation and alot of people buy crypto to escape it, one sentence. Next.
Readit News
> Faruk Özer, Thodex Crypto founder - 11000 year sentence for $2 Billion Heist
I’m not even sure about the most important thing after reading the entire article — how much did the guy actually steal? It’s reportedly $2B from 400k people at the time, but the dude claimed in court that there were only 2027 claimants claiming $45m (is that true? Should be easy to establish from court documents), and dude claimed to have paid back $10m to 1000 people, after which “when the cold wallet was empty, he threw it into the Ionian Sea” (wat?). There’s zero comment from the author on this two orders of magnitude discrepancy, wtf.
This is a crazy part of this story! Presumably this means Ozer had friends in high places, but he didn't seem to implicate them in the trial?
1. Self custody is hard. You need to understand how to setup a wallet. If you lose the keys to that wallet, your money is gone. Opening an account on an exchange is so much easier, and there is usually a way to reset your password if you forget it.
Exchanges provide an online-banking style experience that most people are already familiar and comfortable with.
2. Access to markets. If you hold funds somewhere else, it takes quite a bit of time and effort to move it back onto the exchange so you can sell it later. It only really works for people who want to buy some coins and stuff them under their mattress until later. For anyone who wants to play the markets, you kind of need to keep your coins on the exchange.
Additionally, holding coins on the exchange is free. You don't have to pay the transaction fees to withdraw and deposit, which can add up, especially on congested blockchains like bitcoin and ethereum.
Non-KYC exchanges outside the US and sharp deranged claws of the FTC and DoJ typically depend on exchange held crypto if you want near instant clearing for futures and securities trading etc.
I mean, like, take, say you get out college or whatever you're doing. You're gonna go into business; say you're going to open a bank. Now you, just for example, you've got to give it the right name. It's got to be something big and strong like Security First Trust and Federal Reserve. And you have to name a bank that because nobody is going to put their money in Fred's Bank. "Hi, I'm Fred. I have a bank. You got $1,500? I'll put it, I'll put it here, in my white suit. White suit, right-hand pocket. Ok, you gotta remember that."
(you probably have to listen to get all of it)
If you don't trust that seed phrases, which are a fundamental piece of how bitcoin key pairs are designed, will work why would you ever consider investing in bitcoin?
I totally get the stress of self custody. I just don't get why anyone that stressed about it would bother buying bitcoin.
During the Terra collapse, there was a 2-day period where Terra's price was supported by a massive BTC reserve. Those with Luna on exchanges could quickly exit their positions, but those with Luna in wallets or locked in Anchor Protocol faced hours-long delays for their currency to be confirmed and traded.
Binance in particular has its own blockchain and gets to run fractional reserve on most of the assets bridged to that block chain - the bridge keeps the real copies of the assets while only "shadow copies" are "projected" onto the Binance chain and traded.
Deleted Comment
Deleted Comment
Dead Comment
This is long form essay has completely unnecessary exposition. Turkey has high inflation and alot of people buy crypto to escape it, one sentence. Next.