...And you should consider doing the same. This post isn't in any way accusatory, Poloniex have not held my withdrawals, nor is there any proof of any wrongdoing, but there are some serious red flags surrounding Poloniex.
Last month before Poloniex suspended the "Trollbox" on their exchange I was seeing - among the usual coin-hyping - many messages complaining of missing coins, stuck withdrawals and customer support tickets going unanswered.
So Poloniex shut the chat to divert the Trollbox mods to customer support...
Or at least this was the explanation given. I find this highly implausible to say the least. Given how much Poloniex are making on fees, both from withdrawals and exchange fees. It really seems suspect that they can't hire support staff. Either it's a poorly run company that has squandered its liquid capital and can't afford to hire staff, or they don't want people to see the complaints. I have a hard time believing it's the former given the shear amount of money they must have made. Just look at their Steemit account alone, it's worth $50 million.
Mysterious CEO
Very little is known about the CEO. Other than a spartan LinkedIn page containing not a lot of information about him and a personal website with sheet music. Given the negative buzz surrounding Poloniex such as; news articles, semi-viral Youtube vids and legions of social media posts complaining; you'd think he'd want to be as public as possible, reassuring his customers. The guy's a ghost. I'd be camping outside the Bloomberg studio until they let me on the air.
Either his lack of PR is attributable to incompetence or malice, neither of which is acceptable when handling hundreds of millions of dollars worth of other people's money.
Remember the bank run scene from Mary Poppins?
Where the old bank manager wouldn't give the boy his coin back?
Even if Poloniex is well run, solvent and not preparing an exit scam like Mt.Gox or Crypsy, the negative buzz surrounding the company could result in a run that will bring them down, then you'll be taking the chance that administrators find enough capital to return money to depositors. Usually it's pennies on the dollar.
Poloniex staff, if you're reading this...
...and presuming you're acting honestly, you have a developing PR problem which can bring you down. You need to spend some of the money you've made from fees in sorting out your issues and quickly.
If on the other hand you are the next Crypsy I just want to say: "fuck you, your short-sighted greed disgusts me".
I withdrew some btc and ltc with no problems today and have done for a few years now. I doubt there another mt.gox. I think polo are good but admit they do have some steem problems some days but they warn on the site to.
I agree. I bit the bullet and sold my Steem for BTC the other day and transferred it to Bittrex so I could rebuy Steem. Too many red flags. I feel so much better now and I don't have have to worry about if today is the day they finally fixed the Steem wallet. Polo's issues are no longer my problem
I did the same, Bittrex seems a bit less user friendly but doesn't seem to be having issues with mountains of complaints. I think when I build up large amounts of any coin though I'm going to start storing offline in encrypted paper wallets rather than leave too much in any exchange.