I would rather not walk off the edge if I can avoid it.
Introduction
A while back I posted about all the issues I had been having with the Poloniex Exchange and their appalling customer service.
At the time there were massive increases in overall Bitcoin and altcoin traffic - as always they used this as an excuse for the problems.
The thing I found strange were the many people appeared who appeared out of the woodwork to defend their terrible service.
I found their defence rather dubious at the time since I have been using Poloniex from the beginning and such problems have been occurring on a fairly regular basis.
Nothing has really changed in the last 3+ years. They have the exact same excuses and they have the same terrible customer service.
As one of the biggest exchanges they can't really keep giving the same excuses time after time. At some point increased traffic can hardly be a surprise and it becomes hard to believe.
It just smacks of failure to invest or simply not caring about customer experience. Both are big red flags.
From Bad to Worse
Over time the situation has actually become worse.
The last time I used their support it took me 5 days to get a response - an eternity in the age of cryptocurrency.
Further they have now disabled their trollbox so you can't even try to escalate a ticket that way.
They also seem to be having difficulty with Steem/SBD transfers to the point where it is causing all sorts of craziness on their market prices.
For those who are continuing to use Poloniex, my question would be:
At what point do you draw a line and say that you will no longer support an exchange that has so many problems?
Is the size of the exchange and the interface enough to justify the risk?
(Remember MT GOX and Mintpal were also once the biggest exchanges in their day.)
I have moved all my trading coins off Poloniex now and will not be using them again unless they make some big changes.
Trading is risky enough as it is and I don't need the behaviour of the exchange to make it worse.
A Poorly Run Business Will Fail Eventually
Of course I expect a whole host of people will pop up saying how perfect Poloniex is and how they have never had a problem there.
Others will say they love the interface so much that they can't use another exchange.
The funny thing is I have heard these exact same kind of responses when people were raising concerns about how other exchanges were operating.
The same thing happened with MT GOX, Mintpal, Cryptsy and many others.
People were complaining of problems and warning others but the warnings fell on deaf ears.
Those who had not experienced problems did not want to hear about it - when people think things are going great they don't want to be inconvenienced by uncomfortable truths.
Then when those exchanges failed they acted surprised as if there had been no warning - even though there had been ample warnings.
It seems to me that if the whole business of an exchange is built on shoddy foundations and incompetence then it is only a matter of time before they make a colossal screw up.
Not only that it also seems when it does inevitably happen it is easier for someone within those organisations to simply take any remaining customer funds and run off with them.
All it takes is one bad guy on the inside to do it and if it is a poorly run business they will likely not have bothered with the added security required to prevent this.
I don't know if anything like this will happen with Poloniex.
It could just be that they remain incompetent and have terrible customer service but I don't see why I should take the risk either way.
Conclusion
Before many of the previous exchange failures occured there were huge warning signs weeks and sometimes months in advance.
I liken it to a car engine that suddenly starts making a strange noise when it is functioning poorly.
Any sensible person would take it to a mechanic to find out what is wrong and get it fixed before it dies altogether.
Unfortunately with an exchange we have to rely on the people that run it to get it fixed.
If they have been unable or unwilling to do that then it makes sense to stop using it before it breaks down and takes your money with it.
The warnings are there. Whether you listen or not is up to you.
Thank you for reading
.jpg)
Hm. I'm am using poloniex on daily basis for about 3 years now. Not for trading though, but as a price feed. But even that function doesn't work properly. Their site became very laggy in recent months. Additionally STEEM and SBD market price is not accurate, because whey disabled deposits and withdrawals.
Yes the site pretty much breaks under volume.
Mt. Gox took forever to collapse as well... with thousands of excuses like malleability and what not... With all of those horrible user experiences I really wonder how is it that there still has not been a panic...
Cryptsy also was rumoured like for years to be bankrupt until in the end they admitted it... Sorry to see that the exchange with the biggest volume for alts is making such headlines...
they did a good thing that they removed the chat... bringing all those people to steemit ;)
also reduced FUD and fomenting FOMO
For anyone who hasnt heard of Mt gox, it was first a trading platform for "magic the gathering" then turned into the by far largest bitcoin exchange. 850.000 Bitcoin got lost in 2014. After that mtgox announced to be insolvent.
People don't learn.
Totally starting to feel too much like like Mt. Gox. I just did a story on the odd margin trading bug I found today when closing my short positions:
https://steemit.com/poloniex/@cryptoblast/poloniex-found-a-bug-i-m-out
This is all starting to feel a bit too familiar. I hesitate to use the word Mt. Gox, but it feels quite similar right now. Confirmed bugs and long support lines give me no confidence in a very complex multi-currency exchange. Can anyone really trust them to manage that many wallets with high confidence? What about this odd margin issue? if my account has "phantom positions," how many other accounts have them as well?
I never use poloniex before, but my friend said it was good. And then this problem occure and people have their sbd pending. Its like they are not ready when this huge transaction came overnight. They should be more professional.
To have such a problem could make more people to switch to bittrex or blocktrades.
I wish bittrex and blocktrades wont have the same problem.
Or maybe you have another sugesstion where to trade?
Bittrex is best right now. Shapeshift and Blocktrades are good if you don't want to make an account and are willing to pay a higher price for convenience.
I switched to bittrex too
but I was always happy with polo experience wise
unfortunately .. many issues have been written about them so I made a switch
I feel the exact same way. The UI feels way better on polo but I also moved everything to bittrex. When I saw that my steem was locked up only till a few days ago. That was enough of a red flag for me to switch. I am thinking about signing up monthly with Coinigy as their UI is really nice.
the thing is that.... when an exchange becomes the top 1 it also becomes the most likely to be targeted.... same thing happened at mtgox... same thing with bitfinex now with poloniex... they will always target the top exchanges... it's either governments attacking those sites or thieves....
Maybe but it doesn't excuse complacency, incompetence and outright negligence which have all been factors in exchange collapses. Also in some cases the theft was from within the exchange.
even bittrex has been showing issues for people, many people have been saying that their deposits arent showing up
Never heard about that... Even if they had some issues the support is awesome, just write them a quick message and you will get an answer after 24hr or if it´s very busy it might take 48hr usually not.
Try contacting support if that happens. Every exchange has problems. How they deal with them is more important.
my deposit from Polo to Bittrex does not show up in my Bittrex wallet even though Polo says it was completed. I have the hash and checked the blockchain to confirm it should be there. Is that something that the Bittrex folks could help on?
+1 for Bittrex. I kept buying smaller coins on Poloniex only to find out that withdrawal had been "temporarily disabled".....for weeks. And I wasn't buying them in small quantities. I stopped using Poloniex a month ago.
I too switched to Bittrex. I change between Bittrex and Shapeshift depending on how quick I need to change coins into other coins.
Polo made me sweat too much when Siacoin was in limbo.
Bittrex acutally worked pretty pretty well. One problem i had though . I was desperately looking for my btc balance. Turned out that i left the name of another cryptocurrency in a small searchbar on bittrex. Even after relogging i couldnt find any balances. The searchbar wasn't easy to detect :)). Took me good 20minutes
Is blocktrades the same type of exchange that Polo is? Does it have the same availability of coins that Bittrex and Polo offer? If it doesn't then it really isn't an option
Poloniex is a joke...My fellow steemian family, we should have a few platforms to trade on. Prices are always changing and also the fees change on each platform.
REMEMBER: "A penny saved is a penny earned"
Diversity is a good idea in many fields.
Yes sir! "Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.................." ;)
Damn I do love their lending platform though.
Buen post! De gran utilidad para mi. Gracias por la advertencia. Upvote y resteem
Thank you for the heads up, buddy.
I had a few ETC on there but withdrew it all about a week back. Poloniex are blaming the Steemit developers for their issues so I definitely don't want their dubious stances to filter down to other currencies. Too risky.
Bless, my friend! :)
Thanks!
I switched to Bittrex a month ago when people began noticing that trades were taking longer, and I noticed a few issues. So the problems with Polo have been longer than just the last few days.
I haven't looked back since. Bittrex has been completely solid and easy to use.
Yes I agree. Bittrex are better.
shame that the Bittrex interfase sucks, especially the charts
I have been surprised more ppl haven't left Poloniex, it seems like the issues are constant lately.
Yes me too.
I stopped using poloniex a week before they started Temporarily disabled on some altcoins. Personally this sent shivers down my spine because I remember similar incident not so long ago with some exchange marketplaces you've mentioned that collapsed. @thecryptofiend tganks for addressing this so new minnows can learn to stay away from this imminent danger.
Yes it has happened many times before exchanges collapse.
trying Bittrex for now..
Glad to hear you got away from polo. Bittrex still running smooth for me.....eight months and counting. No issues.
Yes I've not had any issues with them either in the last 3 or 4 years which is pretty impressive.
Poloniex is real scam. You heard of the stellar lumen giveaway two days ago?
So stellar was giving away free lumen to all bitcoin holders. Poloniex didnt let their customers claim the lumen and probably will keep them for themselves.
Did they do another one? Anyway there may be other reasons i.e. they don't have the time but it doesn't look good.
Red flag Poloniex, next Mt.Gox @thecryptofiend
I hope it doesn't but it seems to be a possibility!
My steem depo from before HF19 seems to be lost of frozen. What they are doing is manipulation of price. Their trading bots and sell walls making people panic sell so they can earn some huge $$$ on the rise. Fake corrections every single week.
Bittrex is much better if I have to pay fees already. But p/d scammers are gaining some influence on low volume coins there too.
What happened to ShapeShift? We should have a single Steem/SBD to BTC and ETH exchange.
Keep sending support tickets and hopefully they will eventually do something. There have always been questions of shady practices with price manipulation there (and on other exchanges) - it can't be prevented completely and we can't know for sure if they are colluding in them.
I'm actively using poloniex but I'm also considering getting everything off polo and move to another exchange. But I still don't get it. They're a multi-million dollar company so the least they can do is upgrade servers and hire more customer service staff right? Apparently not. I don't know if this is just plain greed or maybe they're just looking for an excuse to shut down and steal our money. I have no idea but it's getting worse everyday.
I don't think anyone really understands it.
multi million dollar company run by incompetent staff and management, i have repeatedly lost money on this exchange. i use bittrex too its much better, unfortunately i have storj stuck there right now. as they are having wallet issues. not sure if its storj or poloniex. although i know they are moving to tokens. And more concerned as to what they will do with our id if they ever did fail. best exchange will always be shapeshift 100% always have great customer service and will sort out any problems as they arise without hesitation.
Maybe in the future poloniex will not tradeSteem Dollar anymore, so they no longer accept deposit in the form of SBD
Why would they do that?
maybe
They'd do it to ruin a system where you can get cryptocurrency anonymously, is my guess.
I'm sure certain people would love to Steem be weakened, seeing as it's sort of a hive for anarchistic and non-traditional thought as well.
The Polo UI is great, but like you said their service is shit while they rake in the dough. They have had ample time to fix their problems, but haven't done anything. I'm in the process of moving my coins out of Polo and into other exchanges/wallets. Polo is bad news for crypto.
Exactly. Either they are incompetent , stingy or they don't care.
Probably all 3.
Lol. And they're cooperating with the government. They take your credentials for bigger transactions (level 2 account)
Problem is they get too big for their boots. lol :)
Well they have acted like this from the beginning.
I have stopped too a couple months ago. They have nothing better than bittrex if they upgrade their charts
True and if more people use Bittrex and ask for better charts I think they are likely to listen.
Never had a problem with Poloniex...yet!
Good article...good warning. I don't have enough tied into Poloniex to make a difference to anything though...unfortunately.
What exchanges would you recommend as being safe...or having a lasting business model?
I have several exchange accounts...but haven't had any issues with them yet. Kraken is slow as hell I know.
CEX.io seems very fast with customer support...but I still can't locate where a couple of their fees are coming from.
VirWox is terribly expensive and I wouldn't recommend it anyways.
Coinbase has been great to me so far.
That's all my personal exchange experience to date!
For altcoins Bittrex is best although the volume is lower than Polo.
@thecryptofiend If you place a sell oder in Bittrex for a coin, does the buy have to come from a Bittrex buyer or is it fulfilled across the entire demand regardless of exchange?
I would say use bittrex or shapeshift
Even I agree
Thank you!
I use poloniex and was wondering why? then started using bittrex .I found that bittrex platform is to complicating and by the time you find a trade you wish to trade, you are to frustrated to make another. So I went back to poloniex . However this week or when trades look more lucrative the cypto is disabled . SO I AM LOOKING FOR THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS ,a platform that is easy to work with and one that is more customer efficient, if you have one that has these properties please share it with me.
There isn't one.
Bitrex remains the best. That's where I do all my trading. Thanks for the warning.
You're welcome!
please don't hear like posts about poloniex because i love it and my money all of are in it, i am afraid that poloniex steal my money, make me hope to get things good and well with my favour exchange
I hope you are joking.
They can turn it around if they just listen. glad they got rid of that troll box. was probably lagging the site and always full of fud and hype comments.
I moved all my coins off of there months ago. Had an email from them about some new bug and I needed to change my password. Reminded me too much of Gox.
Yes they seem to be very badly run.
I converted to bittrex back when I started getting stove on here again. About two months ago. Glad I did.
I've stopped use Polo too.
Reason.. i was involved in BOTH insider scams of WRP/Ripple when the exchange froze and after 10 minutes when it all worked.. It was down 15% while "No one" had been able to trade.
I also saw in real time before that when a 100Btc sell order of Dash was eaten up part by part during a minute .....while the price went DOWN!!!!
Its more fishy things happening over there ....... i say they are scammers.
It is possible. They can pretty much do what they like.
There are a lot of unhappy people with poloniex. Thanks for sharing
Nice Post, I am also fedup with Poloneix, What is your alternative to it ... :)
bittrex
Was also thinking of the same ... :)
Bittrex is the best for altcoins right now but using any exchange is risky. They don't have the same value but if more people shift across and stop rewarding Poloniex for their poor service that will change.
Perhaps it is time to build a decentralized wallet for Steemit. Check out this guy who is already working on a decentralized wallet for Steemit: https://steemit.com/steem/@shubhamupadhyay/an-open-source-steemit-wallet-web-version
Is't what Jesta's Vessel do ?
You mean a stand alone wallet. That is interesting.
"Stand alone" is officially a part of the terms for the decentralized economy, so yes a standalone Steemit wallet that anyone could install on a flash drive, web server or computer.
I was thinking in start using Poloniex, until now... thanks for the advice! great post.
You're welcome!
What do you have to say about Coinbase / GDAX ?
Nothing - I stopped using them a long time ago. Have not really had the need.
Is there a service you would recommend for converting crypto - fiat or vice versa ?
Localbitcoins is the international one. The best service depends on your location though. For example in the UK/EU you can use Bittylicious to do this:
https://bittylicious.com/
I think it's hard to find a good exchange in US that works smoothly with bank accounts which forces us to stick with Coinbase even if their customer service is the shittiest out of all exchanges. I wish there was something like LocalBitcoins for Ether.
I think the biggest problem is the local AML/KYC regulations. We are luck in the UK but who knows how long it will be until the government here starts making new rules.
I hear a lot of bad things about Poloniex and people in limbo for a month or longer with their funds tied up. I personally have never had an issue but I don't think I will use them anymore after hearing all the horror stories .
Yes in fact I think one of the actual reasons for removing the Trollbox was to remove the people asking questions about why their withdrawal was still stuck after more than a week.
as I understood it, the delays were being experienced by people who had applied for higher tier levels to handle more money... verifiying these request takes time because the info( required for the KYC and AML regs) is processed manually... I seem to remember hearing that withdrawals would not be possible till the level up had been completed... I could be wrong.. I never levelled up, because my account is pretty small.. I have withdrawn small amounts recently with no problem and no delays...
Not true. I was already verified as were many other people who experienced the delays.
ok. good to know..
Now this looks scary as most of my coins are in poloniex and I hope they will do something to uplift the trust of clients. Now I will shift half of my coins to bittrex for sure.
I'm sure you already know but I'll state it for those who don't - don't use an exchange as a multi wallet. Only keep your trading coins on the exchange.
Yes I got my ledger now. Will shift my long term coins in ledger and keep some balance for trading.
Exchanges just kinda scare me period, but Poloniex much worse!
Bittrex so far has been solid for me.
Yes they seem to be the best overall for altcoins right now.
Best to stay clear, the poor communication is a great reason not to give this exchange your trust, steem or business. Cheers
Exactly.
Hmm, signed up on poloniex, but the site was so slow and after reading several bad reviews, i decided to put in a low amount of money.
When cryptos had sudden changes, the site was so slow i couldn't even buy/sell properly, so i just do not use it as often now.
But didn't know about the support problems etc.
Well now you know:)
Yep, I got away as well when the problems with the selling of steem arose. Plus, I can also attest to their bad customer service. Bittrex seems like a nice alternative, as well as Bitshares, although they aren't that liquid.
Yes liquidity is often the issue but as more people realise that there are alternatives it should improve.
Well I certainly hope they get their shit together fast.
I've seen many people complain and the STEEM deposits are in the range of about $60,000 - $70,000 so certainly that's a lot of money.
And of course as a reminder, nobody should ever put their coins on any exchange no matter how much they entrust it or believe it's safe. Always keep your coins in your own wallet.
Right on. Really like Exodus.
Yes exactly.
They own a huge amount of steem - failure will have repercussions.
They don't own it. It belongs to the people that use the exchange.
A poorly run business will fail eventually- could not have said it better.
I wish you a lovely day!
Thank you!
You're welcome! :)
Big thanks for the heads up for newbies. Getting trapped in a system that you barely understand, and then getting no support can turn a lot of people off to the crypto world. Maybe one day they will be the go-to exchange, or maybe they will die off. I think they will write their own destiny.
They have had so much time to change and seem to have done nothing.
Yup, it sure does look like they're on the brink of failure!
Great post @thecryptofiend and prescient warning to others.
I'm resteeming this.👌
Thank you!
You're welcome.
They literally have never answered a support ticket for me. They vary withdraw time from minutes to days or more with no explaination or warning at all. So much for closing the trollbox to improve customer service, lol. I'm 'trying' to sign up at Bittrex but at least they communicate.
The lack of any kind of reason or indeed communication for delays and the randomness of it all is most troubling.
That's a shame it was one of the few exchanges i had managed to get my head around. Time to look elsewhere.
Yes I think they have the best interface but it is not worth the hassle any more.
I can really relate to what your are stating about Poloniex. I have some not so good experiences with them as well. But I tried Bittrex, and as a day trader platform, I dont like it too much. Although screens are not that great at Polo, at Bittrex they are not good, or at least not how I like to trade. Also volumes at Bittrex are soo much lower, an d I like exchanges with volume. I did a trial with Coinomy, and independent trading platform with integrations with the major exchanges, including Poloniex. I really like what they offer as tools etc. Also they allow orders for which you may not have sufficient funds. It just dont process those orders, meaning you can set more stop/limits than your budget is and the first ones to trigger will be executed. I really love this, since I trade on breakouts and sometimes their are soo many coins on the breakout but some take still days. I like to be in a trade not longer than 24-48hrs. Anyway, long story short, I really have to check other trading exchanges as well, but for some reason I think I'm hanging out at Poloniex for the immediate future, maybe with Coinomy fronting it though. The later service cost around 20$/mnth with a mnth subscription. But you get some good stuff back for it. Trial account last for 1 mnth, plenty of time to get a feel for what they offer.
The problem is that if people keep avoiding Bittrex due to low volume then it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I don't care about the lower volume or the interface. I would rather support a business that cares.
I do agree with you. And I must say, when I had an issue logged with Bittrex yesterday, they responded in about 10 hours, and the issue was resolved in the mean time. Kudos for that!! So, I have still some funds at Bittrex, so I may start playing around with that on Bittrex. I do agree, Poloniex does very bad business and in worst case they take still several millions per month on feeds. I dont see those revenues back in a solid and good service. They have issues with volumes, they have issues in support, they have issues in informing their customers, they seem to have issues with everything, except taken the money from their users.
I had a pain in the butt with additional Bittrex ID verification, but they helped me out within a day.
Still need to look at some of the decentralized exchanges
Yes I think DEXs are the future.
I have red this intresting and informative post but how can we solved this issue. Please suggest solution if possible !
Upvoted and resteem your post.
Use other exchanges like Bittrex.
I heard about all the horror stories concerning poloniex. But there are just as many horror stories about Coinbase. I have yet to hear a bad story about Bitpay. As of right now, all my crypto stays in crypto but when I do decide to cash out, Bitpay may be the direction I go towards.
Never used Bitpay. Bittrex is better than Coinbase if you want to trade altcoins.
I just started out in the crypto world with Poloniex, nearly 100% of my investment is on my Poloniex account.
It's a minor amount (just 0.2 of a bitcoin and 0.5 of Ethereum) and I feel it will cost more to more it over to my bittrex account than i've actually gained so far.
I bought my first coins when the prices were high and then the market crashed so I'm not even in profit yet.
What would be your advice?
If it is all you have you shouldn't keep it on an exchange to be honest. It would make sense to move at least some of it onto your own wallets.