[Advice Story] 800.000 DOGE: When Cryptsy stole my moon ticket

[ihatecryptsy]

Hey guys,

i don't really use forums that much, but ever since i saw the latest Doge hype, i wanted to tell you my story on how an exchange stole my moon ticket. Let's hope that at least one person reading this will be saved from misery.

Chapter 1: New doge in town

Back in 2013 when the first "real" Bitcoin hype started, i was mesmerized. I soaked up every info on how blockchains work like Spongebob in a desert.
There were some ways to get into the crypto game, but it was obviously nothing compared to today. My first Bitcoin were bought on Second Life, no joke. I made an account on Vircurex, bought Linden Dollars via PayPal (this is the in-game currency), went to some weird Bitcoin ATM and got in with a small amount.

I was checking 4chan every once in a while, and stumbled on some posts about the Doge. The project seemed really fun, so i checked the forum regularly, tried out some faucets, and even started to mine them on my shitty laptop.

Getting into Dogecoin was also not as straight forward. As far as i remember there weren't even any exchanges that listed it. So the only way to get in was by buying directly from other forum users. (i think it was ~6$ per 10k).
Other people seemed to have struggled on how to get in as well, so i decided to be a middle man for a bit, selling them on ebay, and i even sold some to a guy at a train station once for cash who contacted me (no joke, that really happened. Times were rough back then )

I told my friends about Dogecoin, and tried to explain everything i have learned myself during that time. We hung out on Teamspeak a bunch and they also started to mine on their shitty laptops. Great success!

Chapter 2: The pack of doges grows

Things even went better, when the first marketing campaigns started. There was a goal now: Getting the jamaican bobsled team to the olympics by crowdfunding them. In case you are confused, then you might not have seen the movie Cool Runnings. There was even a design for the "dogesled" and people chipped in here and there.

Altogether over 20 million dogecoins were donated, and news sites picked up the kind hearted story quite quickly. It was the first mainstream crypto hype, and this story brought easy clicks. And since it was a very giving time in the community, people jumped in, and we loved it. I also donated some, i forgot how much it was.

Some time past, and the doge was here to stay. Me and my friends ramped up our stake, and we as a group reached almost one million Dogecoins. Not too shabby, but the first crypto hype slowly faded away from the mind of the public.

Due to the bobsled campaign, new crowdfunding projects were launched, despite declining value. The ones that got in for profit already exited, the ones that stayed did so for the giving nature of the coin.

I also pitched one of my ideas, which was to make a mod kit for a kids game called Looping Louie. (It's a game for 4 players. A pilot is rotating in the middle by a motor which would knock down coins of yours. You have to tap a lever at the right moment to prevent that, and to knock other people's coins off. It's awesome ) Me and a friend already made it more fun by adding an Arduino and some LEDs so we can randomly increase the speed.
The kit should have included a 3D printed Doge as the pilot and some stickers to turn your chicken coins into Dogecoins.
I made a small video recorded with a 3rd gen potato, and sent it to the forum.It never went past the idea proccess, but one awesome guy donated 50k Dogecoins for it.

Poggers.

Maybe i can add the video that i recorded for the pitch, if so desired.

Around that time, some more exchanges came up, and i wanted to see what else is out there. So i signed up for Cryptsy, which was quite a nice improvement for crypto trading. No more Second Life ATMs, cool Doge went pro now!
So i bought a few different cryptos as well, some BTC, some Litecoin, and Ixcoin (no hate pls).
Since it was quite a hassle to keep the Dogecoin Core wallet up to date, i decided to transfer my fund to my Cryptsy wallet as well. Everything was nice and easy.

But one day, the apocalypse started.

Chapter 3: Who flew with doges out! Woof woof!

People started to have issues withdrawing their coins from Cryptsy. This was not new, sometimes the withdrawal for certain coins was halted for a bit but they always came back.

Not this time. This time, the founder and CEO of Cryptsy, probably said to himself, "I like money. I go to China." So he transfered almost all crypto assets to private wallets, left his wife, and went dark.

People were freaking out. A lot of other cryptsy users, some of them balls deep into crypto, seemingly lost it all, because the comfort of an exchange wallet was worth it, or because their maret orders were still up. There are countless storys out there, a quick Google search would give you stuff to read for weeks.
Cryptsy did an exit heist, and around that time Mt.GOX did so as well. Nobody saw it coming, and the morale dropped from orbit to sub-terrain.

Turns ot that the CEO of Cryptsy bought a nice fat house (probably with our money) and left it to his wife before running off. He probably would have prefered to put it in his suitcase, but a mansion is not that easy to transport to China. I think it was worth around 1 Mio. $ or something. Not much, but hey, let's see how this plays out.

Chapter 4: The Boondoge Saints

Some people started to group, and we lawyered up.

Time for a class action lawsuit, maybe we can get back some of the losses. At that point, anything was better than the current state.So i booked myself a lawyer to figure out how to fill out the IRS form (i'm not from the US, no idea how that stuff works).

I also had to provide proof that i had funds on Cryptsy at that time. Luckily i still had some transaction confirmation emails which i gave to the lawfirm as well as my Dogecoin address.

I will summarize the entire legal battle a bit, i don't want to waste your time with details. (looking back, i might already done that but if you kept reading until here, i guess you are hooked now )

We won the lawsuit, the house was sold, and the money from the house, as well as the remaining crypto, went to our lawfirm that represented us. At that time, the crypto prices were down like crazy (that was late 2016 or early 2017), and the lawfirm sold all remaining crypto to provide cash for the claim pool.



Nobody knew at that time how much each person would get. Heck, we didn't even know how many we were. There was some extensive discussions in crypto forums to help each other out, and to give advice and updates so we don't feel overwhelmed. Maybe someone who reads this was also part of the Cryptsy misery, they will for sure know.

The checks with the share of the money didn't arrive for months, and boom, second crypto hype! BTC at 16k$.
Great! Our lawyer just sold all crypto that we had left. You can imagine how we felt, seeing another moon ride in front of us, the thief had our tickets, and the compensation might be a shitty postcard from space.

The check arrived. A whopping 70$. Amazing...I never cashed it in, but instead framed it and put it on a table in my room. This was pretty much all that was left, a lesson to not be naive when it comes to crypto.

There was a second lawsuit, this time against Coinbase, because they willfully paid him out his crypto or something. I didn't follow it that much, i was done with it. Since i was part in the first lawsuit, i didn't have to do anything and was automatically part in it.We won that as well, again 1 Mio. $ in the pool. No updates for almost a year.



Can't wait to get another 70$ check, i already have a picture frame ready. Won't cover the 180$ that i had to pay this one lawyer to help me fill out the IRS W-8 form though.

Chapter 4: Doge of wisdom

The worst thing about it was not that i lost some money, but that i lost the Dogecoins of my friends as well. I managed all of the group fund, but failed at that by not expecting that an exchange could just take it all and peace out.

I know that there are a lot of new people getting into crypto, and also many young people. Take a minute to reflect if this could happen to you as well.
I really mean it, take 60s of your time and think if there is something that could go wrong.
If so, take action now to save your ass later. I promise you, it will be a minute well spend.

Now, to sum up this story, here's my simple advice to you:

• Don't leave your crypto on exchange wallets.
• Make sure to always have a good risk assessment by staying informed and expecting the worst.
• When managing crypto funds of friends and family, be even more careful. Split up the fund into multiple wallets, and make sure you have access to them (a bit old school but paper wallets are not bad). Believe me, it's 10x worse to lose other peoples money then to lose your own.
• If shit went south, don't glue your eyes on to coinmarketcap. It's unhealthy. There is no benefit in doing so. It might take time to cope with the loss, but it gets better eventually.

Sorry, no happy end, but a lesson for life. I'm not typing this out for you to feel bad for me and the other Cryptsy veterans, i just want to raise awareness.

Yes, Dogecoin might be seen like a meme coin to you, but when you acted careless and Elon Musk upgrades Doge's rocket for a Mars mission, it's not a meme anymore.

I will go to bed now, this took longer than i've anticipated. If you currently sit on the trip to the moon, please keep up the intended purpose of the coin. We will occasionally look up from ground zero and howl at the moon, proud of our space bobsled.

Wow. Very rocket. Many space. So crypto.
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inb4, i made a burner account because privacy is king.

[pealr12]

Such a heart felt story and a lesson for sure to others, by now the value of your dogecoin would have appreciated a lot, with all you have invested (both money and time) only $70 came out from the first payment,  some exchange have a fraudulent behaviour while others are here to actually provide service, but the safest place to store your assets in your personal wallet where you have the private keys.