I wanted to write this article yesterday, but I was too upset to form the right words, so I slept on it for a night in order to give you a better overview of the processes that lead up to the Bitfinex Hack, and the recovery of Bitcoins market-cap.
I have several times spoken directly to Phillip G. Potter, the CSO of Bitfinex about their lack of competence, security issues and repeatedly told my followers to not trade on his exchange.
Phillip G. Potter and Bitfinex has on the other hand seemed desperate to get help, as they are "business-men" without competence when it comes to running an exchange, so there is that... and as I have said to him - The day your exchange is secure enough, I will trade there, not before - and of course - the day never came.
My trading-community did not lose any Bitcoins
On Stakepool Radio & Teamspeak we have one rule you must follow if you want to be a part of the largest virtual radio-studio on the Internet, and that is: Do Not Lose Money! - So when Bitfinex got hacked, and people lost money east and west - we could observe the whole thing from a safe distance, because we don´t risk our capital with shady businesses.
Bitfinex - a repeat offender!
Back in 2014 I became acquainted with Phillip Potter and had the opportunity to ask him a lot of questions about his exchange. In that conversation came out all kinds of answers from the horses mouth. He would regularly inform us about so called "institutional investors" coming in to buy Bitcoins during bull-markets, and then completely disappear during bear-markets except for those 12-18 times Bitfinex lagged so hard during volatility that investors lost money due to not being able to log in for several hours and in the mix get margin-called out of their positions.
I actually have nothing good to say about Bitfinex at all - and I believe the faith of the ones responsible for this lack of security will have to face some years behind bars
about a year ago, Phillip G. Potter admitted to trade on his own exchange which made us raise eyebrows all over the community, but still trading continued over there as if it was not a big deal.
Bitfinex is gone - I am buying more BitShares
Exchanges are not meant to be banks - and they all have potential security-risks - so always keep only what you want to trade there during a day, and not your entire net worth - spread your risk.
Ever heard of the decentralized exchanges called BitShares? - it was created by @dan larimer who also together with @ned scott created #steemit which also has an internal exchange that works in the same kind of way.
As more and more CENTRALIZED exchanges join the long list of GOX, it only make sense to invest in the projects that work for decentralization.
You can buy Bitshares here:
https://bittrex.com/Market/Index?MarketName=BTC-BTS
https://poloniex.com/exchange#btc_bts
And be part of the Bitshares community here:
https://bitshares.org/
Bitcoin will recover
Bitcoin at these prices is a great opportunity to get a lot of bitcoins cheap, and as you can clearly see on the chart - Bitcoin is recovering nicely and there is good money to be made trading in the volatility right now, which I personally do over at 1broker which has been in business since 2012, I love that place.