Operation: Bring Them Home - MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
It has been a very long time since I had full custody of all my Bitcoins. Well 99.9% of them.
Still waiting on a small amount to be reactivated at BitFinex, withdrawal frozen for 5 days due to activation of LN-Bitcoin. Will send this directly to my LN Node
And a small DCA amount at my local exchange (the bulk has come home read below) and yes there was a wee bit more than I should have had on there
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My problem started on 28th October, that really drummed the #NYKNYC home.
The local exchange I used here, been using their services since 2014. It had been 3 months since I had last logged in. I thought now would be a good time to setup some buy ladders and when I went to login, my account was locked out for some unknown reason.
Message was to contact support. Naturally I sent a support request and thought maybe I would get a reply in a few hours. A few hours went by, and not response, replied to the automated email, and waited and waited. Started to get a little worried. So I thought, Ill call them, only to find there isnt a phone number anymore. Remembered, I had an OTC Reps mobile number, rang it, and it was disconnected.
Alarms bells started going off! I googled and checked for any news about this exchange, there wasnt anything alarming, but I still wasnt happy with the lack of communications. I found their registered address and google street viewed them, only to find it was a mailing forwarding front. (Found out later it was to protect them. Due to scammers, they have been targets of death threats etc)
More hours spent trying to track employees and owners and their contact emails or phone numbers
no luck! I had names and emails (that bounced back, they must not allow external comms) but no active phone or mobile numbers
I finally got a reply to the support query, this was 5 mins before close of business Friday, saying they locked my account because of suspicious activities and to request a call from one of their KYC Support Team.
WTF?.. ok Ill play along, booked the next available time, 9:30am Monday, I waited and waited, no calls, no reply, no comms. Rebooked for 2pm and finally a call from a private number. Back and forth proving who I was and what I do, and I also made sure they were who they are and that we both were not trying to scam each other.
Found out they halted my account because I accidentally pressed on increase my deposit limit! They wanted to know why I wanted to increase my limit!.... and that they had locked it back in July, over three months ago! never bothered to contact me about it!..
Got back into my account and that was when Operation: Bring Them Home commenced!
Start generating new cold wallets. Logged and planned for the retrieval of all the outstanding SATs I had on of mining pools and exchanges I once traded my BCH/BTG and other shitty airdrops.
Then FTX happened!....
If it is one thing you get out of this whole FTX saga, I really hope it is #NYKNYC.
This must be ingrained in everyone Bitcoin Accumulation Strategy. BRING THEM HOME!
Moved everything to cold storage at the weekend :-) forgot about some mining dust but your post reminded me, thanks
