BTC-e Founder Free, But Customer Funds Still Locked Away

Alexander Vinnik, the founder of the BTC-e exchange, has returned home today after being released from a U.S. prison.

Some might not remember BTC-e today, but its historical significance shouldn't be overlooked. When CoinDesk made its first-ever attempt to establish a reliable source for the Bitcoin market rate in September 2013, it based its index on three exchanges - BTC-e, Bitstamp, and CampBX.

BTC-e operated as a London-based company with servers located in the United States. In 2017, Alexander Vinnik was arrested in Greece on money laundering charges. Around the same time, U.S. authorities seized BTC-e's servers, along with access to a substantial portion of customers' cryptocurrency holdings.

Vinnik's work in crypto services dates back to an era when few understood the potential risks that governments could pose to cryptocurrency projects. Many seem to have forgotten this lesson today. It's worth noting: while Alexander Vinnik has returned home, the cryptocurrency seized from his exchange never did.

Even the world's largest exchanges can be risky to use. This isn't just due to hackers (as with Mt. Gox) or poor management (as with FTX), but also because of government intervention. Authorities can seize the infrastructure exchange operators rely on to return your cryptocurrency at any moment.

If you need to exchange cryptocurrency, a more secure method is through rabbit.io. Here, you send cryptocurrency directly from your own wallet and receive it straight to your own wallet as well.