Dream "exit scams" every other day according to the users of this sub, but it feels like its time has come and they are running with the money.
Why? Let's list some facts and discuss:
- Regular downtime for "maintenance" recently
- Lots of accounts potentially being locked out or deposits/withdrawals not being credited (may not be fact, just based on the amount of posts regarding this)
- "Hardware failure"
- All vendor bonds gone and will be repaid from commission
They have never undergone so much downtime like this in their ~4 years of running and never had such regular "maintenance", out of this maintenance what has changed? There hasn't been any site breaking bugs I'm aware of, no design changes other than the Support button being removed. Of course there could be a lot that has changed behind the scenes, but there hasn't been any new sort of features that would require this, not even multi-sig integration.
The accounts being locked out is a common theme in this sub, only a few "reputable" users have brought it up, it's been new accounts posting these claims more often than not, same for missing coin.
What did this hardware failure cause? Wiped out some wallets that weren't backed up? Deposit addresses are simply "middle-men" that redirect the coins to the main market hot wallet and once this occurs your account is credited with a static value in their database. This wouldn't be possible unless I am misunderstanding how their process works or if the hardware failure somehow only corrupted a single "balance" column or table (unlikely to be a table just for balances). It would HAVE to be a database issue for a balance to change, correct me if I am wrong. Even so, where are your backups? You've been running for such a long time and don't make regular backups? A user account I made shortly before this so-called hardware failure, still exists, it is perfectly accessible so why wasn't that affected?
This is the same thing for the vendor bonds, they would not be affected unless it was a database issue, but resorting to an older database backup would not only remove the newer balances, but it would also remove any new accounts, messages etc.
Think how many times Agora went down, they earned everyone's trust because they always came back without a scratch on them and after a short while it became the norm, no one would bat an eyelid because they instilled this trust. Dream going down so many times and re-appearing would have the same effect on people, then when it comes to their disappearing act, off they go and it will take a good few days before anyone takes the thought of an exit scam seriously.
I'm not saying this is the truth and there could be perfectly good explanations for all of this, but I really just can't see them. Just keep your eyes peeled and be careful, try not to keep any money on the market, which is a practice that should be the norm for people, but evidently isn't. What's not to say that this isn't an elaborate ploy as they start to steal the bulk of coins that will be ready to move whilst camouflaging within normal out-going transactions from the market.
Something else to think about, but not to be taken seriously because it is likely just FUD - the market may be compromized, they tried to make AB look like an exit scam and all these problems don't make any sense.
TL;DR Nightmare
edit: formatting
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