Life After Binance
The previous months have been very difficult in terms of my crypto-activities. Since Binance decided to discontinue most of its Earning products from the UK residents as it was explained in my articles "The Binance Redemption" and the "Binance Redemption No2" due to regulation adoption of British financial laws, I found myself in that dark tunnel of uncertainty, struggling to find a decent reliable secure and dependable cryptoplatform with sustainable REAL staking opportunities for my idle anymore cryptofunds.
You name it; Okex, Huobi, Bitfinex, StormGain, Nexo, BitTrue, Blockchain.com, Bitcoin.com, Gate.io, CEX.io and although i might still keep small amounts to some of them, noone fulfilled 100% my needs for usability, reliability, security and the suitable EARN products to stake my cryptofunds there as they are all ranked as 2nd and even 3rd Tier CEXs. Even Kucoin promoted from Publishox as an earnings withdrawing option, i never sympathised its interface and my friend PVM wrote an article about that with title "Seven Reasons Why I Think Kucoin Will Always Be Second Tier Exchange".
A Forgotten Hope ?
Alas! Recently, As I have already mentioned in previous article "FIO Protocol Giveaway and Handle", I rediscovered relatively recently a forgotten micro-wallet that i had registered few years ago possibly through a cryptoGiveAway (common promotional practise anymore) during the great post-covid crypto hype. To be honest, I initially used it to withdraw there my PIVX tokens that were provided from Pipeflare faucet apart from Zcash. However, PIVX faucet had been discontinued from Pipeflare and it is now replaced from MATIC. Therefore, I left MyCointainer unused for several years earning a slight interest of my deposited PIVX funds because the interface was initially very unfriendly but also because i felt safe, comfortable and secure earning interest of my altcoin funds collected from faucets and drops on the Binance platform.
MyCointainer is an Estonian-based cryptowallet founded and directed by Bartosz Pozniak, an ambitious Estonian Computer Scientist and mathematician who according to his Linkedin Profile, worked for many years in the banking sector on Germany and london as an app user interface designer before putting all of his efforts into MyCointainer. And certainly MyCointainer can be well considered one interesting STAKING and COLD STAKING alternative to Binance EARN and STAKE products as it offered the deposit and staking of a wide variety of altcoins. The only drawback that it was initially noticed on MyCointainer was the high withdrawing fees and initially restricted me of depositing my altcoins there. However, after redesigning its user interface, the fact that it was an EU-based crypto-wallet regulated under the EU laws and it doesn't require so far any kind of KYC, it started to look more and more attractive in my mind as an alternative staking solution of my idle cryptofunds.
No rest for the wicked and without any further research, I decided slowly slowly to move a portion of my altcoin crpytofunds there to see how it goes. First it was a deposit of TRX followed by my FET funds. And then I decided to continue depositing several other altcoins such as my LTC, KAVA and my DASH. One of the reasons that pushed me into this decision was the fact that my funds send to the GROW wallet of okex have been stuck in "Pending" condition without producing any interest.
And then I decided to withdraw any faucet profits directly into the platform such as BNB and PIVX from FaucetCrypto, BTC from SimpleBits and few SOL provided as referral commissions. And I was hoping that in the longterm, the staking profits would overtake any future withdrawal fees. After all, i am a fanatic HODLER so I had no short-term plans of withdrawing my altcoins from there.
A Rotten GateWay to Paradise
Things were going well, I could finally see that my staking rewards from my altcoins were increasing after a long time of staying stable. Recently, I decided to grab a glimpse of my MyCointainer wallet checking mostly my BNB profits and deposits from FaucetCrypto when suddenly I realised that something was missing on the list. Where are my 1.38 DASH funds? I was really surprised to realise that my 1.38 DASH suddenly have disappeared from the platform. Have I been scammed ? I couldn't even find any DASH wallet there at all and then I decided to do an investigation using the CryptoID DASH Blockchain Explorer that registers all the DASH transactions on the blockchain. Following the route of the money with the help of the CryptoID DASH Blockchain Explorer, I found that indeed my 1.38069521 DASH have been deposited correctly on my MyCointainer wallet with address XnXHWco5iZnsPEPdUtg5gpoaFaF1rQr4pT on19th November 2023 from my okex wallet. Still it also appeared that, according to CryptoID DASH Blockchain Explorer, these 1.38 DASH have been somehow withdrawn on 16th January 2024 to an unknown address XdDpJau3GNbHLiZEvJs5yeqyp8xV523FDD ! Interestingly, I realised that the same address XdDpJau3GNbHLiZEvJs5yeqyp8xV523FDD has collected not only my funds shown down to the bottom of the list, but also several DASH funds from several other addresses within seconds or minutes of activity. Was it a huge leak or hack that occurred on the MyCointainer platform which was kept secret ? Because I don't remember at all withdrawing my DASH to any other destination and I had completely no reason to do so.
As you can see from the CryptoID DASH Blockchain Explorer, the address XdDpJau3GNbHLiZEvJs5yeqyp8xV523FDD has managed to collect in total the amount of 31.46821825 DASH worth approximately 879.85138227 USDT !!!!
Without further hesitation, I decided to contact the support team of MyCointainer to understand what has happened hoping that they could offer a compensation if a hacker had managed to gain access on the DASH funds that were kept in the platform or was it a technical issue of the platform.
Below I am presenting both the screenshots and the text from my correspondence with Dorm from MyCointainer about the situation here and I will let you to make up your own conclusions.
Dorm from MyCointainer:
Hi
I still see 1.38 DASH on your account. Please make sure to hard refresh your browser or clear cookies and cache and login again.
Let us know if it works out. Thanks
Feax21:
Hello Dorm
Thanks very much for the quick reply. I can't even see DASH in my wallet at all as you can see from the screenshots. The same happens in my wallet app as well. Also there is a clear transaction that somehow took place on 2024-01-16 16:34:51 hash 04fa8bf5d837e97a2fc672bbe34f2aae5b90c2edbb3d8a4e42d7fc5994d704e4 it seemed that someone has executed a number of DASH transactions withdrawing DASH funds from several wallets. My funds (1.38 DASH) are on the bottom of it with my myCointainer address XnXHWco5iZnsPEPdUtg5gpoaFaF1rQr4pT. Please check DASH Address "XdDpJau3GNbHLiZEvJs5yeqyp8xV523FDD" He has collected 31.4 DASH from various wallets and then he has withdrawn them somewhere else. And certainly, I haven't personally withdrew anything nowhere. https://chainz.cryptoid.info/dash/address.dws?XdDpJau3GNbHLiZEvJs5yeqyp8xV523FDD.htm
Dorm from MyCointainer :
Hi. Just realized DASH is part of the de-listed assets on MyCointainer about a month ago.
Feax21:
Hello Dorm. I am afraid I have never received any such notification from MyCointainer otherwise I would have removed them from the paltform. I have only received several notifications about the EARN network. How is it possible to recover my DASH funds ?
Dorm from MyCointainer:
The email notification was sent out to all holders and I can see from the server the mail was successfully delivered to your email address.
Also, we shared an article on the website regarding this exercise. https://company.mycointainer.com/assets-delisting-on-mycointainer-reminde
Feax21:
Good morning I have checked all the emails that were sent from you and I couldn't find anything about delisting. Is there any possibility to recover my 1.38069521 DASH funds? I have noticed that my PIVX funds are missing too and PIVX is also in the delisting list here https://company.mycointainer.com/assets-delisting-on-mycointainer-reminder/
Dorm from MyCointainer:
Unfortunately, all operations for de-listed coins have ceased.
Feax21:
According to the DASH scanner, you have collected all the funds in another address... Can you please help me recover my funds ? Best Regards
Dorm from MyCointainer:
Honestly, I can't make any promises since we do not provide services for these assets any longer. I've submitted this to our tech team for review. Let's wait for their response.
Dorm from MyCointainer:
From the server, all emails came to you successfully but you did not opened them.
Feax21:
Thank you very much for the reply, Dorm. I really hope that you can understand and sympathize with my situation here and honestly, I really appreciate your investigation and the fact that you are trying to find a solution with the Tech Team. I have searched all of my mailbox and I couldn't find anything. Still, I believe you that the server screenshot you have sent me is accurate. I am really sorry but honestly i can't remember any email about the Delisting of tokens. Certainly, if I knew about it, I would have withdrawn my funds on time. I was already in communication with one of your colleagues that period about a deposit that didn't go through from the sender, so I would have noticed any other email from you. And it seems from the DASH explorer that several other customers had their funds delisted and withdrawn as well. I am really sorry about this situation here no matter if it was a situation of miscommunication or not. We shouldn't focus on that but instead we should try to find a way to mitigate the situation. So, If the delisted funds aren't available for recovery anymore (in case you have exchanged them), I will suggest if you could provide me their USDT equivalent as a compensation. So, I am suggesting if you could enquiry the Tech Team to consider this option to find a solution to the situation here. I would be very grateful if we can work on a solution because I am very disappointed from what has happened. Honestly, I have nothing else to say but only hope that you would accept my suggestion as a middle solution. Best Regards
Dorm from MyCointainer: Honestly, we don't have access to these assets anymore as we closed all operations. From our tech team, there is nothing else we can do from this point. I'm sorry.
As it is obvious from the correspondence, Dorm initially tried to find a trivia solution to my problem that it was actually a glitch of the application and that I need to clean the cookies and the cache memory of my browser or app because he could clearly see my funds into my account. Yet, he quickly notified me that what actually happened is that they have sent an email to all MyCointainer users about a delisting of several altcoins and tokens from the platform including DASH and PIVX and that MyCointainer users have 72 hours according to their announcement to withdraw them from their platform. Honestly, I don't remember receiving and reading such email and I had no idea about the delisting at all. I have searched my mailbox several times, moved all the emails sent from MyCointainer to a separate folder, checked my Junk folder and my deleted folder even the ones that could have been recovered but I couldn't find anything. Even worse, Dorm explained me that all the funds have been seized and then he tried to blame me by providing proofs from the Tech Team that they have indeed sent me an email which I didn't even opened so it was my fault for not withdrawing my DASH funds on time. Even thought when I tried to offer a middle solution by providing an equivalent compensation on USDT he was completely absolute that my funds have been seized and there was nothing that they were willing to do apart from enjoying the windfall of 879 USDT after the collection of all DASH funds from the platform.
Someone might say yes they indeed seized your DASH and PIVX tokens but it was your responsibility to withdraw them before they have been delisted.
Correct, however I have never received such email and they did nothing to compensate my loss since they just collected all DASH coins on the platform on a single address before liquidate them. And I have received a similar email from Binance about a delisting that offers a compensation for the seized altcoins on USDT.
And what is the responsibility of MyCointainer and Support team in this case Dorm? Just to state a cynical apology like saying "Oh sorry but we decided to st0l3 aka seize your cryptofunds because that was our absolute and final decision and we don't want to compensate you." and wash his hands clean of this without offering any REAL and substantial support about the situation. Is this a fair practise of a legitimate limited company to its customers ? After all, since they could easily examine that whether the DASH funds are still on the wallet without being withdrawn, have they tried to send another email or pop-up message on the app notifying their customers for the delisting ? No. Instead, they waited few more days and then they seized the funds without any further notification.
What will happen if tomorrow a banking institution of the establishment make an announcement "You need to withdraw your FIAT money within 72 hours and if you don't do so we will seize them, because that's what we decided." At least my FIAT money in the custodial bank are meant to be guaranteed up to the amount of 100,000 GBP from FCA. For the crypto, there is no such guarantee and any custodial crypto insititution is free to seize your funds without compensation because simply that was their decision.
I would like to add here a review of MyCointainer from Mike A on TrustPilot that justifies my arguments.
Nevertheless, in any case, It wasn't my intention to abandon my DASH funds there if I knew that MyCointainer would have delist them when I was HODLing them in a "safe" place. Why should I leave them there? And Why should someone delist DASH at the first place ?
Furthermore what has happened to the 31.4 DASH worth over 879 USDT ? Who has them ? Who pocketed that money and why?
There are no answer on these questions.
Nevertheless, Ladies and Gentlemen this is how a legitimate "Getting Rich Quickly" scheme works. By seizing working people's cryptofunds without providing a compensation! You are free to follow MyCointainer's example. Also see my article "The Hoax of "Getting FIAT Rich Quickly" Schemes".
Fake Interest Rates for the Non-Subscribers
You can understand that the whole situation brought a huge discomfort and disappointment losing my 1.38 DASH cryptofunds that have been so hardly collected from my faucets activities for years and I have decided that I should start withdraw my tokens to another refuge the sooner as possible as the platform has already lost its reliability and credibility. Nobody can guarantees that they will send again in the future an email notification about delisting more altcoins and if I would miss reading it the funds will be seized again without taking responsibility of compensating their customers.
However there was another big surprise expecting my withdrawal on the corner when tried to withdraw my TRON funds from the platform And that was the hidden withdraw fees of 10.2 TRX on top of the network fees 9.95 TRX that has to be paid to execute the transaction. In total around 20.15 TRX !!!
Screenshot of my Withdrawals attempts on FET, TRON, LTC and BNB
According to MyCointainer Withdrawal fees blog updated again from Dorm from MyCointainer, the withdrawal fees are estimated as a percentage of the withdrawn funds plus a constant commission (COMMISSION FEES = WITHDRAWAL AMOUNT * PERCENTAGE % + CONSTANT), which means that the fees are proportional to the withdrawn funds i.e. the bigger the amount of withdrawn funds, the bigger the fees too. MyCointaner offers here as a choice to join their POWER subscription plan that removes any withdrawal fees and it cost around 7.90 Euros + VAT / month, which it might work well in the case of a whale who has managed to gather a huge interest profit and these 8 euros mean nothing in comparison to the profits earned.
Image Source: Dorm's Table of Withdrawal Fees
But lets try to make an analysis of the profit of micro-investor who has staked his cryptofunds in the platform and decides one day to withdraw them. In this case it's me and here is the screenshot of my funds on MyCointainer on 28/01/204 after the arbitrary, unethical and unfair seizure of my DASH and PIVX funds.
Screenshot of my Position on MyCointainer on 28/01/2024
Then I tried to calculate the WITHDRAWAL FEE for each token in my wallet according to Dorm's Table. Unfortunately the Dorm's table is completely inaccurate. First it provides information about Tokens that have been already seized such as HARMONY or even DASH, then there is no information for few coins such as FET. Finally, the commission percentage for TRON, LTC and BNB appears to be wrong according to my calculations on the Table 1 below taken into consideration my FINAL CAPITAL that includes any interest rewards up to 28/01/2024. On the Table 1 I have also added Dorm's example with ALGO which seems to be the only that works fine.
Table 1: Comparison of REAL COMMISION & WITHDRAWAL FEE according to Dorm's Table
It is obvious that the numbers are completely wrong in comparison to what i ACTUALLY received when i tried to withdraw my FINAL CAPITAL. For FET, there is no commission percentage or constant at all, for TRON, instead of 0.49% commission the only logical percentage is (6.04% + 4) or (0.49%+ 9.7). and the LTC and BNB commissions are significantly higher than the ones received.
Moreover, I have organised a spreadsheet that shows several calculations from the deposit of an initial Capital until the FINAL VALUE of a withdrawal for the 4 tokens that I am allowed to withdraw.
So initially we have the initial DEPOSIT, the interest REWARD as provided from the platform on a specific date and the FINAL CAPITAL = DEPOSIT + REWARD. And so far, numbers looks quite promising with 4.5 FETs and 0.76 TRXs rewards raising my initial DEPOSIT significantly.
Table 2: Estimation of FINAL CAPITAL
Then I calculated the TOTAL FEE = REAL COMMISION + NETWORK FEE
Dorm might state here that the REAL commission are wrong according to his table, but what the hell!!! this is what I received when I tried to withdraw my coins! So I use these numbers and not the ones estimated from Dorm's Table for the estimation of the TOTAL FEE of a withdrawal together with the NETWORK FEE according to Table 3 below.
Table 3: Estimation of TOTAL FEE
Then I have estimated the FINAL PROFIT = REWARD - TOTAL FEE, according to Table 4 to see if there is any actual profit or loss after trying to withdraw my funds. The results may surprise you...
Table 4: Estimation of FINAL PROFIT
Unfortunately the conclusion from the above Table 4 is that for all 4 tokens, the total fees either balances or outscores the interest REWARD provided from the platform. Yes, they do offer lucrative and attractive interest rates but the truth is that these interest rates are fake ! When you will try to withdraw your funds without using a subscription plan you will end up not only without a profit but also as in the case of TRON, LTC and BNB with an UNSTAINABLE LOSS !
And that has nothing to do with the amount of tokens. No matter how long you will keep your funds on the platform, and how much these funds will grow over time, while being on danger of being delisted and seized, the proportional TOTAL FEES will ALWAYS evaporate any possibility of profit!
Nevertheless, I have managed to withdraw my major FET, TRON, LTC and BNB funds from the platform, even at a loss. Whatever, I could save. I couldn't save my BTC, my KAVA and my SOL as the crypto dust amounts there are significantly low and I don't have the exchange possibility from the platform either. And I don't care if Dorm and his ambitious boss who is enjoying a luxury life on Dubai with my funds, will decide to seize my account and the rest of my funds just like they did with my DASH and PIVX altcoins.
TrustPilot Reviews
Better late than never, I also decided to check MyCointainer's reviews on TrustPilot which lately I find an extremely useful source of information about a company, especially the 1-star ratings. Personally, I never check the positive reviews of a website but I am always trying to see what complaints have arisen from its customers. Therefore, here are several 1-star ratings of MyCointainer which can be classified in 3 main categories, as follows:
1. Reviews from users (Erik S and H L) who have also experienced high hidden commission fees that balance the interest rates of the platform and sudden funds delisting and seizures of cryptofunds.
Screenshot of Reviews from customers
2. Some reviews from ex-employees (Alex Ermashev and Piliponful)
Screenshots of Reviews from ex employees
3. Some reviews about an incident with the Harmony token holders of the platform (Old Customer, Rita Povanni, Secure Shopping and Yaser Baninder). Interestingly the Support team tried to respond on the complaining reviews on TrustPilot expressing simply their apology about the lost HARMONY tokens, explaining that there is nothing to be done blaming again somebody else (Harmony) for the situation.
Screenshots of Reviews from customers about the HARMONY issue
I will let you make up your own conclusions about MyCointainer here from the reviews you have just read. Apologies for the small fonts but you can always zoon in on the screenshots or visit the reviews on TrustPilot.
Personal Thoughts
There are no further personal thoughts about the legitimacy of MyCointainer. Obviously, this is how all these custodian staking platforms work. You name them, CEX.io, Nexo, Stake.com, Celsius and now MyCointainer. They are all private limited companies liable to the establishment which means they have equipment to maintain, staff to pay their salaries, pension and health insurance, they have bills and tax to pay and they need to stay profitable to fund the bonuses of their CEOs. Who is paying for all these liabilities? But of course their only source of income, their customers. So next time a staking platform is offering attractive interest rates for depositing your cryptofunds, stay alerted and always remember "If an investment looks too good, probably it will SOON start smelling badly".
I know! In the past I tried to promote the platform as an alternative to Binance after the discontinue of the EARN products for the UK users ! And possibly I feel exposed to my previous recommendations and endorsements of the platform in my previous articles but I am here to admit my mistake and miscalculation and learn from it. Honestly my intention wasn't to provide bad information about MyCointainer on purpose to all of you, my readers and of course on this high-volatile crypto ecosystem life can bring to you huge surprises.
Please always remember that you need to "do your due diligence and research" before you join and invest your cryptofunds on a platform", and that advice includes first of all me, Feax21.
Unfortunately, there is huge disappointment from the situation here because MyCointainer appeared to be such a promising staking cryptowallet and my plan for 2024 was to use it as the main depositor of my faucet earnings and idle cryptofunds. Eventually, it proved that this plan will never work. And my intention on this article isn't just to throw mud on MyCointainer but I believe that I have strong arguments that MyCointainer has lost its credibility and reliability as a staking platform forever. At least for me. Of course, you are free to make your own conclusions. And once more after so many years in the cryptoworld, I feel robbed, scammed and trapped from MyCointainer unethical policies.
Unfortunately, unless you F.A.I.L. (First Attempt In Learning) you will never learn and according to Master Yoda, "The Greatest Teacher Failure Is".
The Story of King John's Royal Jewels
When King John of England faced the revolt of the barons even after the drafting of the Magna Carta, he campaigned on North East Anglia, moving his army from village to village between Lincoln and Bishop's Lynn (known today as King's Lynn) across the Wash Bay on an area known as the Fens of East Anglia, a tidal flat area full of swamps, mud and alluvium where 3 rivers Welland, Nene and Great Ouse meet with the North Sea.
Image Source: Map of the Fens & "The Wash" Bay
According to contemporary reports, on 12th October 1216, King John of England decided to travel from Spalding, Lincolnshire, to Bishop's Lynn, Norfolk, but was taken ill and decided to return. While he took the longer route off Wisbech he decided to sent his baggage train carrying His Majesty Royal belongings including the English Crown Jewels along a shorter route across the mouth of the Wash usable only at low tide. Unfortunately, the wagons carrying His Majesty belongings moved too slowly under the burden of their precious weight, their wheels started soon to sank fast in the soft mud, many of them failed to escape the incoming tide and were quickly sucked in by quicksand and whirlpools together with the Royal Jewels. Although, scholars cannot agree on whether the king's jewels were in the baggage train or not, the incident was said to have occurred somewhere near Sutton Bridge on the River Nene.
Image Source: King John losing his belongings on the tide
And this is how I actually feel for the past year like a modern King John who lost his Crown Jewels on the mud of the Fens, since Binance decided to follow the regulated way, disallowing UK users to use its Binance Earn products and earn interest from their funds. The more I move my cryptofunds from one crypto platform to another hoping to find a dependable and reliable staking refuge of my idle cryptofunds, the more my crypto belongings are being sucked in the mud of the crypto world, either nibbled from the subsequent network transaction fees or seized due to the unethical behaviour of rogue cryptoplatforms that I attempted to deposit them.
Image Source: The Loss of Royal Jewels from the tide
As a final plea, I would provide you my FaucetPay DASH address (XcnmxZoTU3pxqPWdqY3aeM5go2jXqS3Jmz) which you can use to donate me even few satoshi of DASH as a compensation of my loss. It took me more than 5 years to collect these 1.38 DASH and for MyCointainer it took only a moment to seize them. I have never requested something similar in my entire life but my only hope of recovering my DASH funds is to count on your generosity.
Please, always remember "If an investment looks too good, probably it smells badly", stay away of shady custodial CEXs and ETFs that promise attractive interest rates for your crypto-investments and prefer instead non-custodial wallets to HODL your Crypto. As Gary Gensler keeps saying all the time "Not your Keys, Not your Crypto".
DASH Address: XcnmxZoTU3pxqPWdqY3aeM5go2jXqS3Jmz
Note from FaucetPay:
Minimum Deposit: 0.00000100 DASH
Confirmations Required: 6
Please do not deposit invalid assets to this address. We are not responsible for lost funds.
We do not support deposits from smart contracts. A recovery fee will be charged for such transactions.
Disclaimer: All information found on this article is for informational purposes only. I do not provide any personal investment advice so please make your own research before proceeding to any investment/trading actions
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