WEX Cryptocurrency Exchange — What’s New On The Horizon
CryptoBit News Today3 min read
Wex, the cryptocurrency trading platform, has gone through dramatic changes since it was established in 2011. It began as BTC-e, Russia's oldest crypto exchange, that remained a top platform for the Russian-speaking community until July 2017. BTC-e went offline in July 2017 after its suspected co-owner, Alexander Vinnik, was arrested in Greece. Extradition was sought by the U.S., Russia, and France, with authorities alleging he laundered $4 billion through the platform, including cryptocurrency stolen in the Mt. Gox hack. After being offline for a couple of months, Wex relaunched under new ownership in mid-September 2017, keeping the old BTC-e interface and user accounts. But the new platform, based in Singapore, has denied any connections to the original BTC-e owners, Canton Business Corp of the Seychelles. As for the troubled past, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network fined the exchange $110 million and Vinnik $12 million back in 2017 for violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws.
BTC-e Origins and Scandal
New Ownership and Plans for Revival
Dmitry Havchenko, a former Ukrainian businessman who became a separatist fighter, reportedly acquired the exchange through his daughter Daria, its current registered owner. Regional authorities prevented Havchenko, who used the wartime call sign “Moryachok,” from registering the firm in his name, likely due to his role in the Donbass armed conflict. Havchenko is hoping to relocate Wex headquarters to Crimea, the autonomous republic that seceded from Ukraine to join the Russian Federation. "Our goal is to fight the domination of the dollar," he declared, and also promised to restore funds lost by Wex users. Havchenko also set a goal to recover the digital assets that vanished after BTC-e went offline, referred to as “Vinnik’s treasure.”
A Shaky Domain History
Wex has experienced repeated disruptions with its domain names. Following complaints, New Zealand's Domain Name Commission investigated registration inaccuracies and suspended several domains on 21 November 2018. It subsequently suspended several Wex-associated domains, including wex.nz, wexcoin.nz, and wxcoin.nz. The Commission's investigation revealed that registrants had provided fake contact details — grounds for the domain suspensions under the .nz Principles and Responsibilities policy. The authority urged affected parties to contact law enforcement about any suspected fraudulent or criminal activity. Since the domain name debacle, Wex has bounced around various web addresses. After directing users to the mirror wex.link on Twitter and switching addresses multiple times, the platform moved to wex1.in.
Locked Out: Users Face Mounting Woes
Wex has faced a wave of user complaints over frozen assets. In a puzzling move, Wex has locked wallet withdrawals citing necessary maintenance, yet keeps allowing new deposits to the site while the freeze is in place. Users have posted on online platforms after finding their support tickets ignored. On Twitter and an unofficial subreddit, numerous users reported that the platform took their money and failed to respond to support tickets. When Binance froze a batch of "Wex-associated" coin wallets, a shiver went through the crypto community. Former WEX customers had filed a complaint with Binance saying around $18 million in ETH had become inaccessible and was making its way to Binance's own wallet. Withdrawals have been restricted to only a handful of tokens, such as XMR and ZEC, which have low liquidity. The exchange is in doldrums, and mounting accusations of an outright scam are leading many to file complaints with Russian police. Users who lost funds created the website wex-scam.com and several Telegram channels to assist one another and share information.
