So in case people were unaware, about a week ago TheBomber9 the owner of Bitgrail. Violated his own TOS & instituted mandatory verification (KYC) without any prior notice, disabling any withdrawals from the exchange. This was after weeks of disabled withdrawals due to maintenance, so people's XRB has been stuck on this exchange for over a month.
Today he announced that he will be closing all non-EU accounts & liquidating their assets into BTC before sending it out. This caused a massive drop in the price of XRB (over 50%) & a huge increase in the price of BTC on the exchange. Bomber9 also just happened to announce this right before the Binance listing (which is supposed to be happening soon).
Now, Bitgrail is a dedicated XRB exchange & the vast majority of the assets on Bitgrail are in Raiblocks. According to the exchange wallet he has around 6 million XRB, with over half of that likely being from non-EU users, there is not even close to enough BTC on the exchange to pay for all the XRB at market price.
So this begs the question, why wouldn't he just allow people to withdraw in XRB? It would be by far the easiest option. The only explanations are:
He's forcing BTC withdraws so he can sell his BTC for a massive premium & buy up tons of XRB cheap right before the Binance listing. Making millions. (by far the most likely explanation.)
He wants to force one last trade to make money on trade fees & BTC withdrawal fees (XRB withdrawal is free).
He wants to skim BTC off of people who had their accounts forcefully liquidated into BTC (since he can choose whatever price he wants for your XRB).
He has effectively destroyed his exchange with his actions & I think it's unlikely he's just a moron. It's far more likely he sees the writing on the wall with his exchange (with the Binance listing coming) and he wants to pull a pseudo-legal exit scam (not sure if this is illegal under Italian law).
Now I have my life savings in XRB on Bitgrail (seemed like a good idea at the time) & I basically just lost half of it because of this guy. Now I understood the risk of getting into Crypto & I've accepted what's happened. All I can ask is that there be some justice for me & the other people he's screwed.
I don't know what the laws are like in Italy but in America a violation of TOS is grounds for a lawsuit & most types of market manipulation are illegal. If someone could contact the proper authorities & let them know about the situation, I'd really appreciate it. I don't expect anything to come of it but I'd appreciate it if someone could at least try & get some justice for us.
Edit: I'm aware how stupid it was to go all in on XRB on Bitgrail, no one realizes that more than me lol. Not looking for sympathy my mistakes are my own, just wanted to illustrate how fucked up the situation is.
Edit: Bomber's Statement
Edit: Apparently, he has also doubled the withdrawal fee of BTC from 0.001 BTC to 0.002 BTC.