Tether, Bitfinex critic Bitfinex’ed banned from Twitter

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The anonymous critic known as Bitfinex’ed has received an account suspension from Twitter early Wednesday morning, following heated missives between the critic and its subject: Tether and Bitfinex.

However, an update from Bloomberg cites a Twitter spokesperson stating that the suspension was a mistake, with the account restored some 12 hours after it was banned.

While the suspension was active, Bitfinex’ed told The Next Web that Twitter had yet to provide further clarification on the matter, noting that the social media platform only provided a standard link to a page listing reasons for suspensions and what to do in such cases. During the suspension, the long-time critic’s Medium page remained unaffected, with all the writings alleging Bitfinex and Tether of fraudulent activities available for public scrutiny. Coingeek.com has previously published an editorial regarding a pump conspiracy involving the two companies.

Following reports that Tether, working with Bitfinex, has artificially propped up the cryptocurrency market to its record highs late last year by divesting digital tokens out of nowhere, the suspension of Bitfinex’ed’s Twitter account is possibly indicative of a tactical response from the companies in question. In December 2017, Bitfinex was reported to have stepped in with legal muscle by hiring a law firm to mount a defense against its critics.

Once its Twitter account was restored, Bitfinex’ed supported claims that other Twitter accounts critical of Tether and Bitfinex also received suspensions, saying that these were systematic attacks meant to silence critics.

In a Reddit post, a user whose name is a reference to a 1957 novel claimed to be Bitfinex’ed and said: “After Failing to spam my Twitter with 400,000 fake followers, Bitfinex hires bots to mass-report my tweets and accounts.” The post received mixed reactions, with some users claiming that it was them who instigated the suspension as they would like to see the critic become “bitrekt’d” and “stfu.” Other commenters believed the suspension might have been the result of a subpoena filed to Bitfinex and Tether by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Tether, which now prints Euro tokens aside from USDT, has announced that it has been undergoing external auditing from a New York-based firm. Weeks later, both Tether and Bitfinex were revealed to have severed ties with the auditor, Friedman LLP. The two companies issued a press release citing that with the previous relationship, “an audit would be unattainable in a reasonable time frame.” Tether added that because they were the first company in the cryptocurrency space to “undergo this process and pursue this level of transparency,” there was no other precedent to serve as reference or clarify the extent of its veracity.

The debacle with Tether and Bitfinex continues to unfold, and the cryptocurrency community is shaken with the revelations, while some hodl on with disbelief, given the issue’s potential threat to all cryptocurrencies. With the traditional banking and financial world forming roadblocks to cryptocurrency adoption, Bitfinex’ed’s suspension comes as another divisive event in the brief history of crypto.

Amid this tumult, those in the Bitcoin Cash community remain steadfast with a practical logic to avoid fraud: don’t buy something merely as a digital asset or store of value. Utility is key, keeping funds flowing, usable, and shareable to empower people around the world with peer-to-peer electronic cash—this is where the real value remains.