Poloniex Wallet is Back Online, and I got my 3,000 STEEM!

About two months ago I posted how my dumb mistake may cost me 3,000 STEEM. Today, I got my STEEM back, minus a minor withdrawal fee.

Over 50 days ago, I opened a support ticket. I waited. I pinged the ticket a few times. I asked about my ticket every few days in the now-gone trollbox. You can see the helpdesk conversation here:

And then, finally...

Appologies are great, but how about an explanation?

I have to wonder, did this tweet finally get me some attention?

I was searching around on Twitter and elsewhere to find any Polo employees who actually respond to tweets and found MickD whose Twitter profile describes him as CXO @Poloniex - UX & IxD Strategy. That tweet was sent on the 28th and the very next day on the 29th my support ticket got a reply.

Coincidence? Maybe.

As soon as I saw the STEEM in my Poloniex account, I wanted to tell you all about it, but I decided to wait until they re-enabled the wallet so I could get everything off of there completely.

I can't tell you how happy I was today to see this browser notification:

And my wallet balance update:

So why am I writing about this? Mostly to say thank you to all those who have been asking me about this over the past two months. In addition, I want to reiterate how important the first rule of cryptocurrency is:

Control Your Own Private Keys

When you send money to an exchange, you no longer own it. You are at their mercy. This is another reason I'm such a big fan of BitShares and OpenLedger. Decentralized wallets are the future, but that future will only get here if we stop using centralized exchanges.

The second reason for writing this is to reinforce an important principle.

We, the customers, have all the control in a market-driven system if, and only if, we take that power and use it.

That's why I won't be using Poloniex any more, and I hope you don't either. They went almost two months without responding to my customer support request which is unacceptable. I'm not the only one to experience this from Poloniex.

I run my own business, and I can't imagine treating users this way. We don't need government regulations or someone to use threats of force to make Poloniex behave. What we need to do is ignore them. Use other exchanges and decrease their profits, something they will have to listen to or go out of business.

This is the part we usually mess up. We get greedy. We take on risk in spite of our principles. We think we're making a rational choice because of lower fees or more liquidity or some other reason which may mean more profits for us. We have to stop and factor in our long-term goals.

True rationality considers the importance of timescale. How long will we put up with companies like MtGox and Poloniex who clearly demonstrate a disregard for the value of their customers? If that's not part of the long-term vision for what this space should look like, then we need to start making changes now.

If possible, do your trading on a decentralized exchange and don't give your business to an exchange which doesn't value you. That's how we can help create the future of cryptocurrency we all want to see.

_{Created with ChainBB to help support that project.}

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Luke Stokes is a father, husband, business owner, programmer, and voluntaryist who wants to help create a world we all want to live in. Visit UnderstandingBlockchainFreedom.com

_{I'm a Witness! Please vote for @lukestokes.mhth}