Time to start hoarding beans for the zombie apocalypse or is this just the cost of doing business with a centralized exchange?

Let's run through a few of the possibilities of what may be going on here, point fingers, and yell in the comments because we can.

Here's the rundown of what started this:

2 days ago BITTREX released a slap in the face to crypto traders and the millions of dollars in their wallets by stating that they are going to "delist" 4 coins on October 13. But it's one in particular that has the community releasing a collective WTF?

Here's the list

BTC-BTA (BATA)

BTA with a market cap of over 4 million to under 2 million after the news.

BTC - BTS (BitShares - the big one!)

BTS seeing a drop to around 150 million market cap (from almost a billion in June)
STEEM user @rahulbasu posting a great commentary on this here: https://steemit.com/steemit/@rahulbasu/bittrex-delisting-bitshares

BTC - DAR (DARCUS)

Also saw a drop from around a 5 million dollar market cap to 2 million

BTC - DT TOKEN (DRACO)

DT Token taking a drop from around a million market cap to around 400K

Needless to say reaction has been very strong and unhappy and reasonably so as some have lost thousands if not more - in addition to worry that more is to come.

So why? Well no one really knows yet.

Here is what BITTREX lists as a conditions for delisting: (and I am referring to the bitshares delist on this )

Policy here >> https://support.bittrex.com/hc/en-us/articles/202583874-Bittrex-Market-Removal-Policy

Markets with less than 0.5 BTC (or equivalent) of average daily volume over a 7 day period and have been on Bittrex for 4 weeks or more. ~(Not likely)

Markets that consistency dip below the minimum volume requirement. ~(Har I say. Nope)

Markets with 0 daily volume. ~( Nope)

Markets with low liquidity. Less that 15 BTC on the Buy side of the order book for Bitcoin markets. ~(Negative ghost rider)

Coins with no developer support or public developments. ~(maaaaaaybe, but its not like BITTREX didn't know any of this before listing it. Plus Bitshares is well known and appears to be in good shape)

Coins without working blockchains. ~(nope)

Coins which do not adhere to their target block times. ~(again maaaaaaaybe but that data is not exactly easy to get)

Coins with weak blockchain security. e.g. Low hash rates which can be exploited. ~(this could maybe possibly be an issue but the issue would be the bitshares exchange not the coin which if its listed on BITREX should be fine?)

Coins which violate our policies. ~(also could be something here but not information anyone has heard yet)

Coins which have compliance issues. ~(this is the one that might be it. Why? Who knows really SEC?)

So that doesn't explain anything. What about the FAQ?

Q] Bittrex, why do you hate my coin?

A] We don't. We added your coin because we thought it met one of our criteria. It is very likely that your coin has been pulling low volume for awhile and we kept it on the market (some coins for 6 months or more) at a loss to ourselves because we wanted to see it grow. Give us a reason to keep the coin and we will very likely keep it. ~(aaaaand nope that's not it)

Q] How do I prevent my coin from being delisted or getting the warning?

A] This is easy.

a) Never drop below the minimum volume threshold (see more about that in the answers below)

b1) If you are on the development team or foundation of a blockchain, tell us about what is happening with it. Be proactive. We love to know that the risks we took in adding you to the exchange were worth it.

b2) If you are a token holder or generally are a fan of a specific token, let us know. But don't spam.

c) Never let us get surprised by a fork or any other disruption of your blockchain and please be responsive to our requests for support. In general, support tickets from our users is the primary expense for any given blockchain.

We realize that the potential delisting of a coin elicits an emotional reaction. And it's unfortunate that with most coin developers, we only hear from you when the delisting notice comes up. Please don't make that the case. ~ (this goes back to the possibility of a dev issue. But again, this was known before it was listed unless something changed.)

Q] Why are some coins up for delisting but others aren't?

A] We provide exceptions for new coins just launched on the exchange, assets on secure blockchains and when there are good reasons to keep it. That last is at our discretion but in the past has included things like the developer recovering from a personal tragedy or a market losing volume because it was disabled while the development team fixed a fork. ~(nerp)

Well. SH**!

Say what you will about the centralized vs decentralized argument but BITTREX is a stable platform, easy to use, and a lot of work has gone into making it work. That being said it could be argued that the goal of crypto is to have a decentralized exchange all together like bitshares.

This goes 2 ways at the moment. (I'm going somewhere with this I swear)

Centralized Vs Decentralized ~(a topic for another day but a bit relevant in this case perhaps)

You give up some freedoms to work with a centralized exchange but you get a more streamlined process. Most of you are proficient in a number of truly remarkable things when it comes to this space but the vast majority of traders have NO idea what they are doing and the thought of figuring out a decentralized (let alone knowing what that means) is intimidating and off putting to the point of just not entering.

A place like BITTREX provides quick access to this awesome new world with a minimum of headache and stress. To be blunt, they are easy.

With this comes a bullseye. From hacking to regulation. Look no further than Coinbase's fees and some of the major exchanges that have had big big issues in the past to see that.

But when you get a large portion of society trading on these exchanges you get the good AND the bad. There are people out here that set up scam ICO's, that have shi** systems in place, that are cons, that just generally are going to fail either on purpose or by gross mis management.

This is where the SEC has just recently involved themselves over scam ICO's and MAY have this week stepped in. Maybe. Just
sayin' maybe.

It is always a challenge to find this perfect utopia middle ground in this world. Crypto wants decentralization but at the same time it needs some kind of just the opposite at times. And I personally am glad that the SEC did what it did for those ICO's, they were dangerous and people could have lost more money, and it is likely that more is to come.

The issue is wether we are facing a new round of scrutiny (namely what is considered a security and what is not). As I understand it, a security would be the pair,. example BTC-DAR is a security but BTC is a coin. It gets weird and if anyone wants to flesh that out please do. But the SEC has an interest in protecting the users as well as enforcing its laws.

But then again the SEC isn't enforcement for the whole planet and crypto isn't just in the states, so maybe this is the wrong tree entirely?

Did they want to whack the competition?

Possible. Sure. Likely? Fuuuugeedabooutit..

BITTREX may have had a change of mind sure its possible, but then why list it in the first place? And why now take action?

BITTREX makes money on trades so why remove something that is making them money?

Here is what they say on fees:

Trades - All trades are charged .25% of the profits of the trade. This is calculated by taking the (amount * purchase price * .0025). Any portion of an order that has not execute, will be refunded fully upon the cancellation of the order.

Deposits - There are no fees for deposits. Please be aware that some coins require us to move your funds to another address before we credit them. This means the coins network will charge you the normal transaction fee for this send. This is not something we can avoid.

Withdraws - Our intention is to not make any profits on withdraws. However, each coin has a network transfer fee that is built into the coin. This means that we must charge a small amount to cover this fee. You can view the fee for a coin by clicking the - next to the coin to bring up the withdraw window which shows the fee.

Well sh** again! This makes no sense too.

Now what? Panic? No.

It is likely that more changes, some positive and some not so much, will be coming down the pipe as we finish the year and in to next but the fact that we are able to do the amazing things that we can right now is a testament to the ingenuity and passion that this community has.

It is REAL REALY easy to freak out, especially when it involves your money but we all know the risks in doing this and sometimes you're the pigeon and sometimes you're the statue and this week was the latter.

We blame and we yell because we don't know what else to do and that's understandable but at the same time stops us from moving forward and making smart choices when these are the times we need the most clarity of thought.

Is it possible that this was just a RAM or server issue with BitShares - sure
Could it have been a nefarious reason meant to do some nefarious..ness. sure.

The point is. This is risky. And YOU have to take precautions to ensure that YOUR money is protected.

We are past blaming institutions for our problems when the sh** hits the fan, that is why bitcoin happened in the first place. But at the same time we have to understand that there are things out of our control. On one side are people trying to cheat us and steal from us, and on the other side there are laws in place that at the core are there to protect us. We have to be aware of the laws as well as the dangers and take steps to make sure we are careful.

I am terribly sorry for those of you that have lost money this week and I hope that you find a way to reverse the course. For the rest of you that were on the side line on this one be WARNED. There is most likely more regulation coming and more spammers and theft coming but it is up to all of us to help each other through blogging, videos, and forum conversations, to BE POSITIVE, be honest, and do the right things because there is a genuine possibility that this shi** could go cray for us all.

Long story short. I have no fu*****g idea what happened but it wont be the last time we get rocked so be careful and play cautiously ...but KEEP PLAYING!

Comment, reply, yell, call me a twat. Whatever it takes. Maybe one of you can make sense of this better than I. In the end every little but can help.