Behind Coinbase and Kraken, Bittrex is a popular cryptocurrency exchange in the United States. As such, Bittrex helps bear the brunt of the load for the incredible onboarding of American customers that have entered the crypto space over the past few years.
The hyper-growth that's hitting these exchanges has led to sizable user bases that are hard to handle in such a short window of time. Or that's the front-facing narrative, at least
And as the old saying goes, when it rains, it pours. Bittrex is finding that out that the hard way as its problems currently compound. We'll walk you through the conundrum.
Generally unresponsive
In recent days, Bittrex has apparently had its hands so full that it hasn't been able to have much, if any, PR (“public relations”) going.
Consider the exchange's social media accounts, for example.
The Bittrex Facebook page hasn't been active for weeks, and the Bittrex Twitter account hasn't tweeted since last month.
This kind of missing-in-action dynamic would be understandable if the exchange experienced a massive, catastrophic hack and was picking up the pieces in the aftermath. But as far as anyone can tell, nothing of the sort has happened.
Accordingly, users are frustrated that a major U.S. exchange can't dedicate at least one employee to curating the company's online presence. It's not a good look for any company to go dark online.
Bittrex ID problems?
On December 5th, Bittrex released a bulletin explaining how they're going to need their customers to become more “literate” with the exchange's identification verification process.
Describing the need to ensure “our services are not used to launder money, support terrorism, commit fraud or other illegal activities,” Bittrex essentially asked customers to make an effort to stop mucking up the ID uploading process.
The exchange then asked for customers' help with some common problems, like:
- Creating multiple accounts for one entity
- Account name not matching ID name
- Unreadable IDs
- Non-Latin letters on IDs
- The redundant opening of multiple support tickets
Most can surely sympathize with Bittrex's position. Even still, though, some are complaining the exchange is blaming the community for its own design problems.
Withdrawal woes
#BittrexTrouble isn't trending for nothing, folks.
As it stands, Bittrex has previously allowed users to deposit funds into their exchange without needing any official ID verification to occur. That's made it a convenient and popular spot for crypto daytraders in recent weeks who have moved coins in to easily and quickly trade.
Looks like those days may be over for now.
That's because users are encountering increased withdrawal standards that have left some users with their crypto holdings locked on Bittrex. Are these holdings lost forever? Definitely not. But it's a hassle to be sure.
One user was surprised by having their withdrawal blocked:
“Last night I tried to withdraw and got this: ‘Unverified account withdraw limit has been reached. Please try again in 24 hours. To increase your limits, please verify your account.'”
And unfortunately that case is no outlier. Many traders have described experiences just like this one social media.
What gives?
There's no need for pitchforks just yet. Bittrex is being swamped under the explosion of user interest in cryptos. That's making them fall behind in PR and customer support.
Will this dynamic remain? Of course not. Bittrex will grow, and they'll hire more staff, and they'll eventually keep pace.
But they've watched their customer growth 10x since this summer. There's bound to be growing pains, and the community is feeling that right now. It sucks for everyone invovled. But things should get better.
And if they don't? The free market will do its magic, and users will migrate to other more competent exchanges. Bittrex certainly has a lot more credibility to expend before users abandon it in droves, though.
Featured Image via Fotolia
