Consumer complaint received 2019-06-30
Product: Money transfer, virtual currency, or money service — Virtual currency
Issue: Unexpected or other fees — 
Company: Circle Internet Financial ()

On XX/XX/2019, I received an email ( attached ) from Poloniex ( the Company ) stating that because Poloniex suffered a loss of XXXX XXXX, they confiscated XXXX XXXX from my account. The email links to a blog post ( XXXX  : XXXX ) that explains how and why the loss happened, which is basically attributed to the Company 's poor judgement, ignorance and lack of proper risk assessment and management. It lists out steps or security measures that should have been in place but were not. It further says that the Company decided to socialize the loss amongst 0.4 % of their users/customers that happened to have invested XXXX with them on the day ( despite the loss event happening on XX/XX/2019 ) by cutting 16.202 % of their holdings. 
I immediately raised a support ticket with the Company but all I got back was a patronizing copy/paste reply few days later. The ticket content with the response is attached. 
The only Poloniex XXXX XXXX XXXX point that could be referred to this case states as follows : " When you lend Digital Assets to other Users, you risk the loss of an unpaid principal if the borrower defaults on a loan and liquidation of the borrowers Account fails to raise sufficient Digital Assets to cover the borrowers debt. Although Poloniex takes several precautions to prevent borrowing Users from defaulting on loans, the high volatility and substantial risk of illiquidity in markets means that Poloniex can not make any guarantees to any Users using the Services against default. '' ( full XXXX XXXX XXXX available here : XXXX XXXX XXXX/ ) However, this is not what happened. 
1. I find it near impossible that 16.202 % of my assets were borrowed to invest in an unknown XXXX asset that subsequently crashed by 80 % or so. If this indeed happened, it looks like a well-engineered attack on Poloniex exploiting their negligence in securing lent assets and the losses arising from it should by no means be shifted to the customers. 
2. Poloniex explained the loss in their email as follows : " All XXXX loans on Poloniex are lent in a common pool that is shared across all markets and borrowers. Today, we recognized the generalized loss across lenders in the XXXX margin lending pool. As a result, the principal of all active XXXX loans as of XXXX XXXX today has been reduced by 16.202 %. '' So this means that it's not my borrowers who defaulted. It also means that I don't lend my assets to other users. It means I lend my assets to Poloniex. Poloniex then repackages them into some " common pool '' and lends them further out. The tracibility of my lent assets end with the Poloniex " common pool '' and not with another user. If I'm wrong, I ask Poloniex to show which user borrowed my XXXX to buy XXXX and also provide full report of the related transaction details. 
Poloniex since refunded 10 % of the confiscated assets on XX/XX/2019. Their remaining debt in relation to me is XXXX XXXX, which at the current exchange rate equals to roughly {$160000.00}. 
This issue is further described in a number of articles, for example : XXXX  : XXXX https : XXXX/ XXXX : XXXX XXXX  : XXXX XXXX : XXXX XXXX   : XXXX In most of them if not all, the stand is that what Poloniex has done is illegal.