<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmUWB3bpDPgyYv746TPokxqeE3ickH9Tpj1F9BiqPvjQNW/S54-00th.jpg</p>
<p>Will we keep using the cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex when we do not know how much money Poloniex has?  Would we make more deposits if we could see the actual wallet balances for all the cryptocurrencies Poloniex makes available for trading?</p>
<p><em>https://steemitimages.com/DQmegkS5yX7BonWdG2K5BkMPHY1ssK6ptVxQ9QUxqEJXvAo/S54-01.jpg</em></p>
<p>Poloniex is currently one of the top altcoin exchanges by volume and appears to have the largest number of deposits in altcoins among any exchange.  As potential or actual customers, do we not have the right to know how much money they actually have it all their digital currency wallets compared to how much they are liable for on withdrawals?  With no official data, the best we can do is estimate.  The estimates here based on what we can see are shocking in terms of how many USD worth of digital currency Poloniex probably has.</p>
<h3><strong>How much money does Poloniex actually have?</strong></h3>
<p> <br />We start with looking at the volume, and then we compare that with what we can see on the cryptocurrencies which are easily transparent. On <em>Poloniex</em> in the last <em>24</em> hours there has been a total number of trades equaling <em>272 million dollars.</em></p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmQFFq4mJpjho89KaiWc3bTsy3KBVdgGhLuwrmgcEzBcfi/S54-02.jpg</p>
<p>That means <em>Poloniex</em> actually is holding all of that in one form or another. Now, some of these are repeatedly traded, but as I'm going to show you this volume is a good estimator on how much <em>Poloniex</em> has because this is the amount of cryptocurrency in value of <em>US dollars</em> that has changed hands. In order for it to change hands, <em>Poloniex</em> has to have both sides of it.</p>
<p>Now yes, people can trade multiple times so we're going to account for that in the total value. In other words, <em>272 million</em> has been traded. On the one side for example, a trade requires it to be on both sides. If I want to trade a <em>Bitcoin</em> for an <em>Etherium,</em> then <em>Poloniex</em> has to have the <em>Bitcoin</em> and the <em>Ethereum </em>in theory.</p>
<p>Now in practice whether they actually have it or not may be a little more interesting. Fortunately, we can actually see how much <em>Poloniex</em> has for one cryptocurrency in particular, which I think is the most undervalued and by far the best buy today. It is why I'm holding about <em>$60,000</em> of it right now, which is my entire retirement portfolio, and my checking and savings account.</p>
<p><em>Poloniex</em> has an account on <em>Steem.</em> This is one of the top currencies that's traded top <em>20</em> out of hundreds.</p>
<p><em>Poloniex</em> has <em>24 million Steem.</em></p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmc2HV7Cyh5zxAP6Yq4dV2erD9GNwBtSHMq6PbsUq28s6J/S54-03.jpg</p>
<p>They are sitting right now on <em>$32</em> million of <em>Steem</em> alone if you look at their account value and count the <em>Steem Backed Dollars</em>.</p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmTTcaRChzqSEtjrTKDy4ALh9CZkq5k76TbyQB64HftVhQ/S54-04.jpg</p>
<p>Now, it's not obvious, you can look at the exact wallet <em>Poloniex</em> has, but they can also have multiple wallets. Long story short, let's look at the total volume on <em>Poloniex.</em> Let's just find the <em>Steem</em> volume. Even though they have <em>$24 million</em> of <em>Steem,</em> the actual amount of <em>Steem </em>transacted was only <em>$728,000</em> in the last <em>24</em> hours.</p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmbvbKXUVDg83obBbFyUf9SpZx14146WEnuxCQNBJsS8W4/S54-05.jpg</p>
<p>Let's look at it from this point of view. I'm going to do different calculations to help us get an exact value using a couple of different methods.</p>
<h3><strong>First method</strong></h3>
<p> <br />I'm going to add every single <em>Steem</em> market that is available on <em>Poloniex.</em> I'm adding the total up right now and we have the total number: <em>900,000 </em>in <em>Steem</em> transactions. This is the volume in the last <em>24</em> hours on all the <em>Steem</em> markets.</p>
<p>Now we're going to divide that by the total amount of value in the <em>Poloniex</em> account. Therefore, the total amount of transactions, total amount of trading divided by the account value.</p>
<p>Now this is very easy to see that there's <em>$32 million</em> of <em>Steem</em> on <em>Poloniex.</em> <em>Steem</em> is right now not even in the top five currencies. It's actually <em>33</em> and they have <em>$32 million</em> of the <em>33rd</em> traded currency.</p>
<p>Now, how much must they have in total?</p>
<p>We're going to calculate.</p>
<p>We'll then divide <em>900,000</em> by <em>32,590,433.42</em>, which gives us approximately <em>3%</em> of the volume to holding ratio.</p>
<p>Now, I've calculated beforehand using a different method and the number <em>3%</em> is coming out significantly here.</p>
<p>What I've done, <em>32 million</em> is how much we know they have in <em>Steem.</em> It's all sitting in one <em>Steem</em> account.</p>
<p><em>"Man if you got a hold of that you could have some fun!"</em></p>
<p>We've got the total amount here relative to <em>Steem.</em></p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmcanKT3iZFXSfYNYho8FJDkYJ9sFY5XuVWXUogCkpnLhk/S54-06.jpg</p>
<p>Now what we can do we've got this percentage: <em>2.7%</em>.</p>
<p>This is the approximate percentage, but for <em>Steem </em>it's exact. This is the exact amount of <em>Steem</em> and <em>Steem Dollars</em> that <em>Poloniex</em> is actually holding compared to the total amount that was transacted.</p>
<p>We're going to divide <em>272,742,400</em> by <em>0.027,</em> which gives us <em>10,101,570,370.</em></p>
<p>That's the number I was looking for <em>$10 billion.</em></p>
<p>If the ratio of <em>Steem</em> is similar, <em>Poloniex </em>has about<em> $10 billion.</em> </p>
<h3><strong>Second method</strong></h3>
<p> <br />Now you could do this a different way.</p>
<p>You could say the ratio of <em>Steem</em> is perhaps low. What I'm going to do is show you another way you could estimate it. You can estimate it also perhaps by these sell orders.</p>
<p>You can look at the <em>Sell Orders</em> and see right now that there's about <em>2.5 million Steem</em> up.</p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmbtt7WThHiaj6SzUHngh6aDSEUbGeWVd4LNqZ3A8jWvtL/S54-07.jpg</p>
<p>Meanwhile, there's actually <em>10</em> times that much that's just being held on there.</p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmSu1tinKCUYRsH5S2yD7dDhtrisDuonxxXpABRoS1uN1Y/S54-08.jpg</p>
<p>In other words, if the <em>Sell Orders</em> are representative of the total balance, there's <em>10</em> times as much that people are holding and they're not even trying to sell.</p>
<p>What we could do in order to get some perspective is just to look at the <em>Bitcoin</em> and <em>Ethereum</em> market.</p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmd2eF6y4xzCsD5MxLGJrdn4Jz2SE43bx3hNvDAWonQbgP/S54-09.jpg</p>
<p>Let's look at the <em>Ethereum/Bitcoin</em> market. We can get a little estimate from here. What I just showed you on <em>Steem,</em> there was about <em>10 </em>times as much as active on the sellers. Again, not exactly perfect, but we can get estimates that are pretty close this way.</p>
<p>Right now, there are current <em>Sell Orders</em> for <em>100</em> thousand <em>Ethereum.</em></p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmeHhNSHQUJYVx8Kis12XfgvcdxTr3u7q8Y7zFHdWwbYjg/S54-10.jpg</p>
<p>We could say with confidence, it's probably at least, at a bare minimum, a million <em>Ethereum</em> right now on <em>Poloniex,</em> absolute bare minimum.</p>
<p>I'm saying there's at least, using the <em>Steem</em> numbers and if you want to go conservative, <em>3 billion</em> on <em>Poloniex</em> based on the actual numbers we've got here, though it's about <em>10 billion</em> that's sitting on <em>Poloniex.</em></p>
<p>If you do the same thing with <em>Ethereum,</em> and you say that there's <em>10</em> times the <em>Ethereum,</em> there are other <em>Ethereum </em>markets, but we're just going to keep this simple enough.</p>
<p>There's <em>1 million Ethereum</em> times current <em>Ethereum</em> price, which is <em>$250</em> today, and it equals to <em>256,750,00.</em></p>
<p>That means just in <em>Ethereum</em> alone, there's likely to be at least <em>$256 million</em> in <em>Ethereum</em>, but that doesn't accurately capture all these other <em>Ethereum</em> markets. That's just calculated through the <em>Bitcoin/Ethereum </em>market.</p>
<p>Very easily, if you consider the value of everything else, it gets up there. Just on this, there's a whole bunch of <em>Bitcoin</em> buy orders as well. There's very easily at least a quarter of a billion in <em>Ethereum </em>alone. You'd have to think that there's at least <em>a billion</em> or so in <em>Bitcoin,</em> and then there are so many coins on <em>Poloniex</em>.</p>
<p>You've got to think, if you look over and see that in one of the smaller currencies relative to the big ones, there are <em>32 million dollars</em> of <em>Steem</em> just sitting on <em>Poloniex.</em> You'd have to think something like <em>Ethereum </em>at a bare minimum, there'd be <em>10</em> or maybe <em>20</em> times that much <em>Ethereum, </em>and maybe a <em>100</em> times that much <em>Bitcoin.</em></p>
<p>Therefore, I suggest there is anywhere between at a bare minimum <em>a billion dollars</em> on <em>Poloniex,</em> I would say the closest estimate would be around <em>10 billion dollars</em> of cryptocurrencies on <em>Poloniex,</em> with a high end maybe being depending on the price when you see this, <em>20 plus billion dollars</em> on <em>Poloniex.</em> </p>
<h3><strong>What does this mean?</strong></h3>
<p> <br />When we've got this much money all put in one place like this, in my opinion this signals a risky situation. There are two simple tips you can use that you can follow out of this. Knowing how much money is on <em>Poloniex.</em></p>
<p><em>"I don't know if I know, Jerry, based on the numbers you gave."</em></p>
<p>There's anywhere between <em>1 billion</em> at the low-end and <em>20 billion</em> at the high-end, probably about <em>10 billion dollars</em> on<em> Poloniex.</em></p>
<p>Knowing this, that makes one of the number one hacking targets in the world, a very good hacking target. All you have to do is find one way and clean out a little bit.</p>
<p>At the same time, it also makes a very big target for things to go wrong. When I put my deposit, I so far have not had any issue with <em>Poloniex</em> other than delays. So far, my account has functioned smoothly. I will sell the rest of my <em>Ethereum</em> into <em>Steem</em> and make a withdrawal.</p>
<p>There are two basic strategies knowing this.</p>
<p>The one basic strategy is to at least put some of your money, withdraw some of it, and put it on another exchange. My favorite exchange right now is <a href="https://bittrex.com/"><em>Bittrex</em></a> because it works fast. The withdrawals are light speed.</p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmVqQfvkU2c3MXnsVc2XKh2WE3RFazNF3gtjuSWHWeX2Gx/S54-11.jpg</p>
<p>I can put <em>Ethereum</em> on <a href="https://bittrex.com/"><em>Bittrex</em></a> and have it in my <em>Steem</em> account. I can run it through <em>Bittrex</em> from <em>Ethereum</em> to <em>Steem</em> and have it all done in <em>20</em> or <em>30</em> minutes. Complete change and withdrawal, <em>Bittrex</em> is incredibly fast. I suggest if you've got a bunch on <em>Poloniex,</em> split it up, especially if you've never made a withdrawal.</p>
<p>Try making withdrawals to see if it works. At a bare minimum place your bets, put at least half on <em>Bittrex</em> or somewhere else. Take out as much as you can and get it in other places. A <em>10 billion dollar</em> target is likely to get taken down at some point. Especially because it's already overwhelmed. <em>Poloniex</em> is already barely able to handle all the things they've got.</p>
<p>I've seen story after story of users losing their money, accounts frozen, accounts hacked, no customer support. I love <em>Poloniex, </em>but I'm saying this because they probably need a lower transaction volume so that they can have more room to breathe.</p>
<p>Therefore, I suggest, and this is what I'm doing, I've taken my money, I have had as much as <em>5</em> or <em>10 Bitcoin</em> at once on <em>Poloniex,</em> I've taken almost all of it off and I will be withdrawing the very last of it today. </p>
<h3><strong>All in my Steem wallet</strong></h3>
<p> <br />If you have a whole bunch, it's easy to hold it in <em>Bittrex</em> as another exchange, but where I'm actually putting mine is in <a href="https://steemit.com/@jerrybanfield/transfers">my <em>Steem</em> wallet</a>. The majority of all of my money, I'm holding for all my cryptocurrencies, is in my <em>Steem</em> wallet. You can see for yourself that I'm holding almost all the cryptocurrency I have in my <em>Steem </em>wallet.</p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmXCDcQXxhxWWShvzHThUEdZwcAzjsW2Ge8J9zFgUHL3ru/S54-12.jpg</p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>Because I actually earn interest just leaving this in here and I can power it down and withdraw it steadily.</p>
<p>It takes a week to get out <em>1/13th</em> of it, so it's kind of vested in here, but it earns interests constantly.</p>
<p>Look, if I refresh the page, watch this. It was <em>756</em> and now it is <em>757</em>. I just earned <em>Steem</em> while doing this post, about a tenth of a cent.</p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmYw974QRfM22VXfd2V8d1Ty49g22w57vYQgRMtabRkv5Y/S54-13.jpg</p>
<p>I hold my <em>Steem</em> here now. I used to have it in a lot of different places.</p>
<p>I recommend holding your cryptocurrency in a wallet that's made for it. <em>Steem</em> has the best wallet set-up I've seen because it's also an account you can actually vote. There are so many things you can do with it.</p>
<p>However, there are lots of other wallets out there that have features, and for some of them, the more you have activate more powerful features. Like on some of the currencies if you have a certain amount, you can set up a feature that will pay you out. I think it's a <em>Super Node</em> in new economy movement. Some currencies will give you the same thing as <em>Steem.</em></p>
<p>Just holding it on an exchange is pretty much the riskiest scenario, and there's no shame in that. I held my money on <em>Poloniex</em> for months in <em>2016.</em> Now, I've pulled it out so that if something happens to <em>Poloniex,</em> I'm not completely wiped out.</p>
<p>This allows me to just have it in my immediate control. The problem is, if I've got something on <em>Poloniex</em> and I want to withdraw it, then I have to go through <em>Poloniex's</em> withdrawal process, and that can take several hours or several days.</p>
<p>Some users I've seen have even got all their money tied up and stuck. As much as I just read someone's <em>$70,000</em> ended up in their account, I would imagine there's a lot higher amounts. The problem is, when things like this happen, people are often too ashamed to even talk about it.</p>
<p>Imagine losing <em>$100,000</em> because your withdrawal didn't go through properly. Would you want to tell anyone about that or would you keep that a secret?</p>
<p>You know what?</p>
<p>I'm not just going to tell anyone because I'll look real stupid. There's probably a ton of times that this has happened.</p>
<p>Then if anything happens on the exchange itself, then you're looking at losing all of it. So what I recommend is have it at least on multiple exchanges in a minimum, and preferably hold it in wallets that actually you have access to.</p>
<p>Now, <em>Poloniex</em> has their <em>Steem</em> in a wallet. <em>Poloniex</em> is just holding this cryptocurrency in their own wallet. Here's another thing with <em>Steem</em> in particular, and any currency where it's necessary to hold it liquid, <em>Poloniex</em> can't keep their <em>Steem</em> in a way that it couldn't and many of the other cryptocurrencies fall in this category. Their ability to withdraw it and transact it also means that it's readily available to be taken out of their wallet.</p>
<p>On <em>Steem</em> the permissions are set up in such a way that if the exact same technology that's needed to go send <em>Steem</em> when I make a withdrawal, all you need to do is essentially get the same key and you could clean out all the <em>Steem</em> at once, and there are lots of other wallets that have this same property for many of the altcoins, and then any big wallet could easily be cleaned out at once.</p>
<p>In fact, if this already happened would <em>Poloniex</em> have said anything about it?</p>
<p>If they already did lose an entire altcoin wallet or if they lost a significant part of a <em>Bitcoin</em> or <em>Ethereum</em> wallet, would they say anything?</p>
<p>If they said anything everyone would pull their money out immediately. Therefore from their business point of view the safest thing to do if they did actually lose, if they had a little catastrophe, but not big enough to wipe it out. The safest thing to do would be to not say anything. I have no idea about what has or has not happened, these are logical things, therefore I'm pulling all of my money off <em>Poloniex</em> today and I am putting it in my <em>Steem</em> wallet.</p>
<p>If I want to buy more I will be using <a href="https://bittrex.com/"><em>Bittrex</em></a> until such time that I see a lot of stories about <em>"Poloniex restored my withdrawal. Poloniex is working faster now. Poloniex is solvent"</em> and <em>Poloniex</em> actually shares this information that I had to estimate.</p>
<p>I would trust <em>Poloniex</em> a <em>100%</em> if they showed exactly how much they had in all their wallets and said, <em>"Look here's how much Bitcoin we have. Here's how much Ethereum we have."</em> You can see thankfully how much <em>Steem</em> they have because it's sitting there, what about all these other wallets?</p>
<p>If you found this helpful would you please upvote this if it's on <em>Steem</em> or leave a like if it's <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvQ5aPJe4Xg">on <em>YouTube</em></a>, because that's how I know that this was worth my time, to make you something that I hope was useful for you, that I hope has the chance to save you a lot of money in the event of something bad happening, like a crash or panic.</p>
<p>I hope this has given you notice, you might if you've got money on <em>Poloniex,</em> pull it out while they're honoring withdrawals.</p>
<p>https://steemitimages.com/DQmatkeZ7dSZRJ4NzWVfxN4yUXGPzNdDSBkjy5ZmnLE3REG/S54-14.jpg</p>
<p>This is just a perfect situation for the most epic disaster we've ever seen in the cryptocurrency world. Having <em>10 billion dollars</em> all in a relatively small amount of wallets, that hackers all over the world are probably trying to get into right now.</p>
<p>One of them will or maybe already has succeeded. At some point there will be some huge disaster, that's almost certain. Not just on <em>Poloniex,</em> but perhaps on a different exchange as well.</p>
<p>I love you, you're awesome.</p>
<p>I hope you have a wonderful day today.</p>
<p>Thank you for making it to the end of this post.</p>
<h3><strong>Final words</strong></h3>
<p> <br />Thank you very much for reading this post which was originally filmed as the video below!</p>
<p>Would you join me today, by leaving a like on this video or <em>upvote</em> this post on <em>Steemit?</em></p>
<p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvQ5aPJe4Xg</p>
<p>The feedback on the video was so positive that I spent about <em>$100</em> to get this post created for you here out of the video, and then edited it prior to publishing! I appreciate you being here and I hope you have a wonderful day today.</p>
<p>If you found this post helpful on <em>Steemit,</em> would you please <em>upvote</em> it and follow me because you will then be able to see more posts like this in your home feed?</p>
<p>Love,</p>
<p>Jerry Banfield with edits by <a href="https://steemit.com/@gmichelbkk">@gmichelbkk</a></p>