Twitter bans notorious Bitfinex and Tether critic Bitfinex’ed [Update]

Twitter has officially suspended Bitfinex’ed – a notorious internet sleuth who has long speculated that popular exchange desk Bitfinex has quietly been printing its dollar-pegged Tether digital tokens out of thin air, a move that could lead to the collapse of Bitcoin and perhaps even the entire market.

In an email to TNW, Bitifinex’ed said that Twitter has yet to clarify the reasons for the suspension. “This account has been suspended,” the message reads, linking to a page detailing some of the most common reasons for suspensions – including spam, compromised accounts, and abusive behavior.

It is worth noting that in addition to the claims made against Bitfinex and Tether, Bitfinex’ed has previously accused other well-known figures within the crypto-community of foul play.

Indeed, earlier in January the anonymous investigator suggested Litecoin founder Charlie Lee might have engaged in insider trading during his time as chief technology officer at Coinbase. Lee ultimately denied these claims. In the aftermath of this altercation, waves of Lee supporters took to Twitter to condemn the premises of the piece Bitfinex’ed authored.

Bitfinex too was growing increasingly unhappy with its critic’s claims. In fact, the exchange desk went as far as enlisting law firm Steptoe & Johnson to go after the anonymous investigator.

“To date, every claim made by these bad actors has been patently false and made simply to agitate the cryptocurrency ecosystem,” Bitfinex in-house counsel Stuart Hoegner told CoinDesk back in December 2017. “As a result, Bitfinex has decided to assert all of its legal rights and remedies against this agitator and his associates.

It is worth noting that despite receiving support from the community, Bitfinex’ed had a fair share of detractors too – including a parody account with the handle Bitperplex’ed which painted the independent Tether analyst as a demented, childish baffoon.

Looks like @Bitfinexed got suspended for impersonating me

— Bitperplex'ed ? (@Bitperplexed) February 7, 2018

Just heard that Bitfinex are going to start offering a new trading pair called Magic the Gathering cards

— Bitperplex'ed ? (@Bitperplexed) February 2, 2018

The Bitfinex’ed suspension comes at a particularly tumultuous time for Tether and Bitfinex.

Following revelations that proved the two companies have ties with each other, Tether announced its financial reserves are being audited by NY-based firm Friedman LLP. The company also released some preliminary auditing files to curb criticism, though many were swift to point out that the provided documents were inconclusive at best.

Tether and Bitfinex have recently come under scrutiny yet again after news surfaced that the relationship with the auditor has since been dissolved, with no clear timeline for when the dollar-pegged cryptocurrency will be properly audited.

Things took a turn for the worse when days later the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission confirmed it is looking into the financial situation of Tether, its relationship with Bitfinex, and whether its digital tokens are backed by actual money.

Update: Twitter has reinstated Bitfinex’ed.