Original / Odaily Planet Daily (@OdailyChina)
On the morning of August 13, the U.S. stock token trading platform MyStonks announced that its 24-hour trading volume had surpassed $97 million. According to CoinGecko data, MyStonks' 24-hour trading volume has exceeded that of Uniswap V2 on Ethereum, ranking in the top 25 of DEX 24-hour trading volume. This not only marks the rapid expansion of the U.S. stock token sector but also signifies that MyStonks is gradually taking the "top seat" in the field of U.S. stock token trading platforms.
However, on the afternoon of August 13, a user posted on the X platform claiming that MyStonks had seized their deposited $6.2 million, closed the user's withdrawal channel, and dispersed the funds. This incident quickly attracted public attention, raising concerns about the security of the MyStonks platform and even leading to panic withdrawal behavior among some users.
In response, MyStonks officials quickly responded, stating that this was due to a recent law enforcement request from U.S. regulatory agencies regarding a single user, involving multiple special investigations related to anti-money laundering, fraud rings, drug trafficking, sanctions evasion, and suspicious activity reports (SAR), but it does not affect the deposit and withdrawal operations of other users on the platform. The platform's compliance department has contacted the involved user through secure channels and guided them to complete the relevant compliance information submission.
Additionally, MyStonks officials revealed that after the user posted a "rights protection post," the website simultaneously received over 23 million DDoS attacks, as well as a large number of complaints and reports. To address user concerns and better inform them of the full scope of the incident, MyStonks held a Space on the evening of August 13, where founder Bruce J provided a detailed explanation of the incident, directly addressing community questions, including urgent issues related to security compliance and being identified as a phishing site by OKX, while also introducing the platform's future product plans. Odaily Planet has summarized the key content of the Space below for readers' reference.
Response to the "$6.2 Million" Incident
Bruce J: "The $6.2 million incident actually happened a week ago." I think such things happening at any crypto exchange is quite normal.
Since we started building our team in 2024, we have consistently adhered to a compliance route. Therefore, among all U.S. stock token platforms, our compliance procedures should be the most complete, whether it is the U.S. FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) money services business license (MSB) or SEC security token offering (STO) filing, both of which can prove this. Currently, our compliance team is no less than the number of staff at a traditional CEX, and they are all based in the U.S.
Regarding the recent issue of the $6.2 million withdrawal being blocked online, we are taking this opportunity to explain the SEC's compliance requirements. Since last month, some addresses coming from mixers have been gradually depositing into the MyStonks platform. Last week, we received a law enforcement request from regulatory agencies, and due to the confidentiality order, we cannot disclose the specific content of the request. However, the content involved is basically similar to that of other exchanges, such as investigating whether users are engaged in illegal activities, terrorist organizations, human trafficking, money laundering, and fraud, etc.
When we received the law enforcement request regarding this "$6.2 million" user, our compliance department immediately contacted the user. After contacting, we found that there were indeed many issues present. We received investigations from two countries regarding other addresses, indicating that this fund is indeed associated with certain addresses, which led to the public panic in the past two days.
We can also understand the many voices on Twitter attempting to attack us from a compliance risk control perspective. As a new asset trading platform, especially one involving U.S. stocks, which are highly regulated assets, this is a hurdle we must go through.
In the past 24 hours of public opinion fermentation, we have completed over 400 user withdrawals. We take the security of every user's assets very seriously and would never misappropriate any user's funds, including the user involved in the law enforcement request, with whom we have communicated repeatedly. Moreover, two hours before this Space was held, our platform was continuously subjected to network attacks, approximately 23 million times, but it has now fully recovered.
MyStonks takes community public opinion very seriously and will actively respond to the issues that everyone is concerned about. Regarding the single investigation by regulators into this user, we will also actively communicate with them to solve the problem together. Additionally, I have been conducting mining business in the U.S. for seven years, and everyone knows me; we are not an anonymous team.
Community Questions
If this $6.2 million is identified as dirty money, how will the platform handle it in the future?
Bruce J: First of all, we currently do not have 100% confirmation that this money is dirty money, and the regulatory agencies have not said it is dirty money; they have only sent targeted inquiries for specific investigations. The regulatory letter mentioned investigations into anti-money laundering, cross-border fund flows, and suspicious trading activities, and we need users to actively cooperate with these investigations, including their KYC information, fund flow information, address information, etc.
Currently, this real client (not the user who posted on Twitter) has provided us with very limited information, so we are actively seeking this information from them. If we cannot obtain this information, then our addresses and accounts will be temporarily frozen by regulators. If the user cooperates with the investigation and we submit this information to the regulatory agencies, then this matter can be resolved quickly; if the requirements of the regulatory agencies are not met, we cannot determine when this money will be unfrozen.
Currently, OKX has already warned that MyStonks is a phishing site; what is the reason for this? How long will it take to resolve this issue?
Bruce J: We are already in communication with OKX regarding this issue, (they) mainly did this to cooperate with the public opinion online, and at the same time, there have been a large number of attacks and reports against our platform in the past two days. It must be admitted that we are currently a bit caught off guard. The exposure of our account traffic on Twitter reached over 100,000 in a short time, and then OKX reported receiving a large number of complaints and reports against MyStonks, which is why OKX took action. The speed of the whole incident's development was particularly fast, but we believe the issue should be resolved soon.
Due to this "$6.2 million" incident, will the wallet addresses holding user funds also be regulated? Are the current withdrawals subsidized by the platform?
Bruce J: The platform has not subsidized user withdrawals. We have not aggregated user funds; the freeze will only apply to this specific amount, and not all user amounts will be affected. We are currently processing user withdrawals without encountering any issues. Since MyStonks was established, we have approximately 20,000 users, processing about 500 to 800 deposits and withdrawals daily, with 99% having no issues.
I can only reiterate that this "$6.2 million" is a targeted investigation against a single user, and the content of the targeted investigation includes suspicious transaction reports related to trading account data, and it comes from legal documents from two national governments. We also hope to resolve this matter as soon as possible.
MyStonks recently launched U.S. stock contract features, but the leverage itself is not large; is this related to regulation and compliance?
Bruce J: The leverage ratio is currently not directly related to compliance; it is just because our internal "order book" is still under development. Once it is fully completed, the leverage multiples will be adjusted accordingly, with different coins having different leverage ratios.
MyStonks' spot trading adopts an order flow model, where when users buy and sell on the platform, we synchronize the buying and selling through our U.S. stock accounts, with a delay of milliseconds. The contract function will later fully adopt an on-chain order book model.
On August 13, users waited over 40 minutes for their deposits to be credited; what was the reason for this? Is it related to regulation?
Bruce J: This is not due to regulation; it is mainly because we have been subjected to a large number of DDoS attacks, so our entire team is currently on standby 24 hours a day.
Daily user deposits are conducted on a peer-to-peer basis; as long as it is confirmed on-chain, the platform will show it as credited. Coincidentally, I can reveal that MyStonks will cancel the deposit and withdrawal function going forward. Because we are deploying new contracts, we have invited the largest auditing company in the blockchain industry to conduct our contract audit, and the first audit report has already been released, so we will likely launch a brand new DEX product this month, where users will no longer need to perform deposit and withdrawal operations, but can directly interact using their wallets.
As a DEX product, it will also reduce more regulatory troubles and pressures.
Bruce J: Finally, I want to add that MyStonks has not been smooth sailing since its establishment. In just six months, we have accumulated over 20,000 users, with daily trading volumes approaching $100 million. Throughout this process, we will accept market supervision and public scrutiny. As a platform, we will uphold our bottom line, ensure compliance, and cooperate with law enforcement requests.
The claim that our platform has misappropriated user funds is completely a rumor and malicious attack. After such statements emerged, we still processed a large number of user withdrawal requests without any difficulties.
We will absolutely not run away; through this incident, we have also gained a deeper understanding of the importance of compliance and public relations. Therefore, if any users are still interested in MyStonks, whether in terms of compliance or public relations, we are open to collaboration and hope that more excellent partners will join us.
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