Startup Painkiller

I Withdraw My Offer to Advise MEXC - Here’s Why (Something Sinister Is Brewing) After winning my case against MEXC - thanks entirely to the community’s relentless support and the spotlight you helped shine on their unfair seizure of user funds - I made a public offer: If you are truly sincere in your apology and desire to change, I’ll make myself available, free of charge, to help guide those reforms. I have, in my life, built incredibly large web2 empires after all, and that's all they are - another web2 business. Behind the scenes, I asked MEXC to provide a mutual NDA, because I couldn’t help them if they weren’t willing to be honest with me. I even rejected their “non-disparagement” clause - which, to their credit, they removed at my request - because I made it clear: I will always reserve the right to call you out publicly if this is all just smoke and mirrors. Unsurprisingly to any of us: it was. The first piece of advice I gave them concerned their so-called “Proof of Reserves” Publishing wallet addresses they themselves provide to show the assets they hold means absolutely nothing. Offering a tool to verify your individual balance means nothing, either. Every user balance is a liability to the exchange - and publishing only the assets without an independently verified list of liabilities is 100% meaningless. It’s deceptive marketing pretending to be transparency. When I told them this their response was: “Well, it’s better than nothing, right?” No. In fact it IS nothing, by design. Seeing MEXC continue to push this fake “proof of reserves” narrative reminds me of an old saying: “If you have to tell people you’re a lady, you aren’t.” The second point I made - both publicly and privately - was clear: Stop confiscating user funds. If you suspect illegal activity, turn it over to law enforcement. Otherwise, give people their money back. They’re still doing it. And it’s getting worse. Take the case of @loveme4994 This user reached out and sent me evidence, which I verified through screen recordings and other account data. MEXC cited their Risk Control Guidelines: mexc.com/announcements/artic… The document still includes language like “suspected” - meaning they can permanently keep your funds based on suspicion alone. Here’s the deeper problem: almost every major item on that list could be prevented through code if they truly wanted to. But removing the loopholes would also remove their excuses to seize user funds. And here’s where it turns sinister - and why I feel partly responsible. After I made my account history public to prove my innocence, MEXC seems to have learned from it. In this latest case, they completely wiped the user’s transaction history after confiscating their funds. They stole the user’s money. They admitted to it. They offered no specific accusation. And they erased the evidence that could have helped proven the user’s innocence. My case was over $3 million. This user lost roughly $4,000 - which, for most people, is life-changing. Their $4,000 means more to them than my $3 million ever did. While some high-profile cases have been resolved, I continue to see new ones daily that aren’t. As long as this structural rot exists - fake “proof of reserves,” arbitrary justifications for seizures, lack of due process, and the ability to block users from their own records - MEXC remains a rotten apple. Rotten to the core. 🫡 From the depths — The White Whale 🐋