Remember Cryptsy? The digital currency platform that used to buzz but now resembles a relic of a retro video game lobby made for trading fantasy products rather than an actual exchange? Trading Bitcoin for Dogecoin made people feel like they were playing roulette, not investing in their futures, in crypto’s early, experimental days. Cryptsy turned into the feeding ground for cryptofreaks to throw hundreds of coins at each other, troll each other in the cacophony of a trollbox and chase the new winner. click this

But underneath the thrill, danger was never far away. When Cryptsy was founded in 2013, flush with the altcoin boom, it had far too many trading pairs, often hundreds at a time. Many of those coins were obscure, weird, and possibly coded in a caffeine-fueled all-nighter by an early graduate from high school. Still, traders didn’t care. If it traded, Cryptsy offered a chart. Prices spun like pancakes in a windstorm. If you got in at the right time, congratulations. If not, you were back to budget noodles.

Anyone who ever worked with Cryptsy and had to wait ten, twenty, thirty minutes for a trade to occur knew something was off. Withdrawals dragged. Customer support went silent. Rumors spread through forums and Twitter feeds. “Is Cryptsy shutting down?” “Who’s even running this thing?” Big Vern, who was turning into a spook figure out of a crime novel, proved elusive again. Was he a true pioneer of the blockchain, or just another huckster in disguise? No one could say for sure.

Then came the collapse. Early 2016 brought panic — users woke to find their accounts locked and a cheery banner saying there were “technical difficulties.” Their funds? Gone. Big Vern blamed the hackers, but few believed it because many thought it was an inside job, a crypto iteration of Ocean’s Eleven. Millions in Bitcoin had vanished. Lawsuits followed as night the day as night the day as thunder lightning. Big Vern had gone underground and was said to be hiding out in Florida. The missing money? Still missing, like a pair of mismatched socks that are lost in a dryer.

Cryptsy’s collapse came as a bitter, if educational, lesson for the crypto universe. It revealed the necessity for oversight, transparency and grown-up accountability in digital finance. Its former traders left with something more than losses — a cautionary tale. It’s the sort of crypto horror story they whisper at blockchain meetups. The only relevant question: did you get out before the curtain fell? Or is there still some screenshot of your empty wallet floating somewhere out there in cyberspace?

These days, when a shiny new exchange offers you the stars and the moon, grizzled traders start to pout, big-eyed and teary. They double-check the withdrawal process. They wince — or roll their eyes — at the phrase “technical issues.” In crypto, only scars make it to the future. “Once bitten, twice shy” is not a phobia. It’s just common sense.