Rock Trading on 17 February he declared that he had «activities were interrupted due to difficulties encountered in managing liquidity». The announcement has thrown into despair the thousands – we assume they are because we don’t know the number of Italians who use it – of consumers who every day they trade virtual currencies through this platform founded in 2011 by Andrea Meri and Davide Barbieri. Specifically, Rock Trading is a platform, as we read on the site“Of exchange and conversion from euro to cryptocurrencies (and vice versa) which operates in full compliance with European directives and regulations”. A platform that is always appeared solid and serious, but which now appears to be on the verge of bankruptcy. Reading the chats on Telegram, before and after the announcement of the interruption of activities, we can get an idea of the extent of the inconvenience, the amount of money disappeared into thin air and the consequent anxiety of users. Anxiety that had already been evident for several days. The unclear answers coming from Rock Trading to requests for explanations have generated what is called in jargon FUDwhich stands for “Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt» (fear, uncertainty, doubt), or a strongly negative market sentiment. And that helped generate a circuit of compulsive transactions but they are stuck in limbo.
User anxieties
The official chat on Telegram for communications with Rock Trading is called «The RockTrading.com – Italia». Count more than 5.400 memberswhich, however from February 17 they can no longer write and comment. The feature, in the group, has been disabled. In the previous days, however, we can read the anxious words of the users, who were unable to complete transactions or withdrawals. «I withdrew 35,000 euros on February 3 and still don’t know where they are and no one answers,” writes a user. «I made a withdrawal in euros on February 3, the money has not yet arrived and the assistance is not respondingIs that normal?” adds another. And then yet another summarizes: «We’re not talking about whether or not the chatty grandmother’s cake was burned. We are talking about millions of euros at stakeof thousands of people involved”. In response, Rock Trading kept asking about do not generate FUD (whoever did it was banned), to refer to the unofficial chat to continue the conservations and also kept claiming to be aware of some slowdowns. Then the official press release announcing the interruption of activities. Following the advice of the platform, we went to read the conversations about unofficial chator the group «The Rock Unofficial – Italia». But there’s nothing here that’s useful for consumers whose transactions have been blocked: we argue, we insult each other and little else.
The suspicions about the change of bank
In the group “The RockTrading.com – Italia» other issues emerge that have made users turn up their noses, in addition to the money disappeared during withdrawals and transactions. There are those who complain the inability to unlock withdrawal limits – «Ticket opened and solicited but in fact no significant response and no possibility of repossessing my goods» – and who looks suspiciously at the change of support bank. Rock Trading has recently passed from the Italian Banca Stella to the Irish institute Modulr. A user writes: «We should try to understand if the change they made last week is just a coincidence or hides something else». There are still those remember an event that happened in 2021when the platform had been affected by a DDoS attack (an attack that involves blocking the operations of a service by flooding it with requests) which had blocked it for 48 hours: «Someone asked if the funds were safe. He was immediately answered yes by one of the partners / directors. Unfortunately not today guys. Dear colleagues, I think we need to start mourning».
The survey
There is another chat that is being stormed on Telegram in these hours and is called «The Rock Trading Tutela Legale». Created on February 17 to collect «initiatives to be taken to protect the interests of The Rock Trading clients», it also launched a survey to try and figure out how much money is at stake. We cannot ascertain the veracity of the informationbut according to the survey – to which 372 people have responded so far – the majority of users who participated (21 percent) had on Rock Trading less than 500 euros. But there are also those (4 percent) who had more than 300 thousand euros.
“We are not a bank”
By the way, to comment on these large sums deposited on the trading platform, it is important to listen to the words spoken by the CEO of Rock Trading Andrea Medri in un video are YouTube which dates back to last November: «We have always, therefore for 11 years now, we continue to advise our clients to keep only strictly necessary crypto assets on any platform for trading activity. Because there is a common mistake made by so many people who consider us banks. But we banks are not, we cannot act as custodians. People must learn to manage their own assets. Why then, in an unfortunate incident of a hacker, a scam, or any situation, funds are lost».
Birth in Second Life
Davide Barbieri and Andrea Medri started their journey in the world of trading on Second Life, the first embryo of metaverse (or virtual reality), a video game where you met in the form of avatars. Here the idea of creating comes to the two a platform for exchanging currencies in a virtual economy. From traditional coins they pass to cryptocurrenciesfounding The Rock Trading in 2011, wherever possible exchange euros and bitcoins (but also Litecoin, Ethereum and Namecoin).
