Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Once ordained the leading cryptocurrency exchange in the US, Poloniex has since written the playbook on how to slide from public favor in the most spectacular of fashions.

The deterioration of the exchange is nothing but self inflicted. Slowly bleeding the exchange from the cold dead hands of the owners.

Let’s take it back a few years.

I remember the first time I started trading on Poloniex. It was May 2017. The exchange was gaining momentum as the 2017 bull market was taking shape.

Poloniex got big. Like BIG big. Hundreds of thousands of traders were bustling on the exchange with a healthy sense of optimism. It was a magical time for the crypto market and Poloniex.

But…

Support tickets started going unanswered. The exchange became far more focused on scaling than customer support. This caused issues to persist for months as the exchange fought to keep everyone online.

By 2018, Poloniex had racked up over 140,000 unanswered support tickets. Users were furious and the internet became flooded with horror stories of traders losing access to their funds.

Getting bought out by Circle was their best shot at redemption. Some even thought this would inspire a new wave of greatness for the exchange.

Yet…

Circle only brought more of the same. The support tickets got answered, but not much else. The site still remained identical to the day they purchased Poloniex. But with features stripped from US customers to comply with speculative regulations.

Poloniex continued to decline as Circle thrashed with how to manage the exchange. Removing features, then re-enabling features, and so on. It became a confusing situation for everyone involved.