They have most of their coins. It's the 45% (or whatever percentage they still have after giving coin holders 55% of their coins) of coins (which calculating to 55% fiat) btce initially wanted to distribute to fiat holders in different coins, thus they are hopefully going to create fiat buy orders with their remaining coins for market prices and we in fiat can then buy them.
This still doesn't reconcile with what they have been saying. They have said several times that fiat funds are being
converted to cryptocurrencies. There's no possible way they can process fiat (at least in this time frame of 2 weeks). "Fiat money" then would be no different than BTE tokens.
Ostensibly, they are relaunching as an altcoin exchange. No fiat money, at least in the mid term.
Yes, they changed everything with the last update. The idea of giving fiat holders a basket of coins is overruled by last update. Indeed, fiat funds are virtually created however they are backed (very vaguely) by the coins btce still hold after they gave 55% coins back.
First I thought there is a difference between btce tokens and fiat, e.g. that they selling the remaining coins (btc, ltc, eth, nmc, nvc, ppc) at the new exchange's launch at market prices. Thus, you could buy these coins at market price with your fiat. But, as 1 btce token will be 1 USD, probably everybody can buy the remaining coins with their btce tokens. Maybe they allow btce tokens only be traded to fiat?
For now, the refund of fiat holders is more looking like a scam. I hope they will fix it so fiat holders will ge indeed the 55%. Next week they will publish a FAQ containing most asked questions.
About fiat withdrawal: There are many different possibilities, they even could send out gold by courier. I remember also that they offered "cash by cab" (or something like that) in Moscow.
I understand how you are interpreting the new update, but I don't believe this will be the case. You and I both agree that BTC-e has a basket of coins taken from crypto balances being used to reimburse fiat holders. What you're saying is that instead of converting the USD balances to crypto directly, they will instead give people USD tokens, and BTC-e will list the remaining crypto on the exchange. The only way that model makes sense is that the crypto listed by BTC-e would only be redeemable for USD, and not BTE. The USD could not be used on the exchange for anything but redeeming from BTC-e themselves.
If that were the case, then the USD tokens could buy coins at the market rate and I guess it would be a better solution than giving people a basket of 7 cryptos. But they'd need to somehow peg the value of the cryptos to a market price on another exchange. Then they'd need to "burn" the USD tokens after use. Then you run into a situation.. How long does BTC-e maintain this USD-crypto conversion program? Until BTE=1 USD?
This scenario above would work but I think BTC-e wants to dump the shitcoins on people. That's part of their incentive forcing people into taking the basket. I guess it depends how much shitcoin they're holding in comparison to BTC. They'll do whatever ends up making them more money. But one thing I really don't think will happen is creating both BTE and USD tokens which can be used freely on the exchange, especially for the repurchase of BTC-e supplied crypto.
If BTC-e supplied crypto is listed at all it's for USD tokens only. If they opened it for both BTE and USD, they would need to list their own crypto above market rates, which means they are not actually repaying the fiat users 55%.