Website merely under maintenance? Entirely gone? Or shut down by the government? These are the questions owners of Liberty Reserve accounts are asking, now that the official site is currently inaccessible.

As of this writing, Liberty Reserves official site (www.libertyreserve.com) shows a Webpage Not Available error which could mean that the site may have been taken down or shut down.

What is Liberty Reserve?

Liberty Reserve is an online currency or digital payment processor used by customers to send and receive funds anonymously on the internet.It is a company incorporated and operated in Costa Rica since 2002 that allows customers to facilitate online transactions, including payment of goods and services and personal exchanges or fund transfers.

Unlike Paypal, another global payment processor, Liberty Reserve payments cannot be reversed. What also attracted users to Liberty Reserve is the anonymity and privacy offered to users.

Any user, for example, can sign up for and use a Liberty Reserve account without having to verify identity, submit identification cards, or link to a bank account. Users can also use any name (fictitiousor otherwise) when signing up. Multiple accounts by the same user are allowed. In addition, Liberty Reserve offers a private payment option that hides ones account number when making a payment.

Down, gone, shut down?

In the past, site maintenance concerns that make Liberty Reserves website inaccessible are usually announced to the public days ahead, but in this recent case, there was no official announcement from the owners of the digital currency.

Rumors about Liberty Reserve being shut down by the government intensified when news reports emerged saying one of the owners of the payment processor was arrested.

News article: Costa Rican arrested in Spain for alleged financial crimes

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Liberty Reserve: Down, gone, shut down?