On July 31, 2026, I deposited 100,056 yen in cryptocurrency and traded primarily XAUUSD on bitcastleFX. As expectations for a September rate hike by the Fed fell sharply, my long positions in gold paid off, and as of August 14, my account balance had reached 4,910,849 yen (as documented). However, on August 25, I suddenly found myself unable to log in to MT5 or the account management screen. I received a notification from bitcastleFX stating, “Following a thorough review in accordance with our guidelines, we have denied your withdrawal request.” However, I had not submitted any withdrawal request at all… Wait, withdrawal? When I pointed this out, bitcastleFX did an about-face and calmly corrected their explanation, stating, “There was an error in our initial communication; this action was based on your trading activity, not the content of a withdrawal request.” Trading activity? That’s a convenient, after-the-fact excuse with not a shred of specificity. In other words, they fabricated a nonexistent withdrawal request to explain why they “refused the withdrawal,” but they’ve essentially admitted to sending a false notification themselves. Next, the only amount presented as available for withdrawal was 100,056 yen—the exact same amount I had deposited. All profits were confiscated. Furthermore, they persistently demanded that I submit my Japanese bank account information for the refund. Since I had originally deposited using cryptocurrency, this response was unnatural to begin with. It’s a common tactic used by scam sites, where they keep demanding this or that as a condition for a refund. Incidentally, as of now, I have not received a single refund for the deposit amount (100,056 yen). The Kanto Local Finance Bureau has issued a public warning against bitcastle LLC for “conducting financial instruments trading business without registration.” To begin with, they treated a withdrawal I never even requested as if it had occurred and froze my account. Not only were my profits—amounting to 4.91 million yen—unilaterally confiscated, but their reasons for doing so kept changing repeatedly afterward. Not even a single yen of the initial deposit has been returned. This is a clear case of fraud. To prevent even one more person from falling victim to this, you should absolutely avoid using bitcastleFX. It appears that the IB’s representative for the Japanese market is based in Japan, and we are actively providing information to investigative agencies such as the police and the Financial Services Agency. We are also reporting the situation to other relevant parties, including the domain hosting company and related financial institutions.