Bitcoin Forum

Today I received the following email from Taslim Bhamji, a Senior Insolvency Administrator from PKF Corporate Recovery & Insolvency Ltd (the NZ Court appointed liquidator for Bitcoinica LP):


So if you happen to be a Bitcoinica creditor/investor - Now would be a good time to email Taslim at: Taslim[dot]Bhamji[at]pkfcr[dot]co[dot]nz

Note: I understand Bitcoinica got a few false claims during their claim period back in May. If you don't have a valid claim with Bitcoinica already then please realize that sending a false claim to a court appointed liquidator is probably not a very bright idea.

I didn't write a mail to a liquidator before, would anyone be so kind to post a template of a creditor claim here? Thank you! ;)

This is the standard format used for creditor's claims in NZ (this one's the one for estates administered by the Official Assignee).

http://www.insolvency.govt.nz/cms/pdf-library/forms/Claim%20form

Private liquidators usually have their own claim forms.  You can see an example of one at the end of this First Report to Creditors (this is a different company from the one handling the Bitcoinica liquidation).

http://www.mvp.co.nz/media/reports/awmwaste1streport.pdf

These just give you a general idea of the type of information required.  The company handling the liquidation will likely have its own form but the basic information required will be the same.

Thanks! ;D

What happen with open positions? can be claimed?
It was never clear whether bitcoinica attitude about this it was lawful  ...

Only the liquidator can answer any questions about that.  Hopefully he'll be able to sort out his account and post here soon. 

This is pretty good for Bitcoin in the sense that some liquidators are now forced to figure out how to treat Bitcoins, something they wouldn't have done otherwise.

To add a bit to this, I e-mailed Taslim as well and got a response back from him today. 

I specifically asked if they had any information from the original claims process that Bitcoinica set up previously, and he replied that they do not.  So even if you submitted a claim previously through Bitcoinica, you will almost certainly need to re-submit your claim along with supporting information through the liquidator.

I'm kind of baffled that they don't have the existing claimsDB that Bitcoinica worked on. After all isn't the liquidator supposed to take control of all Bitcoinica assets and IP (Including this database?). Are the previous operators unwilling to hand it over, if so why?

The existing claimsDB is key here as it should also contain records of which creditors have already been paid back and to what extend.

You will absolutely need to submit a claim to the liquidator.  Even when the liquidator has the full records of the company this is still required by law.  I'd advise people to make their claims as accurate as possible.  Liquidators can reject disputed claims and they also have the power to subordinate claims under certain circumstances.  People need to bear in mind that this is a legal process and that knowingly providing false information is an offence which can bite you in the ass.  If you try to game the system you may end up not being paid at all.

Taslim Bhamji mail excerpt:
...
You will receive a copy of the liquidators first report next week along with a claim form for you to complete with which you can attach your supporting documentation.
...

sub

Dear Investors

I confirm that Steve Lawrence & I, of PKF Corporate Recovery & Insolvency (Auckland) Limited have been appointed liquidators of the Bitcoinica Limited Partnership, which is registered in New Zealand. We are currently collecting information  and records and our immediate priority is securing the investor funds (in both cash and Bitcoins) and determining investor balances. It is too early to know how long the liquidation process will take, but we would like to move as quickly as possible towards a distribution to investors/creditors.

With this in mind, we would be grateful if all investors and creditors could email us with:
1. Their address and contact details;
2. Details of any amounts owed (both in bitcoins and/or currency); and
3. Supporting documentation for the claim;

Please send your details to taslim.bhamji@pkfcr.co.nz

The Liquidators’ first report is due to be sent to all creditors by 26 November 2012, but we are unable to do so if we do not have contact details for creditors or investors.  Our report will provide you with further details on the liquidation process.

We would also appreciate feedback from investors on whether they would prefer to receive a distribution in the form of Bitcoins (where possible) or whether they would prefer a straightforward cash distribution. We are still seeking to determine what options are available to us at law, and will let investors know in due course.

Lastly, we are aware of legal proceedings underway in California against the Limited Partnership. The Liquidators have sought to have the Limited Partnership withdrawn from the proceedings on the basis that it is in liquidation. We are concerned that the plaintiff investors may be seeking to better their position ahead of other investors, and we wish to see everyone treated fairly and equally.

If you have any further queries, please contact Taslim Bhamji on the email address provided.

Kind regards

Anthony McCullagh
Joint Liquidator
Bitcoinica LP (In Liquidation)

For those who aren't aware of it, the post above me was made by the liquidators themselves.  PKFCR is the company handling the liquidation.  Good to see that they got their forum account sorted out and will now be able to answer questions directly.

What constitutes supporting documentation? I sent everything in bitcoins so would the block explorer transaction numbers count, I could forward all emails I received from bitcoinica but that doesn't add up to the whole balance as email confirmations weren't activated until later.

I am really glad things are moving now though

Sub

I've lost so much to incompetency,
I think you should keep our BTC in an escrow while you sort things out and demand AML details for USD who could become subject to a claw-back.

USD stay in USD, BTC stay in BTC.  I really wouldn't want to risk loosing more through your use of BTC exchanges.

Interesting question, I had around 50 coins bought at less than 5USD but since Bitcoinica lost the database this will be impossible to prove.

Just a quick reminder that it's Saturday afternoon down here so you might not get a response from the liquidator until NZ business hours on Monday.

sub

This is news to us.  We haven't received any communications in this regard and we have no intention of dropping the suit.  In fact, we haven't even personally received any contact from the liquidators regarding our claims, which is strange given that we probably make up > 50% of the total money being owed.  We await the liquidator's finding as to the responsibilities of the individual Bitcoinica directors, investors, founders.  If the liquidators wish to help our case against the other defendants, we might be willing to drop Bitcoinica from the suit.

Just saw this thread today, email sent.

This is interesting. What the hell is going on here?

~Bruno K~

The liquidators have stated that they don't have Bitcoinica's records, which puts them in a peculiar situation regarding attempting to contact alleged creditors.  They literally need creditors to contact them at this point, so you guys might want to get your lawyers onto that. I don't think this is the appropriate thread in which to discuss your lawsuit but I'd strongly suggest that you obtain an opinion from a NZ insolvency lawyer regarding the pros and cons of including Bitcoinica in the lawsuit at this point.  The liquidator cannot advise you on this point and you need solid legal advice on the implications of trying to cut deals with the liquidator.

There's a Watchlist link for that.

Sorry - it doesn't always work.

And the plot thickens....

Not to argue with your counsel, but it would seem Bitcoinica will be dropped as a matter of course once the liquidators file notice with the court (if they do, of course). This obviously hasn't much to do with the rest of the defendants (although iirc at least one was filing motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction etc).

How is it that as a private person, you can open a company under a foreign jurisdiction and then claim not to be personally
responsible for lack of jurisdiction once shtf? Seems like sound business to me.

Personally I'd to some investigation and take a couple of phone conversations to verify the legitimacy of this. After all, it could be some scheme to lure even more money from users. Ie. "just pay a small fee, and your money will be released soon".

I haven't done any investigation, since I don't have a dog in this fight, and if anyone got insulted from this post, I appologize, I just think one can't be careful enough when dealing with substantional funds and personal information.

hwo you will deal with accounts that used bitcoinica codes ? since there is no proof of deposit

I can confirm the matter was listed for hearing on 1 November.  I checked the NZ High Court list the day before.  It's probably worth remembering that it was Patrick who first announced that Bitcoinica had been put into liquidation that day and who the liquidators were, whereas it was Wendon named in the court listing as making the liquidation application.  There is literally no reason for Patrick to mislead people about this.

The firm is legitimate but people should absolutely be open about any concerns they have.  Many users aren't going to be familiar with insolvency processes, let alone foreign ones so some things about it might just plain not make sense until they seek clarification.

I e-mailed Mr Bhamji at taslim.bhamji@pkfcr.co.nz with my claim today, answering his questions 1, 2 and 3.

I only had one deposit using mtgox (provided the mtgox code), so I expect my claim should be easy to verify.

It would be nice if MtGox would make a public statement about the extent to which they're going to co-operate with the liquidator and if they will do so free of charge.  They implied back when the whole Zhou/Chinese relic collector story blew up that they wouldn't release any Bitcoinica funds to anyone except a liquidator/receiver but I'm not sure whether they've made any comments since then or ever mentioned the extent to which they will make their own information available to the liquidator if it's needed to verify user claims.

Here is 1st report from PKF (Liquidator)
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2479243/Liquidators%20First%20Report.pdf

Edit : Mistake ? They have subtracted owed USD from estimated USD value of owed BTCs ...

It's as if they intended to pay owed USD by selling BTCs and that's it.

The most interesting thing in that is Ator - a NZ company of which Tihan and Chris Heaslip are directors - being named as a creditor along with Wendon.  The report doesn't note whether either Wendon or Ator are exerting a secured or preferential interest (Tihan has previously stated that Wendon would waive it's right to be treated as a secured creditor).

It will be good to see some actual numbers in the second report.

Everyone who hasn't yet filed a claim please note that the cut-off date for doing so has been set at 20 January 2013.


They've stated both previously and in the report itself that they are seeking legal advice regarding whether they can pay creditors in both dollars and Bitcoins.  If they can, then depending on the exact holding at MtGox they're going to have to buy BTC with $ or sell BTC for USD to ensure that unsecured creditors all receive the same proportion of what they're owed regardless of whether they're paid in BTC or USD.

Does this need to be in writing or will an email suffice?
I notice there's a signature required on the form.

It says you can email, fax or post it.  If you're going to email it, print the form and sign it and then send them a scanned copy.

OK

I've received the email too, The only thing clear to me now is that I have to send the claim before 20 January 2013. And they are using 11.76938USD for BTC price.

How do you understand the 5c and 5d where you have to put Open orders and Total Claim.. how to calculate Total Claim!?

That's just an estimate of the value of the Bitcoins on MtGox and the value of the Bitcoin claims at this point in time.  The early estimates of the value of assets are often incorrect.  The way I'm reading it, right now they want you to list any USD you're owed and any BTC you're owed separately (and not to convert one to the other).  They're not asking you for the dollar value of the BTC you're owed.  If you're only owed Bitcoin, then list only Bitcoin.  If you're only owed USD, then list only USD.  If you're owed both, then list the amounts of each you're owed.

What about Open Orders, and Total Claim !?

Ok, our bitcoins understand that freezing in 11.76938, but not the bitcoins of bitcoinica, so if from here to when selling their bitcoins to pay the price is $ 20, they really will have more money than those given in the report and a good margin regarding our claim in BTC, since it seems that everything is going to pay in dollars.

Unless the price freeze only references open positions and btc will be paid in bt

I'd seek clarification from the liquidator about filling in the open orders section and how to include it in your total claim.  Perhaps when you contact him you could suggest that he make a post about it or send out an email about it as I suspect many people are going to have the same question.

I think that here we have to add your balance in dollars and your position in profits regard 11.76938.

Short positions ... I do not know what they do with them.

Just read the first liquidation report. Looks decent.

A couple of things come to mind:

• Is the term creditor and investor interchangeable or do they have different legal implications? Or are all the investors also unsecured creditors?
• The creditors (us) have 9 days to decide if we want to call a creditor meeting. Given the complexity of the case I think this might be a good idea. However the liquidator mentions that the associated costs is one of the reasons to forego this meeting. What would the costs be roughly?
• The 500K MtGox number seems very vague and rough. Considering bitcoins have appreciated a lot (5USD > 12USD) since. This number seems very low.
• Do the MtGox funds include the funds Patrick Murck was able to recover from Zhou from the MtGox theft?
  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=97272.msg1098303#msg1098303
• Also what is the status regarding the 40.000USD held by AurumXchange that Zhou said would be part of the recovery funds once AML would clear?
  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=95795.msg1062656#msg1062656
  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=95795.msg1064858#msg1064858

Finally it is unclear if Tihan covered the linode and rackspace hacks. On 2012/04/24 Donald wrote the following:

http://bitcoinmedia.com/first-licensed-advanced-trading-platform-for-bitcoin/

But according to Transisto:


Other things that come to mind:

• Does the liquidator have records of all partial claim payouts made earlier & Is there a chance there will be clawbacks? Bitcoinica used 5USD as the number to settle claims and close positions. The liquidator is using almost 12USD.
• I understand that the creditors can call a meeting to set up a liquidation committee. How does this work?
• Can we get a list of all expenses made by Bitcoinica since they shut down the site in May? Are they significant & justified?
• Will there be intermittent updates from the liquidator or do we have to expect radio silence for another 6 months until the next official report comes out?

A creditors’ meeting is not called for every liquidation.

- Generally creditors’ meetings will only be held where they are likely to be of benefit to the administration.

- They may also be held in particularly large liquidations involving complex issues where the liquidator considers that it would be appropriate for creditors to assist in making decisions.

- Creditors’ meetings are not an opportunity for creditors to badger the company director or to attempt to extract some retribution for financial losses suffered.

- Where a liquidator decides not to call a creditors' meeting, the liquidator must give notice of that decision (in writing to the creditors and by placing a public notice)

- If a creditor would like a meeting to be held, they can make a request in writing to the liquidator setting out why they consider that holding a creditors’ meeting would benefit the administration of the liquidation.

- Public notices of meetings must be arranged by the liquidator.

http://www.business.govt.nz/companies/learn-about/closing-a-company/business-in-difficulty/liquidation/what-happens-during-a-liquidation

Obviously the major question is whether creditors travelling to New Zealand to attend a creditors' meeting would benefit the administration of the estate in any way.

Creditors need to keep in mind that liquidators are paid by the hour and they have a duty to keep liquidation costs to a minimum and not take actions which are unlikely to result in a benefit to creditors.

Many of your questions can only be answered by the liquidators themselves and some they won't have answers for right now (this is absolutely normal so don't panic about that - the numbers in the Statement of Affairs in the first report are usually guesses - and they've already indicated that there are some matters on which they're waiting for legal advice).  

Just stay mindful of the fact that they are not working free of charge and that fees for the time they spend on this liquidation and any legal actions they take on behalf of creditors will come out of the estate.  

Anyone got a pastebin of that list yet ?  ;D

Wait until the next report when the amounts are added.  It will be linked within 30 seconds of the first person receiving it.  :)

You can download your history from MtGox. Useful for verifying deposits/withdrawals.

I'm not sure if they added this because of my support ticket, or always had it.

Account History - CSV icon - one is three months and one is greater than 3 months.

I have some questions, what supporting documents do we have... Do they need some ID Card scanned, or it's about sent Bitcoins. I've used satoshi client to send coins to Bitcoinica?!

And I have to complete the form, sing, scan and send?!

At the end what happened to the second theft ("Chen Jianhai")?, was supposed culprit was identified and was going to return the money. The report referred to the second robbery, but no the recovery of funds.

The recovery of funds was reported here by the lawyer who facilitated it.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=97272.msg1098303#msg1098303

Then it is understood that Mr.Taslim Bhanji is aware.

Although the amount indicated in the report ($ 500,000), seems little.

How do we write open position on the form ?

lets say I had a 2:1 account I had spent 1500 BTC to purchase 3000 BTC at 4.70$

Would my claim be as follow ?

Cash Owed : 0
BTC Owed : 0
Detail of position : 3000 BTC @ 4.70$  2:1
Total claim :  0 USD$ , 1691 BTC Closed at 5$ or at todays price ???

The leverage does not matter here. You don't have to tell the leverage ratio.
and bitcoin do own you 1500 BTC (provided your claim)
You can write it in this way:

Cash Owed : 0
BTC Owed : 1500 BTC
Detail of position : long 3000 BTC @ 4.70$

Total claim :  
0 USD$ ,
1500 BTC
profit of long 3000 BTC @ 4.70$

P.S. According to the reply from liquidator, whether the position  will be included is still not decided, and I think OK what ever the decision is, as long as the users are fairly treated.

Well - by the time they manage to distribute any reminding funds, I guess 40%+ will go to lawyers fees. Man, how difficult can this be ?

Thanks again, Intersango and Zhou. Well done. At least the reputations of both parties are permanently destroyed. Intersango is pretty much dead in the water and everyone will listen to the "zhoutonged" christmas carrol this holiday season.

If anyone would like anything done here, or would like me to act as a rep on behalf of you let me know.

Im in New Zealand and willing to help anyone effected by the Bitcoinica saga.

If there is any meetings of which you would like a livestream for, let us know.

I also have lawyers available here locally if need be.

feel free to email me or my staff - administrator@quantumkiwi.com.

If you want to help, try to get in touch with MemoryDealers, he has a rather large part outstanding. Not that the others are not equally important, but he was the one I thought of.

I'm also happy to whatever I can to help,  but I am not sure what that could be at this point.
Anyone can email me at roger at memorydealers.com (http://memorydealers.com)

Did the liquidator acknowledged reception of your claims via email ?

I explicitly asked for acknowledgement in a separate message and received one. It was not cryptographically signed though. I guess no respectable business will ever use such funny things as asymmetric cryptography these days.

I signed the form and wanted to send it to the admin@pkfc address, but the file size is very limited, so my emails keep bouncing back to me.

Even tried to compress it and cut more and more of the supporting info, but no luck.

Anyone else encounter the same problem? Any ideas?

Did you use the right mail? (Taslim.Bhamji@pkfcr.co.nz)
How much MB is the file?

Actually, I sent it to admin@pkfcr.co.nz as it says on the form itself. I will try to send it to him personally instead now. The file is 10Mb or maybe 14MB.

:o :o :o

upload document to web and send a link ?

Really? maybe you can reduce quality of pictures.

Remember January 20

so you try to upload all the pdf pages or just the last page ?

Thank you. I shouldn't have scanned all the pages. That wasn't very smart. Didn't think that 10Mb would be a problem, but I guess it is.

you should send only the last page no ?

Oh, that's what you mean. I did. But what about "supporting" documentation?

oh you mean wire transfers and all that

Try to split files between more emails. I recommend you to write in every message the number of the mail, and how many mail have you sent   to them.

Any word on whats next?

Yes, lawyers are accumulating hours, so that when time for payout comes, 70% goes to the lawyers.

Werd.

I've sent my claim form today to admin@ and to Taslim.Bhamji@ it seems that Taslim.Bhamji is in vacation till 21st as auto reply received.

Did you received some confirmation form the office email.

I solved my problem. Scanning stuff at a lower resolution and using a better program did the trick. Having very little hope to see anything back though, but what the heck, one has to try anyway.

The major issue will be that most of us have no real proof other than the blockchain to support our claim. And as I read elsewhere, how do you want to prove that the deposit address you sent bitcoins to really belonged to Bitcoinica. It's not like they are going to admit it or help out in any way which addresses belonged to them. I didn't even have a MtGox account, only registered weeks before the hack without becoming verified yet, and never sent or received fiat money to Bitcoinica, either.

The only proof I have is some automated emails from Bitcoinica, and that genjix reimbursed me for 50% of my open claim when there still was something like a reimbursement going on.

any news? Please place link (if present), I find it hard to translate the whole forum  :(

I'm curious, has anyone heard anything new on this yet?

Nothing

anyone having problem mailing them ?

why did you mail to admin? maybe this user does not exist.
i used this address Taslim[dot]Bhamji[at]pkfcr[dot]co[dot]nz a few month ago and it did work. see first post.

message refused could  mean that you just hit der spam filter

That's the email they ask claims to be sent in the PKF 1st report.

Taslim... THANKS

Edit : Same problem with aslim[dot]Bhamji[at]pkfcr[dot]co[dot]nz

If anyone wants to know the status, find the phone number of those involved, and give them a call.

i wrote an email 5 min ago asking for a status update at it has gone though.
you address is missing a T btw.

so i guess you have a spam issue... try gmail or just pick up your phone

I thought it could be a scam, too, the purpose of which is fishing for information about your area. Now I'm afraid to sleep, afraid that knock on my door at night yakuza.  :( :(

It seems like I'm able to send basic text message but they may have some very stringent link filtering even for "mailto:"
I'm not sure if they've even received my claim yet.

Hey the site (http://www.pkfcr.co.nz/) is working, so they may just have some mail server problems..

I sent my docs over to them a couple weeks ago and had no problems.  Got a confirmation e-mail from them as well that they had received my docs.

I appeal to the liquidator of the company, the price of coins reached a high level, if the remaining coins to sell now - may be enough to Fiat that would cover all losses for claimants.  :-\ To sell at a time when the market is strong demand for the coin, and not after the correction. Believe me, I've been around for a long time watching this economic experiment, though :-\

A huge part of the debt is denominated in BTC. Most BTC holders won't be happy if somebody decides to sell theirs BTCs to pay some others theirs fiat...

I'm glad that everyone got their money back, even if it took a year or so.

Oh, wait....

This shit is seriously taking forever.

I have contacted the liquidators and the reply is always "we are still in communication with Mt Gox."

Not really sure what the fuck this means anymore, I would really like (some portion of) my BTC back.

Let's hope Mt.Gox will release whatever coins are left. They always claim they want to cooperate with authorities, so let's see if that is actually true.

I also have a claim there in coins too. But, you see, that's not fair - then the rate was 5 +, and it does not mean that I would not sell these coins for example, 5.5  :-\ Or, for example, has not lost in satoshidice  :P

So it's dead.

Why can't Mt. Gox do this?  Just sitting on everyone's coins for now it seems. 

Probably a combination of Gox and non-cooperation from the "gang". Whenever Gox claims they have to freeze accounts because
of AML or any other possible governmental/authorities concerns they were never asked the f to care about in the future you can rest assured it has nothing to do with actual authority concerns. The liquidators are appointed by a New Zealando court, so I guess unless those authorities aren't the CIA Gox won't give a shit.

After all that has gone down, I really don't see how this exchange is still number one when there are clearly more reliable alternatives out there.

If I was a cynic, I'd suspect that MtGox is trying to avoid handing Bitcoinica funds over to the liquidator while the Cartmell et al lawsuit is in progress so that whatever Bitcoinica funds they hold will be available to satisfy any judgement awarded by the California court.

Everyone should email MtGox to ask for their prompt cooperation.

Good idea, actually. Which address?

Also, I think the issue might deserve its own thread along the lines of "MtGox holding coins hostage from liquidators and bitcoinica customers".

Interested to hear the response.

It will be plausible deniability all the way down.  Everyone's lawyers are going to protect their own client's interest here.

That's pretty much been everyone's story this whole time.  Starting to get slightly old with BTC @ $27 each.

Even more galling when you remember that the way that funds were returned following the MtGox intrusion meant that more was returned in USD than in BTC.

Although we know from Patrick Murck's posts how much was recovered following that intrusion, not even the liquidator knows how much is in Bitcoinica's MtGox accounts.

It's ironic that MtGox was fine about handing over information to AurumXchange following the intrusion but won't hand over information to a court-appointed liquidator.  It's clearly not in the interests of Bitcoinica users that they with-hold that information.

I would hope that the business run by a board member of Bitcoin Foundation would co-operate with the liquidator and be seen to do so.

Basically what he's saying is: "Hi, I wake up every morning, have my breakfast, go to work, come home, have my dinner and go to bed." Then by the end of the month he collects his paycheck, which he gets no matter whether he claws any funds back to the Bitcoinica users or not.

Lawyers never care about anything but themselves. It's a sad world.

Actually, fees for NZ liquidators have to be approved by the court in advance.  It's one reason why they don't formally process claims until they have funds in hand ready to disburse.  They're bound by all sorts of rules regarding taking actions unlikely to result in a benefit to creditors - such as pursuing claw-back when there is little hope of recovery - and can be personally sued if they fuck up to the detriment of creditors.  

What you often see NZ liquidators do where pursuing claw-back would likely be unsuccessful is subordinate claims - either in part or in full.

Unfortunately, when liquidators have no access to the financial records and assets of an entity it's a very slow process.

Thanks for the insight repentance. It's funny, criminals are never bound by any rules, but those trying to set things straight are.

Withdrawing that many funds from Mt Gox at once might be impossible if they themselves are running fractional reserve.

Unfortunately, if MtGox chooses not to recognise the liquidator's authority, the liquidator may have a hard time justifying an international lawsuit - from memory, the only funds recovered so far are those which were in Bitcoinica's bank account which wouldn't go very far at all.

As an aside, the California court made an interesting ruling on 25 January regarding its jurisdiction over Intersango.

File a support request:
https://support.mtgox.com/home

Who's this?  The owner of Mt. Gox?  This thing has taken so long and been so drawn out I can't even remember who stole what anymore.  Do you know the E-Mail of the owner of Gox?

Their response will undoubtedly be that they're just following the advice of their lawyers, yada, yada, yada and that of course they really care about whether or not the average Bitcoinica user gets their funds back but they can't leave themselves open to liability.


Mark Karpeles is the CEO of MtGox.  He's also on the board of Bitcoin Foundation.  He's usually best contacted on IRC, where his username is MagicalTux.

I think MtGox doesn't doubt the authority of the liquidator but for good reason they doubt of the capability of the liquidator.

These guys have a hard time giving us an update per month,  Force us to produce proof of ownership for virtual assets using the pen, paper and fax method.  Their email system can't receive ANY url in email, and reject every such email with a clueless reject error  message.

To sum up,,, in three month, they seems to have done nothing.  Oh, they asked us in public if we prefer to be paid in BTC or USD ... the answer was obviously a personal choice.

I DO NOT WANT THIS LIQUIDATOR TO DO ANYTHING WITH MY BTC.

Sorry but I'd much prefer MtGox to sit on my BTC for a few year,,, At which time 250 BTC might be enough to afford a lawsuit with some teethes, bitcoin competent lawyers and judges.  Currently not even a handful of lawyer and I doubt any Judges can produce any meaningful ruling out of this mess.

I was Long Long LONG ! on BTC,...  not going to forget about this lost without a good fight. (Be careful)

You can apply to the NZ High Court to have the liquidator removed and another appointed.  Liquidators typically issue a report every 6 months.  It's not like they're working 8 hours a day on one liquidation, and there's very little they or anyone else can do without access to Bitcoinica's records and funds.

A great deal of legal stuff does still need to be done in hard copy - that is not unusual.  A court would require the same.

You're not obligated to make a claim in the liquidation.  You can certainly take separate legal action if you want, but expect it to cost tens of thousands of dollars with no certainty whatsoever that whoever you decide to sue will have any assets.

MtGox is unlikely to sit on Bitcoinica's funds for a few years.  They'll end up being released either to the liquidator or to the plaintiffs in the Cartmell lawsuit if they prevail in court.

Here's my take. Either Mark does everything in his power to accelerate this process or remove himself from the The Bitcoin Foundation board. As I read it now, Mt Gox can stonewall this process ad infinitum, meanwhile utilizing the funds for day-to-day operations, something I've previously claimed is happening. Do you honestly believe a bank wouldn't touch a million dollars, e.g., sitting in some liquidation account while litigation was in process? Using the same example, if that same million was no longer readily available, said bank would go into stall mode if it looked like there's a chance that it's about to be transferred out.

The funds were place with Mt Gox in good faith and being the most safest place to place them. Sadly, the latter is being proven true, for it's now so safe, nobody can touch it.

Maybe I'm off-base here, yet something to think about.

~Bruno K~

This sort of stuff happens all the time, it's called venue shopping. Absent a domesticated court order MtGox can legally do whatever they please. Why should they consider the proceedings of some NZ authority above and beyond the proceedings of some CA authority? (Or vice-versa, for that matter). They don't really care either way, let all those people sort out their problems, get the court order. Whoever gets it first gets the jackpot.

You can't expect a company to expend the resources to follow international litigation. They're barely profitable on top of the expenses required by not getting hacked more than once a year, not having their email db dumped more than once a year and so forth.

That's pretty much exactly what I was thinking.  Why should he do anything from his POV?  He is just sitting in everyone else's money and can do what he pleases with it in the meantime.  It isn't sounding like from anything I have heard that he has to do anything else.  Wasn't Mr. Seale supposed to forward this process along somehow?  More or less sounds like everyone is happy to do nothing.

I'm not happy that my money is not under my control; but provided it is now safe, and provided there is reasonable expectation that the legal stuff will eventually be sorted out and I'll get my coins back, then I can live with a delay.

What I would like to hear from liquidators/mt.gox is that that expectation is reasonable.  Have Mt.Gox got our money?  How much of our money have they got and how much has been lost?  It's still not clear to me what percentage of my coins are being held by a trustworthy participant.  (Yeah, yeah, I know -- "0" is the answer).

Seems like it has been around 8 months since this all originally went down.  Don't be so demanding.. 

:/

The liquidator estimated that the combined value of BTC and USD in the Bitcoinica MtGox account/s was $500,000 based on the information with which he'd been provided and he was waiting for MtGox to confirm that - but that estimate was based on BTC being worth USD 11.

There was $85,181 in Bitcoinica's bank accounts and there should be no impediment to the liquidator obtaining control over those funds.

According to the first report, the value of Bitcoin claims was roughly five times that of USD claims.  At today's rates, the 65,057 BTC claimed are now worth almost $2 million, compared to the $765,000 they were worth in November.

One potentially problematic issue is that although 40,000 BTC were stolen in the MtGox intrusion, only 20,000 BTC were returned.  Although more USD was returned than was stolen ($60,000 more), movements in Bitcoin price since then mean those missing Bitcoins now have a value of ~USD 600,000.

Obviously, it matters a lot whether the majority of remaining Bitcoinica funds held on MtGox are held as BTC or USD - and that information is currently unavailable.

As pointed out by MPOE-PR, MtGox could actually refuse to acknowledge the authority of the NZ liquidator and choose instead to acknowledge the authority of the California court if the Cartmell plaintiffs prevail and seek domestication in Japan of the California court's order (which you can almost guarantee will happen if MtGox still holds Bitcoinica's funds when the California action is decided).

Thank you for the extremely clear explanation.  You are a scholar and a gentleman.

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Let me back-of-the-envelope out loud then using your figures.  Current holdings are:


Double GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I don't suppose there is any way to persuade the liquidators to use the 60,000 USD that they do control to buy BTC to prevent any further losses from exchange rate changes?

I think it's very important question for the authorities (for world government). They will not allow that would be the first lawsuit to bitcoin was a "failure." They will spend $ 1M, $ 2M, $ 10M, but the price bitcoin grow and the court will successfully resolved in favor of the creditors (claimants) on the price level is above 50.
It's not as easy as you think. IMHO  What would have been good news. And apparently there was another article in forbes I do not worry about it. But I want that to rush things (maybe I'm wrong).
[stop sarcasm]

Can the original owners decide that they have a surplus and stop the liquidation?  Or is it too late for that?

You know that ZhouTong is reading this and hoping daily that no one gets smart and comes after him for the other 20k btc.  It's worth $600k now.

Yeah, pretty sure he's responsible. He did it the moment he found out that the source code was leaked (pissed him off, plus gave him plausible deniability).

I don't think he's worried though. Now, if someone goes after Trendon Shavers (and then Sam Theofanopoulos aka HaskKing), then he would start worrying.

BTW, has anyone contacted MtGox about their stance on the bitcoinica funds?

No, although repentance above suggested going on IRC.. which I never do - not that he/they would likely comment anyway.  Much easier to sit on all our coins.

The liquidator should be informed about the new deal between CoinLab and MtGox. 

Both Tihan and Roger Ver are investors in CoinLab and if Bitcoinica's MtGox account is transferred to CoinLab, the funds will be in the US and therefore it will be very easy for the Cartmell plaintiffs to pursue those funds should they prevail in the California lawsuit.

Zhou's role in the downfall of Bitcoinica will probably never be fully examined.  He's been protected throughout this whole clusterfuck to a ridiculous extent when his actions after the Intersango guys joined Bitcoinica deserve intense scrutiny.  Given strong indications for him being involved in the MtGox intrusion, it's reasonable to examine whether he was connected in any way to the Rackspace intrusion too.  It's rather galling that he's sitting on $70,000 worth of NameTerrific shares while average Bitcoinica users may still end up receiving no refund and he's not even named as one of the defendants in the Cartmell lawsuit despite the evidence linking him to the MtGox intrusion. 

It is my understanding (this still needs to be verified with MtGox) that only accounts held by US or Canadian persons (including corporations and other legal entities) will be transfered to ConLab .. er I mean CoinLab.

To the best of my knowledge this would not include any of the accounts related to Bitcoinica LP (In Liquidation).

I remember a discussion on here about how Zhou was able to open a MtGox account given that he was under 18 and I'm pretty sure his response was that it was because it was a business account.  When Bitcoinica first started, it was operated under the umbrella of Xway Labs, which was set up in Delaware.  Was a new MtGox account created for Bitcoinica when Bitcoinica LP was formed or appropriate paperwork provided to MtGox to establish that Bitcoinica was no longer "located" in the US?

Forgot about all that..

I emailed them 4 days ago for an update but no response yet.

Send it to Mt. Gox?  Doesn't sound like you will get anywhere with the liquidators.  I would be interested to hear any response from Gox on this matter.

Let me see if I have this correct. The liquidated funds are now worth more now than when they were first stored at Mt. Gox, and the the owner of Mt. Gox is a member of TBF.

The funds were stored at Mt. Gox in good faith, yet...

From this day forward, I demand from Mt. Gox prove that these funds have not been touched.

Is there any way an audit can be done in regard to this situation? I'm not versed in how this can be accomplished, but I'm sure others here have an idea.

The way I'm looking at it is that if all the funds were released today, everybody would get back about what they lost, and maybe more.

We have no proof that Mt. Gox is not using said funds, so until that proof is given, I'm going on record and stating that they are floating (or whatever the proper term is) the funds for their everyday operation.

Please forgive me, all and MG, for I don't have the red-ass toward them, but I am sticking it up their ass on this one issue alone.

~Bruno K~

Since hardly anyone has the ability to sue Gox, the only thing left to do is to write Gox and attack their reputation. The issue of them holding our funds hostage doesn't seem to really bother anyone enough to make a fuzz about it. Perhaps we should start asking a little louder?

Umm.. yeah - that is most likely exactly what they are doing.  Can't say a god damned word about it either publicly.  Loaning out BTC is a pretty lucrative business right now.

Still no reply, sent out another e-mail yesterday.

Anyone else had any contact?

With who?

The liquidator: Taslim Bhamji.

The last time we heard from them was a few weeks ago.  Same story.  Gox won't talk to them.  I would spend your time trying to contact Mt Gox (or CEO).  Doesn't sound like you will get anywhere though.  They are too busy upgrading servers or something.

Despite the fact the liquidator is probably waiting for Gox , it doesn't justify the lack of communication with the 'investors'. If they aren't able to communicate with their clients I don't have much faith they will get our money anytime soon and I would prefer to have another (capable) liquidator on this case.

+1

Hello @all,

as far as i know the bitcoinica funds held by MtGox are from an US user (a delaware company).
i have a few questions about that:

 - will the bitcoinica funds (btc and usd?) moved to coinbase?
 - what are coinbase' plans with this money?
 - will they give the funds to our liquidator?
 - what about the law suite in america? will we see any funds from that - or will all of the funds just go to suitors?
 - who pays all the lawyers? (i am willing to pay my liquidator, but not an anonymous lawyer in US - as i really have NOTHING to do with them)
 - if the funds will stay at mtgox (or partly stay there): what are mtgox plans?

i would love to see some statements from Taslim, Roger Ver, Coinbase and MtGox.

regards

Has anyone contacted Mark Karpeles AKA "MagicalTux" directly and asked for a statement?

Read this thread.. starts around the second page.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=157360.0

He basically says nothing at all and I know he has looked at this thread.  Just more bullshit.  They are happy to sit on the coins and from what the liquidator has stated many times previous to this, Mt. Gox isn't willing to give them the information they need to move forward.

Until I hear differently, I am going to assume that the liquidator isn't bullshitting us.  I can't think of a reason why the liquidator would want to.  There is a reason for Mt. Gox to though.  Think about what all our coins are worth right now?  Who knows how they are using the coins.

I believe, if Mt. Gox wasn't using these coins, this situation probably would have resolved itself already.  If Mt. Gox isn't "using" these coins currently, I would like to see them provide a BTC address as to where all our coins are, or if they are segregated.  Of course, Mt. Gox isn't willing to do shit.  Hopefully this catches up with them.  After I get my coins back, if I ever do, I can promise I will never do another business transaction again with them if they don't resolve this shit soon.  I am sure others feel the same way. 

There really should be more threads about this in more prominent sections of bitcointalk. Fucking thieves.

Yeah, no doubt.  This guy sits on the Bitcoin foundation, is happy to represent Bitcoin, but can't be bothered to give us our money back (BTC + USD, or whomever has our USD).  It's getting to the point where I am ready to start a donation for one of us to fly out to Japan for a personal meeting with this douche to move this along.  I got 5 on it..

To All Investors
 
We have received a number of emails from investors recently requesting a progress update on the liquidation.
 
We have received further information from the limited partners which we are currently assessing and we continue to correspond with MT Gox with a view to having the account information released to us.  At this point, MT Gox continues to withhold the information and account access.  We are hopeful that we will not need to issue legal proceedings as this will simply result in further depletion of investor funds.
 
We understand from press releases that MT Gox has entered into an agreement with CoinLab for bitcoin trading in North America.  We have not taken legal advice on this issue, however we do not believe that this arrangement affects the liquidation process. 
 
We have not yet determined the method for the distribution to creditors/investors, as we do not yet know the composition of the frozen accounts (ie the number of bitcoins held and balance of USD funds).  However, it is likely that any distribution will be made in USD.  Once we have the account information, we will notify investors of the process for which the Liquidators intend on distributing funds.  If there are insufficient funds to make payment in full to each investor, then distribution will be made on a pro-rata basis (ie funds are distributed in proportion to each investors claim).
 
We will keep investors abreast with further updates as and when they occur.
 
Kind Regards
Taslim Bhamji
Senior Insolvency Administrator

Personally I'd rather the BTC; but I really hope that the above doesn't mean they're considering paying us in USD at the time of the freeze.

(The above makes it sound like they don't really understand bitcoin).

I guess now I don't feel that bad that MtGox is delaying the process.
As it is likely that this will result in more losses for us, what can we do ? I'm anything but a lawyer, but I don't see on what basis they prefer USD to BTC, this being a liquidation in NZ (except convenience I guess).

Thoughts ?


No, I don't see them selling BTC at spot price, giving us the equivalent at 5$, and keeping the change. However, any conversion will cost us (well, except if BTC goes down between their sale and the time we can buy some back, but I guess we agree it's not the most likely possibility)

I would be willing to bet a lot that 90% of Bitcoinica position were BTC LONG,
This by itself should have meant that the majority of USD retrieved from zhou should have been placed safely back into BTC.

That the liquidator prefer to deal with the 95%+ of the assets based on value is the complete opposite of what creditors want.

What can we do against this ?

I better get all my BTC back...

I think we should all contact the liquidator and tell them they need to negotiate our btc back and distribute the cash, otherwise.  There is no way I am taking taxes on liquidating BTC.

+1

I have already mailed Taslim.  I would hope that others are doing the same.

Mailed him as well, I urge everyone to do the same.

I did the same thing.

Sorry, my English is bad. Could you write a sample? What should I send Taslim?

I sent him this:

Dear Taslim Bhamji,

Bitcoinica owes me BTC, so I prefer to be paid in BTC.

Yours sincerely,

Xxxx Yyyyyyyy

Has anyone heard from the liquidators since E-Mailing them?  I haven't heard anything.

..... Still have heard nothing from them ......

I don't think they are going to e-mail each and everyone of us. Just wait until the next update.

Emailing the liquidators isn't going to help. We need to email MtGox, who are stalling the process and working with our coins/money, don't you GET that?

I get that.  But if you take a look in other threads @MagicalTux just denies that he is the problem.  Or he hides behind the cloak of this privacy policy, still not sure what that means since they have my coins and (maybe) my open position cash and the other cash I had in my account, as well.  Not sure what else to do. 

We have to create a new thread. Publicly to demand that the GOX explanation.
I agree that a liquidator has sold all the coins and paid the creditors that have a percentage (as fiat). It is a large amount for the price $ 200 is better than nothing.

I e-mailed Taslim Bhamji just now:

Again no reply. This really is absurd. Some other liquidator should be on this case. This one doesn't seem qualified/motivated enough to handle this. I sent them another mail just now. I advise everyone to do the same.

Its been a while, for sure.  Of course, no one wants to take any responsibility.  Much easier just to let Mt. Gox sit on the coins. 

They seem more than okay with this. However sooner or later this delay will only cause us to get more lawyers involved.

Anyone had any contact with the liquidator recently?

The liquidator's second report is due soon.

It might be a very good idea to let the liquidator know that MtGox is being sued for 75 million dollars.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/139160091/Coinlab-v-Mt-Gox

Do we get our coins before CoinLab get any cash, if it comes down to it?

How do you know their second report is due soon?

He probably read the first report (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2479243/Liquidators%20First%20Report.pdf):

Others probably did already, but just in case nobody did, I just e-mailed Taslim to let him know.

27th of may. What do we do if nothing happens?

Probably keep complaining to each other about how long this has already taken.

Maybe liquidator fake? I wrote to him several times and received no response. Who ever knows with any certainty whether there is a real lawsuit (it is real?) *? Maybe somebody lives in New Zealand, and went there in person with their feet?

no response  :(

The liquidator is supposed to come out with the next report in 2 days I believe? 

Scroll up a few posts - it comes from his first report.

So it's the 28th today.  Has anyone seen an updated report?

Nope, I'm planning on calling them, but different time zones are difficult. Has anyone called them in the recent months?

Never tried calling them.

derp.....

Is it time to panic?

It's always a good time to panic

Taslim Bhamji doesn't seem to work at PKF Corporate Recovery anymore: http://www.pkfcr.co.nz/our_people
At February 6 he still seemed to work there: http://web.archive.org/web/20130206230128/http://www.pkfcr.co.nz/our_people/professional_staff/taslim_bhamji

I'll try to contact them within an hour. I would suggest any one of you to do this: http://www.pkfcr.co.nz/contact-pkf-corporate-recovery

Good catch.  Sent them an e-mail, will post here if I hear anything back.

Well, that was fast:

Very fast indeed. Hope this changes things.

is more like no-thing

why doesnt mtgox know which account belongs to bitcoinica?

37k for "liquidators fees"?

We are all going to get reamed.

Wow, so just read this piece of shit.  Basically nothing at all has happened..(weird?).  Mt gox continues to be a bitch.  I am now ready to pitch-in whatever money I have to go after them if you all are willing to do this.  The liquidator obviously isn't going to do anything but suck money up. 

So, after burning through $56k of our money nothing has been done.  Gox wants verification that they can't provide so they just pretend to be working so they can collect a paycheck.  This is all so frustrating.  >:(

Well .. I received a second report. If anyone got it, retelling in a nutshell please what does it say? I can not select text and copy into Google translator.

It is interesting that they value the total claims in US dollars (1.59 million) and the presumed MtGox assets in both bitcoins (64,485) and dollars (134,000).

This probably means they are valuing claims at the existing exchange rate at the point of Bitcoinica's demise.  If so, even if they can only recover half of the bitcoins they are going to have a large surplus.

How are surpluses awarded in liquidation?  Do the limited partners get it?

A link to the report
http://www.campusactivism.org/server-new/uploads/Liquidators_Second_Report.pdf (http://www.campusactivism.org/server-new/uploads/Liquidators_Second_Report.pdf)

They probably are just stalling so they can use half of it as "fees".

Currently the fees have been under 1 percent.

Then we have a long wait ahead of us... :P

The thing I do not understand about this still is why Mt. Gox has any say at all about what happens to our coins.  Who originally gave them "control" of these assets (coins + cash)?  Can't this same person take it back and just work with the liquidators to give us our coins back?  It's been too long now and I can't remember all the details anymore.  This is getting super old. 

If a liquidator is appointed the new, does this mean that I have to send proof (GOX codes, transaction numbers) again to the new liquidator?

It does seem like the MtGox accounts would be controlled by someone.  Unless they are legally prevented from using them...  But even if they were legally prevented from using them, MtGox probably wouldn't know that.  And it'd be strange if someone was legally prevented from helping the liquidation process.  It might be more likely that they are avoiding it because they don't like the mess.

Any news past 2 months ?!

Has anyone heard anything new on this lately?  Would it help to send emails to the liquidator again?

August 30

Has anyone talked to mtux and gotten his stance on this?

ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

wtf

There needs to be a coordinated attack on Gox. He will not move until someone forces him to. Isn't there anything we can do?

Even if it brings a little more attention to him, some people also might want to sign this petition.

https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/cryptocurrency-community-remove-mark-karpeles-as-a-figurehead-of-crypto-bitcoin-foundation-and-anything-else-crypto

I'm interested to hear more about options for suing if it gets people to start moving.  I guess it is the only thing to do since no one gives a fucking shit that is involved on the other side of this.  I mean seriously, wtf.

At what price does BTC get to before we start to move on this?  The longer we wait, the worse mt gox looks, who knows what could happen to this company? 

If BTC goes back above 250 I really think we should start to talk more as a group.  This whole  situation is absurd.  It would be worth all users that want to do this to pay a percentage of their future holdings to some lawyer that actually has a fucking plan?  I mean I'm sorry, this liquadators are doing nothing, nor do they mind.  You know mt gox doesnt mind. 

Im all for it. Have any particular ideas about how we can move forward?

Lets just get a list going of users here.  If we can find a lawyer that will accept money when he gets ours that would be my first vote.  They literally have all my money, plus I am going to school full time.  I am not sure how much I could actually contribute in the beginning, but I could do something.  

I have a professor from school I took business law from that could most likely direct me to someone.  I probably have some of the least amt. of connections though in the professional world.

Anyone should chime in that has more ideas.

we need to start another thread where someone can update a list of all users that want to do this and will keep it up.  from there, we can decide money etc.  perhaps the lawyer(s) will be interested to take a case like this to put their name out in public.  it will hit enough websites if we can throw something at this entire shit crew. 

where wont the thread get moved to?  probably right back to this sub forum?  problem is, not many people visit this one. 

We could also draft letters to both Gox and the Liquidator, asking for an official response from each of them on what they are waiting for to move forward, as we are blind right now to what the hold up is. We could get these letters posted on the blogs to get some publicity.

It's clear what the hold-up is. The liquidator has no power and Karpeles gives a shit about bitcoinica users. MtGox needs all the funds it can get right now just to keep afloat. Perhaps he would have been bankrupt already if it wasn't for our coins and fiat.

Yeah, all out open positions were supposed to be liquidated at like $11.00 or something.  I almost forgot all about the "cash" I should still have, if that even is a real thing anymore.  Ugh..

Screw that. I want the coins I deposited. Gox has them.

I wrote the following to the liquidator on Sept 17:


On Oct 10 I finally got a reply which I can't share here because it comes with a lot of legal boiler plate but instead of answers I got a brief statement that every time they write an email it adds costs to the liquidation, which will affect the distribution to creditors.  (... I wonder how much they will charge for that?)

So you better keep your mouth shut and every 6 month you can expect another scrap of information in the shape of a liquidator report detailing 0 progress. Oh and another 50.000 USD please for our service. Suffice it to say that the Bitcoinica debacle has been a real education for me. Faith in humanity has dropped a few notches.

No, I meant additional cash from open positions using leverage.  If you remember, that was in addition to the coins you actually transferred in yourself.  There was a spot to mark this for the liquidators.  If you failed to do so, I would contact them.

Agreed.  That's why I think if PC and Ver can reach an agreement soon it would all be in our best interests.  Not to mention Mt Cox holding our coins. 

Otherwise, I am sure these people would face much more of a shit storm if the general public finds out about how this has been handled (in the form of further litigation) - some of these people are "influential" in the BTC community.  Why would anyone trust anything to someone in the past that has acted not in the best interest of the creditors involved? 

All I know, and I don't know much, is that Amir seems to be forthright with what he has been saying.  I mean.. then you get pictures of letters sent by random people containing fortune cookies..derp..what is going on here?  jesus

I PM'D Roger Ver this week and he told me he heard the liquidator has gotten hold of the passwords to the Gox accounts, so hopefully we will hear about the progress soon. The report is due soon anyway.

I wonder if they'll crash the market when they sell the BTC? 

That would be a pity  :-\

I had been thinking they'd liquidate at market value and give us the surplus from the increase in BTC value.  Now I'm thinking the company owners will get the surplus.   If so, they're going to make a killing.

Does anyone know common wealth law on this?

FTFY

But sadly that's a usual kind of robbery for the legacy "justice" system... :-\

Got this 4th Dec after inquiring

They have a different definition of "shortly" than I have. Anyone contacted them past two weeks?

I have good feelings about this delay, look like they are doing something

After all this time, do you think good things can happen in this world?!

This would make for an excellent christmas present.

Why is there a chance we don't get our coins and our cash back?  We should be made whole minus liquidator fees?

I think there is a chance we'd get the value in US dollars of the bitcoins at the time of liquidation.  And that there will be a very large surplus amount of money which will go to the owners of the firm.  And that the bitcoinica liquidation could be treated as the type of liquidation where the number of assets is greater than the liabilities.

Think about what would happen if bitcoins went down to zero.  It makes sense for a liquidator to value a highly variable asset at the value at the point of liquidation.  On the other hand, if the liquidator doesn't ownership of the assets until much later - it could make sense to value them at the point of acquisition.

Of course this is all speculation.  We need to some solid kiwi (New Zealand) legal advice.

Nice insolvency that would be. The people that f*cked up would be richly rewarded for their mistakes at the expense of all depositors.

Bitcoinica liability needs to be defined as BTC based.

The 3rd Liquidator report should be out any day now. So far I've been very disappointed in the performance of the liquidator. So I'm not very hopeful.

Some of us had Cash, Open positions, and Bitcoins that were ours, that we transferred into Bitcoinica, not coins that we acquired from Bitcoinica.  If they sell my coins I transferred into Bitcoinica, I am going to be so super pissed..

We all would be, and I'm afraid we will be. Thing is, most bitcoins were robbed. They will only be able to sell a small fraction of (formerly) our bitcoins we sent to the exchange. At this point, I don't fucking care. The bitmarket.eu guys decided to pay back some % of their robbed customers in BTC, but taking the market value of the lost coins on the day they were hacked (I think). So if you had 1 Bitcoin then, and say it was worth 10 bucks at the time (more like 5 bucks or less when bitcoinica was hacked? don't remember) you would get the equivalent of 10 bucks of today's prices sent to you in BTC) so about 0.01444 BTC of today's value (on btc-e, like right now). All of this fun minus the costs for the liquidators, and heck maybe Mark would charge money for "securing" the coins in the meantime (and fight illiquidity issues of MtGox). I wouldn't be surprised.

All things considered, I don't think I will realistically see even half a bitcoin of my former balance of 50 BTC. Not going to get excited much over that.

I'm afraid that's totally off the table. Like I said, it's hardly worth wasting a thought on it. In fact, if anything comes back, everyone will be mad. It will not be a happy moment. So, I'm thinking we should do ourselves a favor and not literally get sick over this "great" news that something, maybe, could come out of this.

If depositors are reimbursed for pennies on the dollar (11 USD is only 1.5% of the current BTC USD value) while the rest (98.5%) goes to the 'owners' I would be really pissed considering that these people are responsible for this mess including:

• Operating as a Limited Partnership before that partnership was fully formed (Unsigned docs)
• No backups of customer account data, No segregated accounts, No 2 factor on accounts (MtGox)
• Willfully leaked code including passwords to customer funds.
• Violating their own TOS
• Allowing a minor that was not an employee full access to funds and customer AML documentation (Zhou)
• No meaningful attempt to file reports for theft, backup recovery or fund recovery
• Never covering original thefts while lying to customers ('The thief stole from us, not you' & 'Previous thefts were covered by Tihan/investor') in order to attract new capital.
• etc.

I really hope the Liquidator will think this through and take steps that actually benefit the claimants. After all these are their funds that they trusted to Bitcoinica. Liquidating BTC @11 USD is almost legalized theft.


I also don't see why this should be the case. The last 'official' number we got before Bitcoinica went into Liquidation was a 30% haircut. (Can't find Amir's thread but it is also echoed in this article: http://bitcoinmagazine.com/1805/bitcoinica-stolen-from-again/). In addition not every depositor filed a claim. So let's not give up that easily.

Now that the Liquidator has access to the MtGox account we should get clarity as to how much is left. Of course the initial 30% haircut might have taken into account the promise of the investors to cover the previous (Linode & Rackspace) thefts. A promise they do not appear to have kept.

If bitcoin was worth zero would you be happy to get zero back for your bitcoins?

What would the difference be then?  Get robbed 95 cents on the dollar or get nothing. 

What does "shortly" mean to these people? 

Happy... no.  But at least I would be getting back what I put in.

50 BTC in ... 50 BTC out.

$50 in... $50 out.

The claim form suggests that they are aware of the difference, since it asks for "5a. Total Amount of Cash Owed USD (if any)" and "5b. Total Number of Bitcoins Owed (if any)".  Clearly then the liquidator understands that the debts are in two denominations.

One month delay and no news  ???...

don't dare e-mail them either, cost us another 1%

1% at the moment seems a bit steep don't you think ;)

Did anyone contact them in the past few weeks? The absence of communication is ridiculous. They should've at least e-mailed "The 6 month report will be delayed" to all creditors.

When was this last report due?  Does anyone even remember? 

June 4

2013?

Yes, the 3rd report should have been here by now. This is what I got from Bitcoinica@pkfcr.co.nz on 10/10/13:

I just noticed this on pkfcr's site:


http://www.pkfcr.co.nz/

It's like dealing with the French. 

2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 - it doesn't really matter. I will check back in a couple years.

could today be the day.....

sigh..

We just got an Email.  Wont have a chance to read it though for the next hour.  Hopefully someone can summarize.

There is nothing to read. Nothing happened.

MtGox still sitting on BTC funds. PKF taking what is left in USD funds as fees. FUBAR.

They still haven't got the money from MtGox as MtGox is saying they cannot prove they own the accounts.  They haven't given up on MtGox.

They are still considering legal action and would need to raise the money from creditors to do it.

They are spending down the money that they do have on lawyers and have very little left.

Jesus, it was like 1 page.  Am I reading it correctly where it says we have 64,000 BTC sitting in an account in total??

Then it states if gox doesn't respond they need to take legal action, which probably should have happened about 1 god damn year ago.  

I can't believe this shit.. what happens when gox goes down?  

Who has access to these funds?  There has to be 1 person with the password?? WTF??  What if this person dies?

If Gox goes down we will have an insolvency within an insolvency. We must go deeper.

Comparing the glacier speed of the liquidation to the breakneck speed of the BTC ecosystem, I predict more FUBAR in the near future.

Some ex-bitcoinica staffer should have the password, right?

And even if they forgot it, shouldn't they be able to reset it?

We could offer a reward for retrieving/remembering the password and handing it over to the liquidator.

Patrick Strateman had the password for a long time but was not willing to hand it over to the liquidator until recently. The liquidator should have the password now, but MtGox insists on protecting your privacy. Bless their hearts.

Exactly. God only knows what you would have spent it on otherwise... Crack Cocaine, Scooby Snacks, Goat Goodies...

Good to know Father Mark is looking out for us.

If Patrick has the PW, why cant he just withdraw the funds????

So, there were $11,684 left in the bank on 2013-11-01. At this rate, is there anything left to keep the liquidation going by now?

35k to reword report and change date.. lol 

what a fucking scam this all is.

I have no words to describe my level of disappointment.

Would be nice that some media publish an article about this situation and the attitude of Mtgox, someone should be asking questions to Mark about this.

Ignoring the complete lack of progress here, if I understand the liquidators report correctly:

1.  Gox is holding about $51 million and change in assets from Bitcoinica

2.  The total of all claims amounts to a measly $1.5 million

I'm assuming the $1.5 million number presumes a bitcoin valuation of $11 a piece. 

If legal action is taken, and the funds are reclaimed, then after the $1.5 million is repaid the remaining $49.5 million windfall (minus liquidator and legal costs) goes to Ator / Wendon Group?

If that's the case, the unsecured creditors have little incentive to pitch in when the liquidator decides to pass the hat to come up with money for lawyers.  Seems like Ator/Wendon has the most to gain from this, so I can't imagine anyone else footing the bill for it.  Unless of course they decide to pay back BTC claims at something closer to today's exchange rate, in which case the situation probably changes significantly.

Regardless, seems like $51 million in assets vs. $1.5 million in liabilities leaves enough room to launch a whole fleet of lawyers to Japan.

No shit.  We better get out BTC back that was ours to begin with.  

EDIT: How do we contact Wendon and ask them what the hell is actually going on with all of this? 

You could try contacting Tihan Seale.

From the 2nd report:


Tihan is the director of ATOR:

http://businessprofiles.com/details/ator-limited/NZ-2123704/tihan-seale

His email is listed in Amirs Bitcoinica dump @ http://pastebin.com/Ya6iN8RT

tihan[AT]splashlab[DOT]com

Note that Tihan pledged to waive his rights as a secured creditor in this liquidation. So all the proceeds (in USD or BTC) should go to the customers.



Also, what happened to the 15.000 BTC recovered after the Mt.Gox hack by Patrick Murck? I assume these were held in a separate non-frozen account that the Liquidator should have access to at this point?

We have been in this thing for so long now, I am starting to forget what even happened in the first place.

I guess I can try to contact this Tihan @ wendon group to see if he can move this thing along.  Doubt it will help though.

I guess what I can't understand for the life of me is......

a) Why can't they just stop all this b.s. and just take the coins out of the mt gox account for distribution?  I mean if someone has the password to the mt gox account, why can't they just be withdrawn?  Is it because this Patrick guy is "on the hook" to Wendon because of what went down?

b) If this patrick guy is the only one with the PW, what happens if he becomes incapacitated?  Then the coins are essentially lost to the black hole on mt gox forever?

c) Why doesn't this liquidator just get on with suing these fucks at mt gox instead of just siphoning $50,000 a year to write 2 reports that maybe took about 2.5 hours to create?  I mean its been like 2 years or so I feel.  Why just continue to string this along.. obviously mt gox is a pos.. just lets get this fucker over with. 

I feel like I am taking crazy pills.  I guess I can try writing to Wendon  Group.  I am sure either a no response or brick wall. 

If you are correct about Wendon group giving up all rights as a secured creditor, we should be in the clear as far as distributions coming back to us. 

I know the feeling.

The problem is that our funds are in the hands of people that don't care.

In fact their interests are largely aligned against ours:

• The liquidator is happy to have an excuse because the longer the liquidation takes the more fees they can rake in.
• MtGox appears to have had liquidity issues when the DHS seized their US accounts so locking up the Bitcoinica funds boost their reserves.
• Tihan does not care since he waived his rights as a secured creditor and if he touches anything he might lose his limited liability.
• The Bitcoinica Consultancy guys don't care because they never signed the paperwork for the General Partnership.
• Zhou does not care because he got away cleanly.

So this is going to take a while.

Let's hope nothing bad happens like MtGox becoming insolvent. I suspect the liquidator will run out of USD reserves to pay their fees soon and that will be the starting signal to collect more from the unsecured creditors to prepare for legal action. Legal action just means lawyers will get their piece of the pie.

The liquidators should have sued MtGox over a year ago, as soon as they saw they are in fact not cooperating. You are probably right about the fees and delays, then again, I doubt there would have been enough money to sue them even a year ago. MTGox was close to being insolvent a long time ago and was known for freezing accounts on a random basis, I have no doubt they would just confiscate the coins to increase their liquidity. They probably needed them to survive too.

If there is a lawsuit, as there should be, I will not throw any more good money after bad money, meaning whoever has the most to gain here should lead that battle. Instead, I will continue to speak out against that BS named MTGox that calls itself an exchange, and advise anyone to stay as far away from it as possible.

Maybe, the only good thing out of all this delay and survival of MtGox is that the bitcoin price would have never gone to 1000. It may have been to our advantage (if you hold any BTC anymore that is) that this shitty exchange is still in business. Now that there are several bigger exchanges, we won't need to fear that Bitcoin will take a considerable hit and I hope Gox dies soon as it deserves.

We could start an online petition to encourage MtGox to solve this.

I'm thinking a steady stream of blog posts, coindesk articles, and other news sources could put pressure on them to act.

good idea.  do you / anyone know who writes for coindesk?  with all the negative about mt gox i am even unsure if it will matter to them anymore.  but if you write that they are withholding 51MM dollars, that may make it a much more interesting headline.

I like this idea.
On our end, I will talk with the team about writing it on http://coinconsultancy.com/ (http://coinconsultancy.com/)

In the meanwhile, I tweeted:https://twitter.com/BitcoinAnalyst (https://twitter.com/BitcoinAnalyst)

Didnt Mt Gox also work with Zhou Tong before he was 18 to start this whole mess?????  Could be an interesting addition to the article as well.

I emailed Coindesk.  Another interesting tidbit is that the owners of Bitcoinica could be rewarded with $40-$50 million for incompetence and driving the company into liquidation (if they recover all the money, but only pay out $9/BTC).

I started a petition:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/mtgox-return-the-bitcoinica-funds-to-the

MtGox is withholding 51M$ in funds?? is this money from private people or corporations? how does this not impact mtgox "reputation"? brilliant.



http://coinabul.tumblr.com/post/24022841613/10qs-zhou-tong-bitcoinica

Affect its reputation?  I would say that Mt Cox withholding money is par for the course.  

But yes, they are essentially sitting on all our money, for our "privacy."  Still have not figured out what that means yet, especially when we have the actual liquidators backing.

My guess is that PKF is not really doing their part, and they are happy to keep eating at money until the $100,000 well runs dry.  After that, they will decide to actually pursue Mt Cox, instead of just writing love letters.  Which, by the way, should have probably happened already 1 year ago.

Do we know how many bitcoins are in the $1.5 million outstanding claim? It would be interesting to know this number in relation to how many bitcoins mtgox is holding for mtgox customers. If we could get organized around this and come up with a plan, perhaps we could bypass the liquidation company all together since they are very obviously only trying to screw us all. Thank god mtgox hasn't released the funds to them.

If you go back to the statement I think it is like 60k BTC or something wild like that.

I don't know if this number is available in the liquidator reports.  They convert btc into US dollars and then lump them in with owed USD.

The liquidator says MtGox has 64,000 BTC. But it doesn't say how that compares to claimed BTC. Presumably it is less.

Try sending a message to coindesk.  I did, I think someone else did as well.  Perhaps they will start to roll with it.

Otherwise, it looks like we are waiting till PKF decides to use up all available cash to start to pursue gox. 

Get paid $100,000 to do close to absolutely nothing and be able to wash your hands clean when done.  Should have went to law school instead.

SoOoOoOoOoOo.. are we ever going to see our money and coins?

Doesn't this lawyer have a fiduciary responsibility or something to make this happen before gox disappears into the japanese night?

Was there an announcement from the liquidator stating this or where are you getting this info?  thx

Do you really think we of all people in line will see any of our coins back from Gox?! It's obvious Gox doesn't even have the coins anymore to handle regular business / withdrawals. Sorry to ruin the hope once again, but I just don't believe in fairy tales.

Shouldn't we be like in the front of the queue because this shit has been going on for about 2 years now?

There is no queue. There is nothing but dust and hard feelings.

Just subscribing to this fucked up thread. Guys, I feel very sorry for you!

First the Bitcoinica Fuck up
Then the PKF fuck up
And now you are all basically goxed.

 >:(

And did not know that Amir was involved in this  :o

ughghhghghghghghghghghghghghhghghghghghghghghhghghhghghhghhghghghghghghghhghghg hghghghghg~!~!~!~!~!~!!~!


I hate mt gox!!~~!~~!~~!!~!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well I guess where out of luck no hope of getting any coins back. I figured there was very little hope along time ago and already written it off as a loss but now there is 0 hope and the best part is "NO ONE GOES TO JAIL".

:(

A sad day for the bitcoinica clients. The gox clients should partially blame themselves. They could have left the exchanges for more than a year, and even a few days ago, get 60% back through bitcoinbuilder. But you guys, you are just stuck...

I read the bitcoinica story in 2012 when I first went into BTC. And the fact that it is still not solved, is just fucked up.
All attention will go to gox, and you will be ignored  >:(

Mt. Gox wouldn't let me withdraw any coins not even to an internal account even though I was a verified customer. I have been trying to get my coins but was waiting on Mt.Gox since they needed me to resend my documents even though I am already a verified customer. They should already have that information.

They said they needed it because I used bitinstant. I had no such chance to use bitcoinbuilder. Other people can attest to this they have been trying to get their money out of Mt.Gox for over a month.

It was clear they didn't have the coins for a long time. Lies and nothing but lies to buy more time.

How long do you think they knew.

I really actually blame the fucking liquidators for just sitting on the 100k and doing nothing and blowing through the money.

I am not out of hope for all of this, but it doesn't look good either, obviously.

Don't you think our coins would be segregated from their main exchange wallets??  Wasn't there a post to show what address the coins were in.. or am I imagining all of that?

Nope. In fact, since the funds were in a "banned" account, MtGox isn't even classifying it as a liability. Effectively, MtGox claimed the funds for themselves.

PKF should actually do their job and figure out what is going on.  Perhaps actually earn their money.

goat, what were you talking about earlier in the thread where you said there were talks with the liquidator?

Can you sue liquidators for wasting 100k of our money and being inactive?

Thats what i wanna know.

From the last liquidator's report:

I truly understand now why there is so much violence in the world. George Carlin was right after all. Everything is BS and we get screwed over one way or another.

I've worked with liquidators on a professional level in the past. They make real estate agents look honest. The strategy they seem to react most to is anything press related. If possible you should look to get something published in the jurisdiction they are working in (NZ from memory).

I did not know some of you were NOT able to use bitcoinbuilder because an unverified account or other "gox" reason.
Sorry about that.

I wanted to point out that I feel very sorry for the losses on gox, but those that could have left, made a mistake not to do it.

Anyway, the bitcoinica clients did not have the chance to leave gox...  >:(

Insolvenception

Well there goes my dreams with mtgox.

What is exactly going on? I have a claim with the liquidator but I have not been involved more than that. How does the lawsuit (is there a lawsuit?) affect people not directly involved with it who have lost money in bitcoinica?

This really has gotten little press - I was just reading
http://gizmodo.com/the-6-biggest-bitcoin-heists-in-history-1531881137
and they fail to mention bitcoinica at all...

It's looking fairly likely that MtGox knew they were insolvent and that explains why we never got refunded.  Makes a lot more sense than an argument over being able to identify whose account it was.  Or maybe we were just caught up in their general lack of accounting.

Had the liquidator actually done what they were supposed to do with all the money they were handed, the Gox collapse could have been uncovered a long time ago. The value of the lost coins would have been lower, Karpeles would be in jail and the community and market would have healed by now. Instead we're left with no money, bigger losses and Karpeles will likely continue goxxing us during the aftermath by providing bad bitcoin publicity.

Correct.  I say we need to go after PKF for not doing their fiduciary? duty to clients.  They just sat there and collected money.

It's too bad MtGox wasn't located in New Zealand.  They could have used the same liquidation firm  :P

Mt. Gox may have been bankrupt for a long time for over a year some people claim.  If they where not bankrupt the coins they owed bitcoinica would have surely made them bankrupt. Which explains there excuses and delays.

But doesn't explain why pkf liquidators are such pieces of shit. 

Hopefully the liquidators get in on this:

http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/2014/03/02/mt-gox-announces-civil-rehabilitation-proceedings-what-to-expect-next/

This is news. Would this involve running the exchange to pay back their debts something bitfloor did?

I am hesitant to contact them.  Each E-Mail is like $3,452.34 to reply to.

This is new http://www.humint.is/goxcoin/ something called goxcoin that has pooped up works through the mastercoin protocol.

I'm sorry to hear about your situation, i was looking to buy btcs, I tried looking for reviews on Bitcoinica before i went ahead with it and they all seemed very 50 - 50. some good some bad.

Is anyone on board to look into situations where we can go after PKF Liquidators?  

In a couple weeks I am going to have a chance to talk to a lawyer that is employed by a broker-dealer in USA and ask him/her if we have any recourse to go after them for essentially being incompetent in handling the situation.

I am going to bring the "reports" that they sent us, along with any more relevant information I can think of.  If anyone is  interested, please send me a PM here and your public key so we can talk.  I do not believe that they will charge me anything just to talk to them from what I gather, but I wanted to have all the information clearly available and a clear timeline in hand.

Thanks-

Spending the 100k+ in almost 2 years isn't that bad in value but thanks for the laugh

..and what did they accomplish in those 2 years?  They answered a few emails?  Wrote a couple "reports"?  Is that really worth $100k??

Anything new I heard someone was trying to buy Mt. Gox?

im trying to get my lawyer to get the NZ people to make a claim in japan for us...

the NZ will not talk to anyone but lawyers :(

PKF says new report to be due by the 1st of June

really. Where did you get this info?

Think they will do it?

Hopefully they will do it lol.  Not that the last reports have done anything but let us know that they are trying their hardest not to get our coins back.  But my fingers remained crossed.

Derp.. maybe its a holiday or something in NZ, because I didn't get an update from them, guessing no one else did?

IIRC they were late for their last deadline too by few weeks.

Yeah, you are def. correct.  Although, I did receive an E-Mail from them like 4 days ago as a reply to the same question stating that it would be ready for creditors on the 1st.  Buuuuuuttttt.... not that anything has gone to plan since this clusterfuck started from the beginning.

I'm thinking it is highly unlikely that we'll ever see the money.  Does anyone know how can I declare this as a loss for my US taxes?  I'm filing a late return.

Do I declare it as a capital loss on form 8949?  I actually lost US dollars, so I'm not sure if this is a capital loss. If I had lost BTC - that would make more sense to treat it as a capital loss.   I think this loss would be treated similar to a having a savings account at a bank that goes bankrupt (and that isn't covered by insurance).

This is a similar situation to having US dollars at MtGox and losing it. How is that treated by tax authorities?  Admittedly MtGox users may get some of their money back.  So they may have to wait for the liquidation to calculate the loss.

Probably wouldn't do anything yet.  Most we can write off is 3k anyway, I believe. 

If it's a capital loss and you have gains that exceed it, you should be able to write off as much as you lose.  (Eg. no 3k limit).

We got a new EMail.  Now they want to fly to Japan to get answers because no one is replying back to the liquidators :/

Sounds like bitcoinica assets also = approx 10% of all Mt Gox, IIRC.

Liquidators are out of funds and are relying upon contributions to continue their work.  Ex. they want money to fly to the MtGox bankruptcy hearing (though attendance isn't mandatory).

The amount of claimed BTC is 91k vs the 65k that MtGox had or owes us.  So it looks like some people are over-estimating (and possibly attempting to defraud) the liquidation process.

Some big customers should probably fund the liquidators.  (Not me I lost around $450).  This report seems to have much more action that prior reports and we may be closer to getting a fraction of our money back.

Yes, seems a lot more detailed.  Although I almost remember only 60k BTC claimed on all the other reports.  Now it is 90k+ as you have stated. 

If they go to Japan, are they actually going to talk to someone or just come back with the excuse that "no one will respond to us."

Write it off and move on guys. Bankruptcy within a bankruptcy is just a money pit. These thieving liquidators have already burned through all the cash that could have been returned to the cash creditors. Don't give them any more funds to burn not getting any BTC back.

Even if they managed to get hold of any btc from mtgox, does anyone think they'll refrain from burning through a big chunk of that too?

It sounds like they are looking for around $500 from ten individual creditors.  I am in school still, so it isn't like I have a ton of money, but I am going to send them the money.  I am course owed 100+ BTC, so I guess I will take one last stab at it. 

Please, if anyone has the coin, contribute what you can.  I know it sounds like a losing battle.  Hopefully there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I am really interested in how this works out!

My team is looking over this and learning from all the mistakes (we arnt looking to enter that sort of market at all) but we would love some user feedback! We are looking to write up a full report on the whole issue.

Hopefully it will shine some light and help new users understand situations like these (and make sure they dont fall into the same pit).

People: they've spent over $100,000 over the last couple of years to do nothing -- almost 100% of the cash assets.  Don't send these vampires any more of your hard earned money.

Should they manage to get their hands on the BTC that is ours, what on Earth makes anyone think that they won't burn through a similar percentage of that "returning" it to us?

I've lost a ridiculous value of BTC, as I'm sure have many others.  But I truly believe that it's gone, and no amount of pouring money into the liquidators hands is going to get it back.  Jeez, just look at what they're asking for... $10,000 to attend a meeting in (presumably) Japan from New Zealand.  Are they chartering a jet or something?  No -- they are going to fly five of them 1st class on our dime, put themselves up in $500 a night hotels,  and then bill us $500 a day for a few weeks of "research" -- how else would you come up with a $10,000 estimate?

I personally think it is worth spending $9k US (nz currency is worth around 88 cents) to recover $40 million in bitcoins.

In fact it is worth spending at least another $100k.

Sure you aren't going to recover $40 million, but you might anything from $500k to $8 million.

It only isn't worth it if your claim on MtGox is stronger than your claim on Bitcoinica - in which case you'd want Bitcoinica to get nothing.

I think that is very important have some representation in the meeting, this process started long time before the Mtgox disaster, we are not victims of the sudden fall of Mtgox, we have been deliberately stolen. They have blocked this process for over a year and the most probably is that our funds have been used to keep afloat Mtgox all this time.

Getting a preference treatment on the distribution process need be our priority and this is the only way.

anyone intrested to fund them to get answers?  I might be interested?

I am going to contact them by phone here shortly.  Through previous conversations they are looking for $500 from 10 creditors.  I originally thought I could contribute more, but I can probably do $250

I am hoping if we give them more money then they will return it back to the creditors that backed this excursion when (if) we ever get back this money.

Obviously nobody is happy with this people, but we are 202 users claiming about $60M, if they can't collect $8k will be a clear signal of resignation.

Mtgox has been the only thing that has hindered the liquidation all this time. Now that is no longer in the hands of Mtgox, it's time to restore hope. The liquidators have to be at the meeting of creditors.

pretty good point i guess

+ 1 what is another 500 bucks or 25 bucks each....

I was informed that they are not going to accept BTC as payment towards this trip out to Japan.  If anyone can send them cash for me I am willing to contribute $250 worth of BTC towards the cause if it will do any good at this point.  LMK.

I am trying contribute since few days ago but look like they ignore my emails...

email from today
Please deposit the agreed funds into the following bank account, which needs to be received by 9:00am New Zealand Standard time on Wednesday 16 July 2014.

 

Account Name:                             PKF Corporate Recovery & Insolvency (Auckland) Limited – Trust Account

Account Number:                          0697455-00

BSB Number:                               123057

Swift Code:                                  ASB BNZ 2A

Bank Name:                                 ASB Bank Limited

Bank Address:                             19 Hargreaves Street, Ponsonby,  Auckland, New Zealand

 

If we do not receive sufficient funds to meet the cost of attending the meeting then the funds will be returned to you less any applicable bank charges.

Any updates on this?

?? havent received anything in email... guessing exactly nothing came of this

Kraken to take over Mt Gox.. is this real?

Trustee Opens Formal Claims Process for Mt Gox Customers

http://www.coindesk.com/trustee-opens-formal-claims-process-for-mt-gox-customers/

Very interesting:
"The bitcoin value listed on the claims form is $483, which it specifies is taken from the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index at 23:59 on 23rd April 2014, Japan time."

This means if we get back 20% of the bitcoins of our claim, we'd actually get more than our claim in US dollars (if valued at $10 bitcoins - which was the value when Bitcoinica went bankrupt).  Or we'll have very well paid lawyers =(

Wow - Mark Karpeles owes $136 million to MtGox for a loan that he got.

Just spoke to lawyers for us in NZ.  They said they are trying to figure out the best way to file claim and will let us know how they will proceed.  So...

Anyone know if the trustee filed a claim?

The Sixth report (which all creditors should have gotten) says they did.

It's too bad MtGox wasn't located in New Zealand.  They could have used the same liquidation firm

A US bankruptcy court is going to decide whether a person owes 3000 BTC (at present value) or their value in Sept 2013:

http://www.coindesk.com/bankrupt-bitcoin-mining-firm-trustee-seeks-return-of-funds-from-former-promoter/

It'll be interesting what choice the MtGox bankruptcy court takes, and then what choice the NZ liquidators make.

Has anyone heard from PKF lately?  Now that Kraken is supposedly getting some money back from initial reports...

http://www.coindesk.com/mt-gox-bankruptcy-details-creditor-reimbursement/

This is still going on? After so many years? I have no hope of ever seeing any of those coins again unless we could make Zou Tong liable for the "hacks" that have happened back in the days. Time to finally #rekt this subject methinks.

update:

http://bitcoinist.net/kraken-details-mt-gox-meeting/

So that update says that all the claims are processed.  So we're waiting to hear if the Bitcoinica claim was accepted!

Let's hope it is. So that the victims can get their money back.

List of all accepted/rejected MtGox claims

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4lad22/list_of_all_acceptedrejected_mtgox_claims_pdf/


https://mega.nz/#!ZRJTCIKB!yBJ_Kc0azMhEVJLWbus_Kr7SYSk1jHwINGbj_4ecoZQ

Good news

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4lbvm7/bitcoinica_claim_of_64532_btc_and_135k_accepted/

So Bitcoinica had 65K BTC at MtGox in 2014??

Mtgox denied the access to that funds since 2012

Wow.  Has anyone been contacted by PKF?  Looks like we will get at least 'something' back.

I wonder how their going to handle open leveraged positions.

So the 9th liquidators report is interesting.  
Claims against Bitcoinica are: 91,300 BTC
$248,000 cash
$276,000 leveraged trading positions (hmm, I wonder if they are ignoring people with negative trading positions?  Maybe not a big deal as they were probably 1/10th of this amount)

But the MtGox trustee values the claims at $6.8 million (USD)!

The bitcoins were only worth around $10 when Bitcoinica went bankrupt, so this claim is equal to all the cash ($524k) and roughly 6.3 million left over for 91k bitcoins - or $690/bitcoin.

If the liquidation ever goes through, it looks like the NZ liquidators will get a sizable amount of money.

This $690/bitcoin is also a major increase from the previously announced value of $483.  So either they changed the Bitcoin valuation or Bitcoinica had a sizable number of bitcoins on the exchange that weren't subject to claims.  Maybe this is best explained by the leveraged trading positions!  As those trading positions should have been backed by purchases of bitcoins.  

If you take $6.8 million, subtract the $250k cash.  You have $6.55 million.  Divide by $483 - and you get 135,600 BTC.  So it is possible that the open positions were equal to 44,300 BTC long (and you have to remember that back then they were only worth $10 - so it wasn't as crazy as this would be now).  That makes more sense than the liquidators changing their valuation of BTC. If they changed their valuation all the time based on market conditions, they'd never be able to liquidate.

I found this interesting, as well.  Impossible to get anything else from the liquidators, though, at this point.

There is only one way this is even worth waiting for after all these years. If we can get back any half-way considerable amount in Bitcoins. I lost about 50 Bitcoins back then and at ten bucks a piece, why would one even bother to still care for 500 bucks so many years later?! I understand some of the claimants are owed hundreds or thousands of bitcoins. Everyone probably went long on with their lives...

From latest report, without subtracting lawyer fees, I think it grosses around 25%.

Latest report
1) People have made inquiries about buying Bitcoinica's claim.
2) The liquidators are trying to figure out how to value BTC claims in USD.  This could mean they are worth anything from $10 to $2000+.  Though obviously if we use the current market price, we'll only get a percentage of our claims.

Looks like Mark has setup some sort of website for claimants.. not sure where this is heading

https://www.mtgoxrecovery.org/l/en_US/

Where did you find that website address? MagicalTux on reddit mentioned something about a site being up, but I couldn't find a link to it, or details about it.

The alleged money-launderer at BTCe is accused of having laundered the Bitcoinica hack:
http://blog.wizsec.jp/2017/07/breaking-open-mtgox-1.html

wow, i wonder if we will be able to claim any more btc from this??

Did anyone receive any request for additional information in relation to their claim from the liquidator as they stated they would in their letter from 17 July?

I haven't so far.

I actually sent the liquidator an email asking this. Here is their reply:

This is taking ages to be resolved, I guess they all wait for MtGox first.

So they sent out another round of letters. Looks like they are planning on doing distributions soonish.

"and the amounts I received between 11 May 2012 and the date of Bitcoinica’s liquidation on 2 November 2012, were as follows:"

Why are they so concerned with these two sets of dates?   Do they have records from May 2012, but not from Nov 2012?  

Also  - you are meant to list your BTC Account balance and USD account balance.  Unfortunately I had a small (6 btc) short. Do I list that as a negative balance?   Otherwise, I know my USD balance.

My main documentation is my claim form submitted to Bitcoinica as I mostly transferred USD there.  I sent the money via Dwolla. So my Dwolla records have it going to Mutum Sigillum LLC.  Was that a MtGox LLC?    Did we use "MtGox Money" to transer funds to Bitcoinica?  I remember something like that.


I also don't understand their form for bank numbers.  I've got a nine digit number (on my check book) and then a 8 digit account number.  A US bank.
 I know how to break it into "routing number" and "account number".  
How do I convert that into their Bank, Branch, Account Number system?

I think they might be using the British system for checks, which differs from the US one.

Can we be certain our documents will be safe?

I'm not comfortable giving out my documents like my passport and proof of address, birth certificate or a utility bill for "just" 50 BTC at a price of what, a few Dollars per BTC. If there would be any distribution of the original amount of BTC in BTC that would be an entirely different story, however it doesn't look like this is anywhere near happening after all these years.

If they value BTC at $10, you might be getting back several times what you lost as they should have a massive surplus.  MtGox itself should be in surplus with BTC over $3000 or $4000.  MtGox should be able to pay out 100% of the Bitcoinica claim and then that may be 10 - 100 times more than the claims (with BTC valued at $10 by the Bitcoinica liquidators and $600 - I think? - by the MtGox liquidators).

This is just a hypothesis.  I am not experienced with liquidations.  Maybe the Bitcoinica owners will get the surplus.  Maybe the BTC owners will be compensated with the surplus (for their loss in excess of the $10 cost basis). Or maybe we'll need to settle this in court with a class action suit.

Bitcoinica die at may 2012, I dont understant why are they asking about received between 11 May 2012 and 2 November 2012 ??? ???

So my US bank gave me
-a Swift code
-my routing number
-my account number

The rest of the codes don't seem to apply to US banks. Also the format that they provide for the numbers is bad.

I'm going to email the liquidators to ask them about this. My guess is they won't respond, but if other US residents want to email them - perhaps we could get some clarification.

If they don't clarify, I will amend the form myself.

I also notarized a copy of my passport which fortunately only cost $5.

The wording is very unclear, but maybe they are asking about the difference in your account balance from May 11, 2012 to November 2, 2012 to cover people who received a partial reimbursement from Zhou Tong.    He was giving out an approximately 50% reimbursement (which I received).

That was from back when Donald, Patrick, Amir, and Tihan were passing out partial reimbursements, right?  I didn't get any of that...

Interesting numbers - I know that I alone had a long position of 18000 BTC...makes me cry to think about it since basically all my money was tied up in Bitcoinica :(

If you had a long position of 18,000 BTC it is probably worth getting your own lawyer.  Or have you already checked in to this?  The liquidator plan is to ignore open positions.

Getting a lawyer sounds too expensive for me right now unfortunately.  I'm aware of the liquidator plan and I've tried to convince them otherwise to no avail.  I guess I'm still kind of doubtful that I'll ever see anything from the whole thing anyway.

I've never got a lawyer for anything.  You could try getting investors/supporters or even selling your claim.

Hi There,

The last email that I received from Anne Swanepoel  (from PKF Corporate Recovery & Insolvency) was on June 10th 2015.
Since then I must have dropped off their email list for unknown reasons. Could someone please send me a contact to reach out to to get back on that list?
I filed my claim end of 2012 and got partially reimbursed back then... but obviously hoping to receive more that once was mine.

Thanks.

bitcoinica@pkfcr.co.nz

And they just sent out another report by email, though it looks like the attachment is missing.

Thanks.

Any updates on the MTGOX rehabilitation claim case?!

Hi, I'm concerned that the Bitcoinica liquidator, PKF, isn't doing what creditors need. I'm speaking with an NZ insolvency lawyer about it next week, and have emailed the Insolvency Practitioners trade body in New Zealand.

I'm Andy Pag, I'm a creditor in the Mt Gox bankruptcy. Last year we set up a co-operative of Mt Gox creditors and over 1000 joined. Together we were able exert our preferences and bring this closer to conclusion. I want to set up a similar cooperative for Bitcoinica creditors. Partly to help you guys out, partly because if your liquidator doesn't do his job it hurts us all. (see below for details)

I'm speaking with a New Zealand insolvency lawyer next week, and will ask him about setting up a creditors committee. I also want to know how we can force the trustee to assess the claims submitted so far. Without that, claimants have no legal standing.

There's a creditor vote coming up in the Mt Gox case. The Bitcoinica trustee is the largest stakeholder in that vote. If PKF don't vote, it puts all our claims (Mt Gox and Bitcoinica) in jeopardy. I'm worried they will abstain out of fear. I've tried to share our Japanese lawyer's opinion with them and encouraged them to seek independent legal counsel in Japan, but as far as I can tell they haven't. The head of PKF has also refused funding to pay to assess claims. He's uncommunicative and at times outright rude, and I can't see any reason for him to behave this way. It's really against Bitcoinica's creditor's interest to be like this.

I'm setting up a google group to share information. I'm not asking anyone for money. The more people join, the more weight it will carry, so if you have a claim, please join it. Go to https://groups.google.com/d/forum/bitcoinicacreditors or email me andypagonthemove@gmail.com and I'll add you.

You don't need a gmail email address, but you can set one up if you want to remain anonymous on the group.

Andy

Another report is out.

So does Wendon having a General Security Agreement mean that they get any extra funds that are distributed to Bitcoinica (after everyone else had been paid off, possibly at below market rates for their owed btc)? I'm totally guessing. Or what does it mean?

Any update on this?  I've been out of touch for a while.  I see there was a new report in December that I couldn't access through sharepoint.  Anything else I should know?  It has been a long ride...

We're waiting for the MtGox liquiditation which could happen in 2021 if we're lucky, but I wouldn't count on it.  Then it moves to the NZ courts who get to decide whether to return owed BTC as BTC, or as the $10 they were worth when the bankruptcy occured (possibly making the former CEO of Bitcoinica extremely rich and/or people who are owed purely USD like myself).

There are people offering money for BTC claims for Bitcoinica, but they are offering a fraction of what I think the claims are worth (possibly 10%-30% of the price of bitcoin).

Hmm, that said, it is kind of interesting that nobody has started a claims trading market for MtGox and Bitcoinica...

What is the contact information for the bitcoinica liquidator? 

I've never heard from them, but did recently get an email from Fortress asking about my bitcoinica positions.. which means someone knows about my account.

Anyway, just looking for the best way to catch up on bitcoinica and mintpal, if anyone knows about that recovery as well.

thanks

Liliya Zlobina, Insolvency Administrator

PKF Corporate Recovery & Insolvency

Chartered Accountants and business advisers

 

 

www.pkfcr.co.nz
            

Level 15 • Swanson House • 12 – 26 Swanson St • Auckland 1010
PO Box 3678 • Auckland 1140 • New Zealand

Phone: +64 9 306 7426 • liliya.zlobina@pkfcr.co.nz

I assume this is a good sign for those of us who lost BTC with the bitcoinica hack: https://cointelegraph.com/news/mt-gox-rehabilitation-plan-is-now-final-and-binding