Bitcoin Forum

Background:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75802.msg1353074#msg1353074 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75802.msg1353074#msg1353074)

I vote for scammer tag. You don't go into something with somebody and then change the rules on them and make them jump through a bunch of hoops to get their money back.

If he has the list of shareholders and refuses to pay them back as per the original contract then yes.

If you were in his position (well known, large amounts of money) and everyone had some 3 letter agency (IRS, FBI, and SEC) after them would you cover all of your bases in a similar manner?  Bitcoinland isn't the same as it used to be, this isn't free for all anonymous fest anymore.

So I vote No.

But I also say that's really shitty maaaannnnn.

I'm sure he could have set up a third party to proxy all the shareholders who couldn't submit that info if he wanted to but the greed of keeping more of his asset for free which was paid for by investors kicked in.  The third party could even list all those shares on - https://btct.co

This was the old contract:

Hello fellow bitcoiners,

Off the back of the glbse 2.0 release and with a soon to be influx of mining equipment, I am proud to release the first and ONLY 5Mh/s perpetual mining bond.

Introduction:
Mining assets are becoming extremely common on the GLBSE. We have companies that offer ownership of hardware, bonds that correlate to actual hash rate. But overall nothing too exciting, too large, or too profitable.

Until now.
Introducing Gigamining! http://gigamining.com/

The ONLY 5Mh/s perpetual mining bond.

The first bond to offer more than 2 Mh/s per bond, and run by a name you know has the hashes to back it up.

Summary:
There will be a total of 10,000 bonds issued, with each bond worth a massive 5 Mh/s.

During the initial offering of 1000 bonds the 500 bonds remaining will be sold on 4/10/2012, they will be sold for a cheap 1 BTC. All maintenance free.

Bulk pre-sales of 100 or more units can be made at the 1 BTC price BEFORE the IPO on 4/10. PM me to get started.

Each bond will pay 100% of PPS earnings every 7 days.

The bond will never expire.

I reserve the option to repurchase bonds at 105% of the highest traded price over the last 15 days.

About Me
Most of you know who I am, most of you know I have the ability to deliver this kind of power. I'm not going anywhere any time soon, so trust that your coin is safe, and doing its best work for you, here. If you have any questions, ask them in the thread.

Where is 50Gh going to come from?
- I currently run 33Gh in GPUs (undervolted and underclocked to 26.5Gh for the summer)
- I also run 11 Butterfly Labs singles @ 9.1Gh
- Soon 4 mini rig boxes will arrive with a total of 100Gh of mining capacity.

You can see the farm mining at anytime at http://gigamining.com/mgpumon/

Best,
gigavps

thx theymos: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75802.1280

He cannot just change the mining contract in his favours !
Thus the contract is void and he should repurchase bonds...

I agree he should offer to buy them back.  Just plain old stealing them shows how much of a scam it is.

It isn't possible to buy out the shareholders per the original contract, because that specified the highest traded price, which doesn't exist, as the basis. Unless you want to take the tiny value based on the mpex price.

Now you know why I avoid investing in such bonds  :)

If the original contract specify the instrument as "bond", then the request for claims is void. The request for claims is treating the Gigamining's financial instrument as "agreement".

Better quote it before it disappears.


Edit: And now I think more about that it is a fraudulent legal document as he surely knew it was bonds he was offering up as it says in his own words I quoted.

No he should not, and this is also why the scammer tag for Nefario is unwarranted. As it turns out, because of pirate and the actions of certain other people who like to flaunt themselves on the internet as "brokers" and "exchange operators", certain things are -- right now -- under review by official regulatory commissions around the world.

Like it or not, it does not matter what YOU think. If, say, Gigavps was ordered by a lawyer to do something, or Nefario was ordered by a lawyer to do something (BTW, Nefario did in fact make his lawyer's contact info public so there is no excuse for not checking this); then it is not under their control to prevent such action from occurring; Further, any party such as Theymos (unfortunately) who desires business to carry on as usual is only prolonging the inevitable.

I guarantee you, I say it twice, I guarantee you; the people who gave Nefario and may likely give Gigavps a scammer tag will one day come under the same legal pressure in one way or another if they remain involved in the "bitcoin securities business". And then what will they do? They will not give themselves scammer tags; They will simply remove the scammer tags for people like Nefario (and maybe Gigavps). ALL current exchange operators, including those who make several thousand dollars a month, are small peanuts, and will come under this pressure.

If you want to make bitcoin grow get the fuck out of gray areas like securities and stuff like tor and silk road. If you don't, the ONLY thing you will accomplish is to destroy bitcoin. And a scammer tag for Gigavps will become meaningless bullshit.

If Gigavps gets a scammer tag for stopping now, would you have given him a scammer tag if he had to stop for being thrown in jail? Legal pressure people. Get with the program.

I completely understand this sentiment. But I disagree with it. Here's why:

Nefario wrote many posts proclaiming that his operation could withstand full-frontal attack by the state. He didn't beat around the bush at all when it came to clearly stating that GLBSE was an underground operation, the state be damned. Gigamining also did business on a very grey market site. It was clear to everybody involved that this was a non-state sanctioned enterprise. So, when they go to the state and the clients get F'ed it completely warrants the scammer tag.

If a business starts off in the white market then it's expected to be involved with the state. BitInstant is a good example of this. That's totally white market. I expect them to get involved with lawyers and such.

The Silk Road I absolutely do not expect to get involved with lawyers. I also think, and I think most would agree, that GLBSE and Gigamining were non-lawyer type businesses. So when they turn to them all of a sudden I think it deserves the scammer tag.

The reason I agree with the post above is that it could indeed be used to run a long con. Simply setup an illegal/grey op then when the time comes to pay up you simply visit a lawyer and your clients will be screwed because they signed up under a false assumption and cant get their funds back without incriminating themselves.

Nefario/Giga et al  going to the state is as retarded as DPR going to them.

You fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the relationship between someone and their lawyer.

A lawyer does NOT "order" their client to do anything.  A Judge "orders".  Law Enforcement or Regulatory bodies may "order".  A lawyer "advises".

A lawyer only tells you what they advise you to do - explaining the risks and benefits of doing (or not doing) it.  Where you reject that advice (and do otherwise) they may (especially in criminal cases) ask you to sign that statement that you are acting contrary to their advice.  That's to protect them in case you subsequently try to claim you didn't receive proper representation.

Dont know where you got the impression from that the lawyer orders the client - it's actually the other way round.  The client instructs their lawyer what to do, the lawyer advises the client on what they believe the client SHOULD do.  In fact lawyers very much go out of their way to make plain they are NOT ordering a client to do something.

Which isn't to say that it's a good idea to go against your lawyer's advice of course.

Where there's an issue in respect of giga's behaviour is NOT that he may be having to take certain steps to protect himself and comply with laws/regulations.  It's that he appears to be attempting to misrepresent the past - in his own interests and against those of the parties with whom he entered into agreements.  Very specifically (for one thing) it is apparent that when the agreement was offered there was no mention of it being by an LLC - yet now he appears to be claiming (via his lawyer) that all agreements were with the LLC rather than with himself personally.  That has significant impact on the assets again which other parties have claim should he fail to honour the agreement.

There's no basis in law (and certainly no legal requirement to) misrepresent the nature of an agreement you entered into to avoid inconvenience now.  If you were wrong to make the agreement - then that's fine: sort out the mistakes, work to minise damage to both parties etc.  But don't just start lieing about what was actually agreed - whilst that MAY give you a better chance of avoiding SOME problems (by avoiding admitting to things) it's dishonest and deceitful.

At root the complaint against giga would be that by his actions he's putting his own self-interest above honouring his commitment to those he entered into agreements with.  Which is essentially what ALL scammers do - just in most cases that self-interest is "I want the money" rather than "I don't want problems with LE/SEC".

If you intentionally make it impossible (or impractical, or unreasonably costly) for your investors to get what was promised to them for reasons of self-interest then that's scamming just as much as if you vanished with their funds.  That's what seemed to happen with nefario - his lawyer advised him (NOT ordered him) that he should close down GLBSE in HIS interests and he did so, in the process (apparently - I've not seen what was agreed between him/the other GLBSE shareholders) breaking agreements he'd made with others here.

Scammer tag is (or should be) awarded because you choose not to honour agreements you made.  If I enter into agreement with you (by you I mean whoever - not usagi specifically) and you don't keep your end of the deal then whatever loss is caused to me is unchanged whether you were advised by a lawyer to break the agreement or not.  If there's good reasons why it would cost you to keep the deal then, frankly that's your problem and shouldn't be mine.  Giga should have thought about that BEFORE offering to sell unlicensed securities that were designed to make him significant profit and marginal (if any) profit for investors.  This was NEVER a share - but a bond (of sorts).  His obligations were crystal clear - and neither the risks (which he's now apaprently suffering from) or the rewards (which were only ever really going to him) were split with investors.

All that said, I don't believe he deserves a scammer tag (yet).  If he acknowledges that the requests for ID etc are to cover HIS arse (and aren't necessary for him to meet his obligations) and agrees to cover costs incurred by investors in providing such documentation then I don't see any real harm being done.  Though he still has to address the issue of those who are unwilling (or unable in the case of minors) to provide such information.  If his assertion is that the information is necessary for him to fulfil the agreement (and someone won't provide it) then he really only has two options - cancel the agreement and refunds all funds received (less dividends paid) on the basis that the investor won't provide information necessary to activate the agreement OR report it to the relevant LE/regulatory authorities (on suspicion that the refusal is for AML-related reasons).  You (he) can't argue that the information is somehow NECESSARY for the agreement to be transacted - and then in the next breath say that you want to keep YOUR entitlements under the agreement if preconditions for the agreement to be valid aren't met.

He seems to want to have his cake and eat it.  He needs to choose which - as he's not entitled to both.

No, not really.


Lol whatever, if you have a lawyer tell you to stop doing something or you will go to jail and you ignore him, you're a friggen idiot. Well, you're a friggen idiot for other reasons but whatever.


You are right and that's a good point. You surprised me by noticing this. If he is now stating he incorporated/whatever with a lawyer and didn't reveal this in his contract then he committed fraud by issuing the original contract while never intending to keep it in the first place. In that case, he deliberately misled investors for financial gain and would be guilty of fraud. Give him the scammer tag.

Oops, sorry giga. You earned this one.


Yep. However, in this case he claimed he was using his lawyers from the very beginning. This was never revealed and it obviously invalidates certain clauses from his contract. This means he intentionally deceived his investors for financial gain.


Based on what you said above I think he does. He issued a contract which he intended to break. There is no way he ever intended that contract to stand; he lied in the contract, he had planned to go to his lawyer at first opportunity from the very beginning.

How quickly they turn on each other.  :)

Gigavps definitely deserves a SCAMMER TAG.

Gigavps got his shareholders data but has unreasonable claim requirements, even worse than nefarios initial claim procedure.
This should be enough to get gigavps scammer taged.
So my request is: scammer tag gigavps, because his way of dealing with this issue is just a way to avoid any payment to shareholders.


BTW: the letter from his Lawyer isn`t even signed so for all we know, gigavps wrote that letter himself  ;) Just to "cover" his ass!

Greetz

You just don't get it.

Your lawyer does not "tell you to stop doing something".  They may, however advise you to stop doing something.

You're using "order" and (this time) "tell" when you should use "advise" or "recommend". As a (professed) English teacher I assumed you understood those words have significantly different meanings - and hence that by choosing the words you used you were demonstarting a lack of understanding of the nature of the lawyer/client relationship.

On your later point about it not being smart to ignore your lawyer's advice, that could be why I said "Which isn't to say that it's a good idea to go against your lawyer's advice of course.".

It may seem like niggly little point by me to argue about semantic detail.  But it's a pretty major point.  Too many people (not just on this forum) claim that they're doing something because their lawyer instructed them to do it or told them to do it - attempting to portray the lawyer as the decision-making person and so shift some (or all) of the blame for the decision away from them.  In reality, lawyers advise that you do X for reason Y - attempting to claim that the lawyer ORDERED you to do X (and not disclosing Y) is factually incorrect as well as being deceptive.

Someone says "My lawyer ordered me to do X" - it gives impression they're helpless and have no option.

Person says "I'm doing because X because my lawuer advised me that if I didn't I'd suffer Y" then it becomes plain that THEY made the choice - and that they did so because they didn't want to suffer Y.  i.e. it becomes obvious they made a conscious decision to act in their own self-interest.

The latter is what actually happens -the former is what the nefarios/gigas of the world want everyone to believe - as it doesn't paint them in such a bad light.

I hear they're taking auditions for peewee herman 3. They need someone to play an overweight argumentative looser that lives with his parents and likes to argue like a 3 year old cuz Mark Holton is too old now.

You did well pointing out some facts on this Gigamining case. Now stop polluting the forum and let the mods do their job.

In this particular case he is spot on.

The problem when the issuer does not maintain their pseudonymity.

Feels insecure and lawyers up.  The liability is def on the part of the issuer.


This is not acceptable with contracts written under pseudonymity.  What we are seeing is what happens when the issuer fails to maintain the integrity of their pseudonymous contract.  Negligence?

Right - that post of yours had way more useful/valuable content than any of mine?

Would suggest you use different translation software - whatever you're using now seems to mistranslate something that should come out as "Sorry - I was totally wrong" into "Go away you're a troll [Insert random insult]".

Probably the one correct summation.

I do understand the arguments about not giving the scammer tag because of being under legal pressure, however I think some are viewing the scammer tag the wrong way. The scammer tag is not "You need to do this even though it may or may not be illegal". It's not about about dealing justice, or punishing people, or forcing people to do anything. The scammer tag is "He made x agreement, he can't or won't keep it". It's a warning about those who make promises they can't keep, and there's a lot of those around here.

IMO a scammer tag pretty clearly fits the situation, on the other hand he's a longstanding member (year and a half), has fairly good rep, and this is his first and only real incident. Have there been other incidents? Does he have any other investments?

Exactly.
BTW the legal constraints are just fluff to legalize the stealing of lots of bonds IMHO.

On the other hand giving a scammer tag to the one person that went into their own pocket to hire lawyers to try and sort out Nefario's mess (and in the process forced Nefario to give out those lists, because I don't think it would have happened otherwise) seems...perverse. Maybe it's just me.

Before giga gets the scammer tag, you would need to give the scammer tag to every other glbse asset issuer, because they did not fulfill the terms of the contract, where giga went to great expense and put himself at great risk to find a way he could continue to pay people, when the easier way would have been to do nothing just like every other asset issuer has done so far.

Its telling that Giga hasnt responded to the allegations.

He really needs to state his case.

Yes, I expect an inflation of scammers tags soon. But spare me your delusions about Giga's integrity. He's openly looking for a way to make as difficult as possible for his investors to get paid.

If that were the case it would have been much easier to do nothing than to hire a lawyer to express to nefario several times on the record that if he didn't send the lists there would be consequences. If giga wanted to make it difficult for investors to get paid he wouldn't have done this, and it would have been near impossible for investors in any other glbse asset to get paid either.

The difference is that he is not anonymous, and that in this way he can steal legally (or quasi-legally).
See the light?

No. If he had not been the one to legally pressure nefario into providing the lists, it wouldn't have mattered one bit that he is not anonymous, it is impossible to pay people if you don't have those lists. By the way, nefario has admitted the lists are even incomplete.

He has already all the info needed to pay his investors. If the lists are incomplete, he can start paying who is already in the list. There is no freaking need of any invented legal bullshit.

To the bitcoin community:

We are all in the very unenviable position of riding in the wake of the aftermath of James McCarthy. I have been placed in a very bad spot in this wake, and my only goal is to protect and serve Gigaminers as I have over the last half year.

I would like to point out that I am the only asset issuer on GLBSE, as far as I am aware, who is trying to move forward and abide by all the laws of local, state, federal and international law. I am the only asset issuer, as far as I am aware, to hire legal counsel and to send via certified mail, a demand letter to James McCarthy after multiple unanswered emails and phone calls. I am fairly confident that the asset lists only started arriving once the letter was received.

Further more, how exactly would you like me to handle situations where claims are made against gigamining that are not in the list provided from GLBSE? Should I and all Gigaminers just keep trusting nefario? This is the exact reason to have a claims process in the first place. Nefario is withholding information for a mistake he made, Gigaminers should not have to suffer because of Nefario's mistakes any longer.

I have received claims for over 10% of Gigamining that are NOT on the lists given to me by GLBSE. This is a significant percentage and it warrants the claims process.

Finally, what should happen if I pay the wrong individual a large amount of the held coins? Guess what, I'm still on the hook according to the law. It is only right to protect the interests of all Gigaminers by making sure I have legal recourse should such a situation occur.

I hope it is clear that I am only trying to clean up and move forward from the situation at hand.

Best regards,
James

I've decided that gigavps will not get a scammer tag for this. Nefario has proven himself to be untrustworthy, so it would be unreasonable for gigavps to pay out large sums of money based entirely on Nefario's list. Requiring affidavits and proofs of identity are reasonable precautions. It's impossible to strictly follow the contract in a safe way.

OK, I'll accept that you are of the point of view that now that the lists are released, those addresses should be paid without any further verification. I accept that as a valid argument.

I also accept gigavps' argument that if he doesn't do further verification of these lists, he opens himself to a mess if nefario is proven to have lied about the info in the future.

I think you both have good-faith arguments there. I just want to point out that without the "invented legal bullshit", specifically without the pressure gigavps' lawyer put on nefario to release lists that nefario must have had no intention of ever releasing, based on his actions up to the escalation of the legal pressure,  there would be no lists, and no addresses to repay.

So I accept that some people will consider gigavps a scammer for not paying the lists as given by nefario, but gigavps' work in obtaining these lists in the first place, precludes the possibility of his intentions being to not pay at all. So say he should pay dividends indefinitely without any further info because you think that's the right thing to do, but don't project false intent to scam back to everything he did.

How do you know Nerfario isnt 25% of the claimants ?

It has already been explained above why this is at all effects a scam.
And I see a clear malicious intent because he is asking for things that in many countries cost much more than the asset's value of the average investor. Since I don't think that he is willing to pay for official translations, lawyers and time lost for all of his investors, he must know like anyone else that a lot of his bonds cannot be claimed in this way.

So... Nefario didn't send giga the whole list of shareholders? I can't imagine the reason behind this. I know about the double payment issue, and Nefario waiting for the extra payments to be returned, but this seems to be unrelated issue.
Question for giga: people contacted by you via email was on the Nefario's list, or you have some other sources?
Question to everyone: How can revealing of identity prove you are rightful shareholder, if giga doesn't have trustworthy source to compare with (if we consider Nefarios list untrustworthy)?

I have been sent PMs on the forum with claims that are currently not on the GLBSE lists given.


Revealing your identity provides legal recourse should you not be entitled to payments received. Verifying that you own a public key does little other show you own the address.

My previous question about non-complete shareholders list is answered here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=118354.msg1353048#msg1353048

Nice of you to NOT pay any attention to the law when BTC was collected. But lets not dwell on that.


This NOT a news that the list will be incomplete. Why? Because James sent out some coin twice by mistake. Some returned the coin, some did not.
Those who did not return the coin got the warning that their names will be removed from asset holders list until they return the coin (some thread in the forum)
There is a good chance, that some people have not even returned to GLBSE and completed the simple step required to be on the list.
1) Deal with people who ARE on the list
2) Collect the claims from those who are NOT on the list and call James to find out, wtf is going on wit them
[/quote]

see 2


Wow, nice hyperbole indeed.
See 1 and 2

No James, it is not. All you have done is pissed everyone off because you changed the rules and now you demand information, costly to share holders,  that will not! help you in any fkn way to clear up this mess.

Put on your thinking hat and tell your blood sucking lawyer to piss off and fuck himself ;)
Cheers darling

Do you realize that if Nefario gave fake info in the list is his exclusive responsibility? Now this is a good alibi isn't it? Since that info could be incorrect Giga is going to keep all the assets of the investors who have too little to lose money in translations, lawyers and official b/s.

On what basis did you conclude that it wasn't unreasonable for gigavps to make agreements as a private individual and now attempt to alter history (and limit his own liability) by falsely claiming that those agreements were made with an LLC?  This is about the only issue on which I believe it likely giga deserves a scammer tag right now.

Do you believe it reasonable that someone holding say 1 giga share who doesn't live in the US is now expected to pay probably $50-$100 in fees to satisfy giga's requirements and obtain back their <1 BTC worth of assets?  Or is it reasonable that they should just give up on their claim "because nefario"?

I could partially understand giga's position if the requirements for ID etc were applied only to investors who EITHER:

a) Had large holdings,
OR
b) Didn't have details in the list provided by nefario.

But requesting it from all?  Is that really reasonable?

Next: let's imagine I submit a claim (with all the relevant documents) - I'm either on the list or I'm not.  Now what?  Is my claim approved regardless?  If so - then it's a scammer's charter as there's no likely means by which it could ever be proven that I DIDN'T own the shares.

Or is my some other basis used to determine whether the claim is approved?  If so - what value is the ID actually adding to the process?  There's nothing it can be compared against.  Sure - in theory it allows recourse against me - but that's a theory that could almost certainly never be put into practice (how to prove I didn't believe I owned shares).

This approach WILL totally deter small scammers - and equally totally make it impractical for smaller investors to reclaim their assets.  It's a minor to middling inconvenience for large investors - and a huge bonus for any big scammers, as it adds a negligible amount of risk whilst giving a greatly improved chance of them actually getting something.  

If the argument gos along the lines of "well we won't pay out big claims until nefario's confirmed their details" then what's the point of requesting ID from anyone not on the list?  Surely they should just be told to contact nefario and get themselves on the next updated list - and the ID becomes irrelevant as the list is (essentially) being relied on.

For the record I'm not submitting a claim and am 99.99% sure I didn't hold any giga when GLBSE closed (the .001% is the chance that other assets sold and a buy order for giga filled in the last 10 minutes of trading, but I don't believe I even had a giga buy order up).

No this is incorrect, there is another group of people besides those that have received double payments or those that have not submitted a claim to GLBSE that are not in the asset list provided by Nefario.  These are people, like me, who have submitted a claim and not received a double payment, yet are still not listed in the asset lists.

Do your homework before acting like Nefario's parrot.

Probably on the grounds that he's never met a private individual by the name of Gigavps.


This actually sounds pretty convincing.


Ooof. So this group actually exists.

I agree with you and myself ;)


But seriously.  This is an evident problem with securities issued in the Bitcoin space.  Because issuers don't formally establish pseudonymity status in the contract language they are *free to reveal personal details that jeopardize asset holders that wish to maintain their pseudonymity when the issuer faces meatspace regulatory problems.

* Free to reveal their own personal details and then request the personal data of others while not being prosecuted for it in the pseudonymous community.
As evidenced by Theymos' ruling not to give Giga a scammer tag.

What I wish to see is exchanges taking up the matter of whether an asset contract should be considered supporting pseudonymity.  This would be part of the asset listing process where pseudonymity status would have to be contractually defined.

Then, when the shit hits the fan we can persecute these asset issuers that don't really care about the privacy of others.

Let us together read one such contract (http://polimedia.us/bitcoin/mpex.php?mpsic=S.BVPS):


The fact that GLBSE failed to handle anything properly is not really either news or a big deal. GLBSE was a failed attempt at an exchange, never really reached the volume of MPEx nor its importance in the financial space. That a large number of people chose the way of Inaba stupidity (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=124441.msg1338371#msg1338371) is not something that changes "things". Things are what they are, and even if the entire class fails to do its homework SAT exams will still require what they require. Even if the entire idle forum population decides "MPEx is too hard" or "30 BTC is too expensive" that still doesn't make whatever place they choose to congregate an exchange just because they're there. It makes them pseudo-investors, as they're not on an exchange.


MPEx in fact is set up in such a manner that IT COULD NOT reveal anything. Let's read from the FAQ (http://polimedia.us/bitcoin/faq.html#18):

Yes, GPG would have solved this issue and many others associated with the collapse of GLBSE.

This is atually a major problem, people are too dependent on scammer tags and consider it  "prosecution".

Agreed. And it fills up the forum with garbage.

Better than going to the state. Granted, for the people who lost a ton of coin, a scammer tag is hardly restitution.

The truth is that we're in the process of creating a new economy. There are going to be trials and errors. There's already been some positive that's come of this, like people working towards a decentralized exchange and such.

Maybe in theory but not in practice.

I think it's a short term vs. long term debate.

In the short term yes, you may be able to go to the state and rely on their muscle to get some money back. But in the long term our reliance on the state prevents us from discovering better alternatives.

Name one person who has gotten bitcoins back from going to the state ?

I think scammers would have  a field day if it got involved, only the scammers would be the government workers and they would have the guns to back the theft. They can use laws to avoid any repurcussion at all such as bankruptcy. Better to find a third way, that we are in fact on an island and there are no police. Say what you like about the mafia but if you rip them off there are consequences. The cops dont even investigate if your house gets burgled, unless you are famous or rich.

Name one person who has gotten their bitcoins back from a scammer otherwise. Anyway sorry for taking this off topic.

The point is neither will work. And the state prevents you from taking the only option that does.

The state exists to protect criminals and without it they would face real consequences. Its not there for your protection.

The only thing that will work in the current system is if someone rich or famous gets stolen from. They dont care if you get your drug money stolen.

The state exists to guarantee your rights as a citizen until such time as they are taken from you by a court of law.

You've got some learnin' to do.

A few days before Nefario decided to move and start releasing information, I was talking with Gigavps on IRC and he mentioned getting a lawyer and making attempts to retrieve the data. Had this data not be recovered at all, proof of ownership would be impossible for anyone. I am certain Gigavps's effort helped the situation progress.

Me and a few reputable members/asset issuers were not on some assets list although we should and for large amounts of shares. Which tells us we should be precautious about the received data. The identification and affidavit purpose is really in case if there are false claims that get paid, you know who to go after to get back the stolen funds, should further data be uncovered that others were actually owed the funds. No, there was no indication that any identification document would be collected when the contracts were bought. But the fact "official data" would get lost/dubious was not planned and Gigavps made no official promise as to how people could collect the produced Bitcoins other than he'd give a predetermined amount per contract. He is, technically, still willing to fulfill all his contractual promises which is to pay 5 mhash/s of Bitcoins generation per contract.

As far as I'm concerned, the willingness to execute the contract clauses is all that matter. If the "how" he attempts to execute it does not satisfy others, I do not hold him responsible for that as neither party agreed on how the Bitcoins would be collectable should GLBSE close down. If he insists on protecting himself legally, I see no reason to try and force him to do otherwise.

No learning to do that is the theory they teach, now what actually gets put into practice is another matter...

@BadBear: I completely agree with your argumentation.

In my opininion the scammer tag identifies as well people that couldn't keep their agreements.

@Giga I think you are in a very nasty situation (of course it depends on the point of view) it leaves a lot of room for speculation...
I just don't like, that you change NOW the terms of operation, I doubt, if you would have asked all this information before, that anybody would have had invested into your bond ?!

Of course everybody can understand that you might feeel pushed by law, but in my opinion you had to think about this before you issued your bond. I am sure there is many other miners that didn't issue any shares/bonds etc. via GLBSE because exactly of this reason !

Probably there will be no "clean solution" that's gonna satisfy everybody...

The Gigamining contract does not specify how the Bitcoins can be collected. Technically the terms of the offer have not changed with this new claim procedure implemented instead of GLBSE's.

Technically it has changed it was bond paying fixed rate return it is now claimed to be for the purposes of this claims process an agreement to provide for operation of the machines taking the payments from that. Two totally different and opposing concepts.

That means the exact same thing as providing X mhash/s worth of bitcoins, simply reworded.

The financial consideration is the bitcoin payment made for the bonds (agreements).

The electronic data processing is the hashing for the block.

The portion of the outcome is what 5 mhash/s generate.

The claim process does not state the exact amount of data processing provided by the agreements to be given but the claim process is not a contract either. Nothing says the agreements are not still for the provision of 5 mhash/s of data processing. They just sum up the purpose of the agreements (known as gigamining bonds).

It doesn't mean the same thing.

The original agreement was for payment equivalent to X MH/s of mining - that's irrespective of whether than mining occurs or what the result of the mining is.

The new one attempts to make the payment dependent on the results of the actual processing (" some portion of the outcome of this processing").

Consider what happens in those two cases if he is unable to mine for a week.  In the new version clearly the "outcome of this processing" is zero - and ANY portion of zero is still zero.  In the original contract the payment would be equivalent to X MH/s worth of mining.  That's obviously just the most extreme example - but same principle applies to any other rise or fall in his actual mining results.

It's an entirely different thing.  It's not just some rewording  - it's an attempt to cover his arse by pretending he offered data processing rather than a bond paying a calculated amount per week irrespective of what the outcome was of his actual operation.  And you're not dumb enough not to have already realised that.

I usually follow the mod's decision without question but in this case, from what Gigavps has said, he issued a contract on GLBSE in full knowledge he would never keep it -- as he had retained legal counsel from the beginning.

This makes him a scammer, because he lied to his investors from the very beginning (ala Kraken fund) about what he was doing.

However I'm not the owner of these forums so this is of course just my opinion.


To be clear this is not what I am doing. He actually did have a very real intent to scam, as he had retained legal counsel from the beginning, his contract on GLBSE was fraudulent.

Can you please quote me where I have ever said this.

Thats because one is a financial instrument and one is an equipment lease.

If he offers the first and admits to it the SEC can have his balls in a sling.

They are already there he is all over this forum, in my very few minutes of searching, stating he is selling bonds in his own words. No getting by that and as I have already wrote his lawyer to remind him of his obligations under the law to not knowingly misrepresent material facts of a legal proceeding. The claims page that does just that may be about to change if not I will contact the proper legal authorities to report both of them.

1. Your OP (which you apparently deleted -- nice job asking me to quote you, here it is):


In your contract on GLBSE, you did not make reference to the following:

a)

You led everyone to believe it was run by you and at no time until this point did you mention VPS. Now suddenly it isn't run by YOU, it's run by VPS. This is important. You are trying to legally separate yourself from this. You cannot on one hand use your personal guarantee and on the other separate yourself legally. Isn't this is what Patrickharnett, Hashking, and others did? They made personal guarantees and they did not follow through.

b)

You can't do this because you had a contract. If you do it, it means you are breaking your contract. The problem is that you led people to believe something, and without any legal pressure (quote:  "VPS is not aware of any current regulatory action involving www.glbse.com or itself,") you have decided to make things difficult for investors.

And, now is probably a good time to explain something as far and wide as one can:

There is probably only one reason why they require your information. It is not to identify you for the purposes of payment. They will already have that information from the GLBSE. They do not require an external identification of that kind.

The only reason I can think why they are asking for your contact information "..for the purposes of lawfully fufilling the obligations" is because they would be planning to turn your information over to the Feds should doing so ever become a valuable plea-barganing chip. Do not kid yourselves. IMO GigaVPS is trying to fuck you up the ass for his own personal benefit. Just like Patrick Harnett with the Kraken fund.

In fact this information will almost certainly be turned over in any case merely to show intent to cooperate.

It says they will do data processing and give a portion of the outcome. This does not mean it will be proportional in anyway. It could be proportional (%), fixed (X BTC each week), or an equivalent (5 mhash/s). It does not specify at all what is promised, just that it will be a portion of the activity from mining. If the portion is proportional, it would require actual mining to be executed. If not proportional, it would have to be provided regardless of mining, where he would have to replace machines to be able to provide the fixed portion. It remains a portion of the activity of mining.

Regardless, what's worded on the claims page is not a contract. It's just a vague definition of what you claim.

If upon claim of the "agreements" they pretend the contract (Equivalent of 5 mhash/s generation, fixed) is in any way different than before, you could always contest that.

A portion of the outcome can never be larger than the outcome.  And the word outcome has a specific meaning -use of it precludes something like "fixed" as that isn't dependent on the outcome.

But yeah - the claims page isn't the agreement.  However, as it's inviting claims it's pretty important that it accurately reflects the contract otherwise someone who held bonds could look at it and think "Nah - that's not referring to what I have, as I bought fixed-rate bonds and that's talking about something else where I get a part of what is actually mined.".  Maybe when they amend it, they should put a copy of the contract up on a second page (and link to it) so it's clear what they're asking people to claim on?

This has now become a legal proceeding what is on that page matters. In order for any legally binding outcome to happen the claims page must truthfully describe the circumstances otherwise it is void. Nor should you even be asked to participate in an act which is a fraud upon the legal proceeding being sought. I do not what kind of lawyer he has got but I for one cannot see his coming out of a law office having been advised to put that page up as it is from a lawyer who knew all the facts. Has to have been him saying well I made this agreement with these guys on the internet now things are screwed where do we go now, no way that page comes up after saying I issued these bonds a lawyer cannot do that and lie about a legal proceeding and its purpose he's disbarred for certain most likely jailed as well.

do the bond holders have what should have been paid to them on a certain date? NO?
then give him the scammer tag now and let him prove via actions he should not have it.
pay the divs and buy back your crap bonds at issue price since there is no exchange to trade
them at and thus no fair way to value them. thus bond issue price times 1.05.

Just for the record, a decentralized exchange is nonsense.

No, it's not, but it's not a trivial thing to implement. I could describe it for you if you hire me as a consultant.

BTW I know for a fact at least two parties are working on this, and I have consulted with both of them already. I've been told there are others as well.

Nah it's not.

Conceptually it isn't all that difficult in fact.  There are, however (for the model I have in mind - with a blockchain managing share ownership alongside the existing BTC chain) some pretty serious practical issues with it:

1. With no central authority ANYONE can issue an asset or more shares/units of an existing one (if they own it) at any time.  So it would get flooded with junk assets pretty quickly.  Don't think that's quite as bad as it at first seems.
2. There would be pretty extreme latency on trade completion.
3.  There's be no fast flipping of shares - they'd be locked for a not insignifcant amount of time (talking an hour or two, not days) post transaction.
4.  Every client would have to do a fair amount of data processing.
5.  All transactions and blocks of shares owned would be linked to a BTC address - if the public is processing transactions rather than a central authority then the public knows that information rather a central authority.

I imagine my concept is very similar to that of many other people's.  The key hurdles to ovecome are two:

1.  Removing the need for any central body holding/escrowing funds.
2.  Matching Bids/Asks.

The first is the biggest one (with that addressed the concept works for matching trades - with deal-makingh aving to be done elsewhere).  Easiest way (that I'd have thought of) to do that is to make transactions transferring share ownership conditional upon the existence of a transaction in the BTC block-chain.

So if I want to sell you X shares of company A for Y BTC then:

1.  I make a transaction in the share blockchain transferring X shares of company A to you.
2.  That transaction is made conditional upon the existence of a tagged transfer (various ways to do this - obvious ones being last few digits of amount, an/or the sending BTC address) in the BTC chain of Y BTC to a specified BTC address.
3.  That transaction is processed into the shares block-chain - but is treated as conditional by all clients until the condition is met (and flagged as deleted if the condition isn't met within whatever time-scale is defined).
4.  When you're satisfied the conditional transaction is irreversible (i.e. confirmed sufficient as not to worry about it being 51%ed) you send the BTC.
5.  When the BTC payment is confirmed, the transaction in the share block-chain becomes confirmed and only then does the client software of all users treat the shares as belonging to you and able to be transferred.

That's just the basic idea - but it's ONE way of removing the need for funds to ever be sent to a third-party.  If you master that (obviously all of the above would need to be automated in the client), then implementing Bids/Asks is relatively straightforward.

Can't say I've spent much time on it - but have given it a bit of thought.  It would even be possible to develop it with a built in fee for the developer/maintainer (for asset issuing to reduce spam junk assets and/or for actual transaction fees).  Haven't addressed incentive for mining the block-chain, but there's a few ways to provide that.

So nefario is a scammer, and I was able to get my coins back from him.

Indeed. It is not as bad as it first seems, it's much worse than that. The idea of a decentralized exchange was just shot dead.

Not that pseudo-investors and wannabe-financiers aren't entirely free to re-try the failure of GLBSE after some cosmetic improvements. But, as bad as the technical side of GLBSE was, what sunk it was financial incompetence, not technical incompetence (tho the latter didn't help, especially in the later stages).

Nah, there's at least two ways to address that issue (which is why I said it's not as bad as it at first looked).  This'll be my last post on this subject - as it's off-topic - but here's the concept behind two ways to address it:

A fee for creation of the asset - either sent to the developer's wallet or destroyed.

External vetting authorities (no need for them to be predefined) who approve asset issues.   Whilst any asset can be listed, users can choose to the restrict the list of ones they SEE to those with approval from their own list of vetting authorities.  Vetting authorities could be individuals, companies or a forum thread where votes were held and one trusted individual then signs the approval transaction with a defined key.  Such authorities are self-appointed, can't block an asset issue, can't cancel one - but CAN be used as a means to filter out the spam.

If you have to PAY to spam AND most people won't even see it, do you see how that addresses the problem?

I don't, because it doesn't. And in the immortal words of Tim Roth (in 4 Rooms), "Problems. Plural."

He should be tagged as scammer. He refuses to pay dividends and buyback bonds. Instead we have agreement to sign with notarized stamp!

Also a claims process that requires you to be part of the deception as to the true nature of the relationship that was in place as he tries to cover his ass with your help in doing it. BTW I would add that lying in a legal document such as a notarized statement is a criminal offense in most countries.

He was already an accessory to a massive ponzi scheme - why anyone would have expected any other outcome in all this is beyond me  ::)

Didnt Trendon go to a lawyer too?

Personally I believe the scammer tag is premature.  If Giga listens to his bond holders he can still right the ship fairly easily, and there is reasonable evidence that we have the lists in the first place largely due to Giga.  If he fails to make good on the original contract within a reasonable amount of time, then by all means, it's a scammer tag.

However... having a GLBSE owner/shareholder/nefario screwee making the determination seems like it could be an issue, no?  No one is ever going to believe that you made the determination impartially.

Cheers.

i do not own any gigamining shares (glad i sold them fast enough).
but i dont think anybody deserves a scammer tag for talking to an lawyer and following his advice.

if giga would use your coins to pay his lawyer: scammer

asking for documents just to make sure nobody can sue him: no scammer tag

its a tradegy that we live in a world of bureaucrats which needs signed documents which costs money. but that is not gigavps' fault.

The issue is that he had no problem taking the coins without a lawyer, but doesn't want to give them back without a lawyer, and that he knows this will price out a lot of small investors.

You're another one getting confused over the role of lawyers.  They aren't magical beings, they don't act in the interest of some wider good, they aren't trying to be fair to all parties.  They're paid to give advice to someone on how best to protect that person's own interests.

When someone says "My lawyer advised me to do X" you need to read it as "My lawyer told me that doing X would gain me personally more benefit than not doing X".  You shouldn't read it as "Doing X is right" or "Doing X is fair to those I dealt with" or "doing X is 'good'".  A lawyer's responsibilities are to their client (though they DO have to follow certain rules - but many of those are easily side-stepped), not to the public at large.

Too many people have this strange (to me, as someone who deals with lawyers a lot in the course of my business) view that lawyers are somehow unbiased.  They aren't.  They're VERY biased towards helping the clients who pay them - and, to a large extent (but not totally), they're actually MEANT to be biased (and compelled by law to be biased - they have to give advice that's in the interest of their client, irrespective of whether it's in the interest of the wider public).  It's a natural effect of the adversarial legal system employed in the US and UK - where the layers on each side of a dispute are MEANT to try to win rather than to find out the truth (and that's not necessarily a bad thing - but that's a whole big topic of its own to discuss).

Following a lawyer's advice is neither here not there when it comes to getting a scammer tag.  Or do you believe scammers can't hire lawyers?  Anyone can have a lawyer - and that lawyer will (if a decent one) give them advice on how best to protect their interests.  That act (having a lawyer) doesn't make them any more (or less) guilty of scamming than they would have been had they not had a lawyer.

+1

A lawyer is duty-bound to advise what they believe is in their clients best interest.  Giga hiring a lawyer was to protect himself.  Don't read more into it.  Even the positive actions (lawyer putting pressure on GLBSE) are because it was in Giga's best interest.

A lawyer does not order you or force you to do something.  They give you advice and help you understand what the repercussions of your choices are.  YOU then choose what to do, hopefully with a better understanding what the possible outcomes of your actions are.

I still think that Giga should be given a week or so to figure things out, but I'll also re-iterate that I do not believe Theymos should be involved in the scammer tag proceedings.  I believe there's a fairly clear conflict of interest.

Cheers.

And you seem to have drank the kool aid on lawyers being lying weasels only out for them and their clients selves. Lawyers are required in the systems you speak of to use every legal means possible to protect their clients interests. They are required to tell the truth as they know it at all times in a legal proceeding. Now they cannot be compelled to tell anything a client has told them but they cannot once knowing a fact from a client present anything to lead the courts/legal system to believe any different. ie. client tells lawyer he killed someone lawyer cannot put client on stand  to testify if he knows the client will deny the fact he has been told. What they can and will do when a client has told them of their guilt is try to show the evidence presented against their client in the worst possible light to introduce doubt as its a beyond reasonable doubt evidence test in the systems you cite not the truth involved in its application of this test that is the goal. 

of course scammers have lawyers too.
my point was that i dont think its sufficient to request documents (even if they costs some money) to get a scammer tag. and gigavps has very good reasons to want to know his customers. he simple cannot trust nefario's list. i dont see another way for him to be sure to pay his investors.

what about this: tell gigavps to donate all bonds which are not claimed in february. if he say yes: there is no reason left for a scammer tag.

According to the claims page these are not investments anymore rather a leasing type of arrangement, changing those terms is a scam. The process of claims as I have said before requires these bond holders to perjury themselves on a legal document, a criminal offense most places, to get their funds back. This is hardly the actions of man trying to help his investors rather one of a man trying to cover his own ass from the shit he has got himself into.

It really has little to do with the common law. That's how lawyers work in civil systems too, that's how they worked in the old Roman empire, it's how they worked in the Republic and in Athens and generally speaking, it's how a lawyer works. A lawyer is a hireling with a job to do, not some charity for the public good.

To the more general point: I think what you're arguing against is ultimately the basic understanding of the random nitwit that he has no clue as to how the world works, and as such once people with an actual clue get involved it's about time to stfu. Sort of like saying "an adult advised me!" among preschoolers. Sure an adult is not here nor there as to whether the advice is sound, in principle. In practice, at least he's not 5.


FTR, what is the conflict?

And at the rate things are going scammer tags will prolly just get phased out, the mods lack both the training to handle the ever-increasingly complex arguments brought and the drive to even bother, on top of which the constant haranguing which necessarily comes with the territory is wearing everyone thin.

Sooner or later we'll have to have some sort of court set-up, and the logistics of that are staggering.


This is patently untrue. You can verify it very easily: go kill someone, call up your lawyer, tell them you've killed the someone and see if he stands up in court and says "Your Honor...he has told me he killed X".


Who the hell told you this? If things actually worked that way we'd have a simple test now wouldn't we. In other news:


http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2011/08/telling-truth-costs-lawyer-her-license.html

(Yes, obviously it's different in civil proceedings. A lawyer who knowingly allows a civil defendant or any witness to give false testimony can be disciplined and even lose the right to practice law. A lawyer who doesn't allow a criminal defendant who insists on lying under oath to claim his or her innocence will be disciplined. Your using of the wrong example would seem to indicate you don't know what you're talking about.)

Nice selective quoting you tried there missing the entire point being made which was your lawyer cannot be compelled to incriminate you even if you have confessed to them but they cannot knowingly allow you to commit perjury. I don't know where your at but where I am lawyers are not permitted to lie to the court or knowingly allow lies to be told to the court.

Once they have scammed hundreds of thousands of bitcoins they can afford bloody good lawyers...and the victims cant afford them.

Quit the talk, it is all obvious.

SCAMMER TAG, it is time for action theymos.

It's not quite that simple.  If lawyers in a criminal case couldn't allow their clients to lie then they'd be unable to represent anyone who wanted to plead Not Guilty but had admitted to committing the offence.

In fact, when it comes to the Defendant themselves, the lawyer MUST let them lie under oath if they insist on doing so: however the lawyer can't assist in supporting statements they know to be untrue (so they'd ask for the evidence in narrative form, not ask questions about it, and avoid reference to it in their closing arguments).  You see there's two competing factors - on the one hand lawyers aren't supposed to elicit false testimony, on the other hand ALL defendants (even ones who tell their lawyer that they intend to lie) are entitled to effective counsel.

If a defendant tells their lawyer (in a criminal case) that they intend to lie then in general what will happen is this (assuming the lawyer is playing by the rules).  The lawyer will advise them against it, explain that it's agianst the law, explain the consequences (potential further charges/longer sentence) if it's subsequently established that they lied.  If the Defendant still insists that they want to lie then the lawyer MAY try to withdraw from the case (and is obliged to do so if they haven't yet agreed to represent the Defendant) but depending on them timing that may not be an option.  The lawyer MAY ask the Defendant to sign a statement they've chosen to act against their counsel's advice after being advised otherwise.  Then the lawayer would let the Defendant give their false testimony - but be careful not to act themselves so as to give the lies extra credibility.

It's a very grey area - but for certain a lawyer can usually elicit evidence even when they're certain it's a lie (and, in some cases, even when the defendant has TOLD them it's a lie).  And they can never prevent a Defendant from lieing or tell open court that the Defendant is lieing - they can either withdraw from the case (not practical once the trial has started, usually) or avoid supporting the lies.  If you're ever on a jury and the Defendant's lawyer asks him to give evidence in narrative form (i..e "tell the jury what happened" rather than asking specific questions) then it's a fair bet that the Defendant has told the lawyer he is going to lie - and the lawyer is avoiding asking the usual specific questions so as to avoid any risk of being guilty of eliciting false testimony.  That will be confirmed for you when, in his summing up, the Defendant's lawyer doesn't mention things stated by the Defendant which you'd think would be important (the lawyer can't argue them in a closing statement if he knows them to be false).

You may then think - well how can the lawyer make a closing argument at all if he knows the defendant did it?  The answer to that is simple - the closing argument is about whether there's sufficient evidence to support a conviction, not actually about whether the Defendant committed the offence or not (the two things are inter-twined but are actually different).  The lawyer can still argue that the Defendant should be acquitted (which they may believe) - they just can't state that the Defendant is innocent (which they know to be untrue).

None of which has anything to do with a civil matter. Except - a lawyer does NOT investigate whether what his client tells him is true or not.  That's not his responsibility - even if he believes it is likely to be untrue.  He is only prevented from allowing his client to say something if he comes into knowledge grounded in material facts that it is a lie - and lawyers can generally avoid that by avoiding questions/topics which could lead them to knowing (in a meaningful sense) that their client was lieing.  Lawyers are NOT unbiased - they aren't meant to be.

If a lawyer says something on behalf of a client that does NOT mean the lawyer necessarily believes it to be true.  At best it means they don't know with certainty that it's a lie.  So long as their client claims it's true (and the lawyer hasn't accidentally stumbled over totally convincing evidence that it's a lie) their belief of whether it's true or not is totally irrelevant.  It's not their role to determine truth, it's their job to assist ONE side in the dispute.

If lawyer's really did (or were legally compelled to) only tell the truth/allow the truth to be told then you wouldn't need one each in a dispute (or a judge/jury) - you'd just both send your information to one lawyer and he'd tell the truth about who was right.  At root that argument fails because the truth isn't necessarily easy to determine - and it's absolutely NOT a lawyer's job to do so.

http://ethicsalarms.com/2009/12/19/the-ethics-of-letting-a-lying-defendant-testify/

At least in English common law countries you are directed to not facilitate knowingly deceiving the court. Of course there will be lawyers who don't follow the directives also ones that are very careful to keep themselves as much in the dark as possible regarding the veracity of certain clients/witnesses/statements.

"It's a very grey area - but for certain a lawyer can usually elicit evidence even when they're certain it's a lie (and, in some cases, even when the defendant has TOLD them it's a lie)." - This is not grey, this will get a lawyer in serious trouble if it can be proven they facilitated deception of the court.

As for a client testifying dishonestly and in a way known to their counsel, they have to let them take the stand but they'd need to not get involved in their questioning. Given how this would appear to the court the usual result is either the client doesn't testify, the defense counsel withdraws, or an unscrupulous counsel throws ethics out the window and participates in the dishonesty.


- In regards to this aspect of the thread, it is unethical to ask people to certify statements you know to be false. The lawyer involved may be carefully keeping themselves enough in the dark to still use such documents though. Conversations a long the lines of "Well, if your agreement is A-B-C that would be bad for you but if your agreement was actually X-Y-Z that would put you in the clear. Oh and btw, I'll need certified documents describing the actual agreement you have with these people."

Your last paragraph pretty much explains what I was referring to when I said "It's a very grey area - but for certain a lawyer can usually elicit evidence even when they're certain it's a lie".  The greyness arises from the degree of knowledge they need to have to treat something as lie which they can't then elicit.  The lawyer may be certain that the defendant is lieing through his teeth - but without that knowledge being grounded in established facts they are entitled to proceed as though they accepted it as truth.  Without that, people who were "obviously guilty" (by which I mean their account is such that noone hearing it believes it to be true) couldn't get legal representation.

Just being sure that they're lieing doesn't make it a lie for the purposes of eliciting false testimony - there needs to be a more solid grounding for that belief.  And that's where it becomes very grey.

Decent read at the link you posted by the way - he also seems to think it's a pretty grey area and ends up advocating a position contrary to your argument: that you treat testimony you know to be false (from the Defendant only - other witnesses the same issues don't arise) exactly the same as you would evidence you believed to be true.

Yes, but with that he's arguing for a change in the way courts view the balance between the right to a defense and untruthfulness. But I think it's along the lines of "this stuff is kind of hard, why don't we just say anything goes." Imo, anyone dissatisfied with the current Gigamining information request should ask for direct lawyer contact info and, if provided, send a certified letter outlining your issues. If the contact info is not provided... should probably post in this thread. ;p

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=127437.msg1353191#msg1353191

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75802.msg1353074#msg1353074

http://gigamining.com/claims.html

Gigavps == gigascammer :'(

If I'm scamming then why did I send certified mail to get the lists? If I'm scamming then why do I hold 100% of the coins, over 3,500 at this point, to pay out per the 5Mh/s contract. If I'm scamming, they why I am asking for people to verify their claim so I can pay them?

Not one person in this thread as quoted anything I wrote in my previous posts and has taken issue with it. I'll quote it for you, so you can read it again.

Using a lawyer to put pressure on James McCarthy I can understand.

Breaking contracts and changing the rules of the game while playing not.

Please help me understand how else I should handle this situation?

Maybe you have some insight that will help make the situation all better.

You mention that there are 10% of claims not on the list. My issue is that you are claiming you cant pay back the 90% of people because of this.

What exactly is preventing you paying out to the 90% who ARE ON THE LIST?

The solution is if you're not on the list you dont get paid yet. Youre holding 90% of people coins hostage because 10% of people claimed who arent on the list. If you cant see an issue with that I dont know how to explain it more clearly.

Less than 65% of the shares are on the list..... so that means more than 35% wouldn't get paid.

The claimants of the over 4k are very well respected and well know in the community.

Can you see the conundrum here?

Why do you condone trusting nefario after he destroyed your entire investment in GLBSE?

Do you also condone nefario's inability to do the most simplest things as a reason for someone to not be able to make a claim and get paid?

You trusted Nefario enough to take our money. It' soo convenient that now you don't trust him any more. Maybe you should have asked an affidavit in advance? Guess how many investors you would had.

Anyway if less than 65% are on the list is due to unclaimed shares and double payments not returned according to Nefario. So ppl unlisted would not get paid now, due to their fault. Maybe they will be later if they act on it and you and Nefario follow up. This is no excuse for you to steal the coins of little investors and ppl who wants to remain private. Clear enough?

65% did everything that was required and should be rewarded without your extra demands.

35% did not agree to send you their GLBSE data. Their mistake.

You should not punnish 65% of your shareholders, the ones that did everything right.

If you payout the 65% it might motivate the other 35% to make a glbse claim. At some stage you are going to need to trust the glbse shareholder list or otherwise your choice is to make your bondholders suffer.

Let me make this perfectly clear. Nefario needs to be sacked and a competent administrator appointed. But in the bitcoin world it appears there is nothing at all you an do if the operator goes rogue.

You can have all the bylaws and rules you want but if someone controls the server and the only information source there is fuck all you can do about it. It really calls for "multi sig for data" where one person cant just run off with the data.

Put yourself in my shoes for a minute.

If I send out 65% of 3,500 coins (2,275) and 10% of the coins go to the wrong address, someone they shouldn't have gone to, etc. I've just made a $2,750 mistake and am still liable.

Does that sound like fun to you?

You are basically telling me to not worry about my liabilities because nefario is getting it right. Only, he can't even send over a properly formatted yaml file which means he probably put the file together by hand.

There is also the issue of people who have filled out the GLBSE claims form and didn't receive a double payment, yet still aren't on the list. Is this still a situation of "your not on the list, o well"?

As to trusting nefario now vs. later, you can't do better until you know better.

So, better to fuck a much greater number of ppl who trusted YOU?

There were problems with this bond in getting it listed from the start you knew better then.

Nope, fun is long gone.
Maybe the payout problem can be solved by using a php script that verifies a payout of 0.01% -> user agree -> send 99.99%

But this is not the real problem.

your worried about sending out a couple hundred coins by error when you have profited how much off your investors? $100,000 $250,000? $500,000, Get real

Though the profit calculations are inaccurate, this is a very good point.

You have to compare: 1) Sum Total costs of legal compliance for all shareholders. vs 2) Cost of Sending Payouts to scammers for GigaVPS

If (1) > (2), it would be more efficient for GigaVPS to divide the costs of paying out scammers among all shareholders and not require legal compliance.
If (2) > (1), it is more efficient for GigaVPS to require legal compliance.

Could the shareholders donate to a Scammer fund to motivate you to reverse your decision? If not, then GigaVPS is making a specious argument. i.e. his real reason is not the reason he claims.

Since when does someone have to have scammed before and then scam again to then get a scammer tag?

Give him the tag already.

You know what I find interesting, is that when Nefario breaks a contract and claims he has to because he has no other option, he gets a scammer tag.  When other people face the same situation they don't get a scammer tag.  Especially those that won't take responsibility for their investments.

Nefario scammed the top users of this forum, including at least one admin, giga just scammed a bunch of regular users.

 Nefario was just the front man who allowed others to raise hundreds of thousands of coins.

Why admins didn't tag him as scammer yet? 110 votes total is not enough  ???

Bit of a delayed response, sorry.

Theymos was one of the GLBSE stockholders/board members, screwed by Nefario.  Right before GLBSE tanked he had started a thread on here wanting to sell his shares.  I'd think he'd want to recuse himself from anything GLBSE related.

Cheers.

He never necessarily extended any trust to Nefario at all. Asset issuers don't have to extend any trust at all to the exchange. You don't have to trust someone to take someone else's money -- the person giving them the money has to trust them to do the right thing with it.

Surely you understand that there's a difference between claiming you have no other option and actually having no other option. We know of no reason Nefario couldn't have done an orderly shutdown of GLBSE. And his prior acts with Goat show that he was acting rashly and in complete disregard for his obligations to others. Giga actually has no other option -- he never extended any trust to Nefaro/GLBSE nor did he ever agree to extend any. The contract doesn't obligate him to accept these costs and risks.

I'm going to have to disagree on that one.  My own issue of LTC-MINING was only 1000 shares but I knew going into it that I had to trust GLBSE for the whole process to work for the lifespan of the asset.  I thought about it, did some research, and decided that I could trust GLBSE to be available long term.  Nefario was actively developing on it, progress was being made on outstanding issues, he was posting to the forums regularly, etc.  I even went through all the "what if" scenarios in my head and decided that even if he decided to shut down, it would be easy for him to give a weeks warning, I'd buy back all the issues per my asset's contract, and be done.  Thus I very intentionally and deliberately extended trust to GLBSE to perform their end of the bargain, which was made in exchange for 8 BTC up front, and a percentage of trades thereafter.

Everyone that used it extended trust to GLBSE, especially the asset issuers.

I don't quite follow you. In what sense did you extend trust to GLBSE? In what way could GLBSE have done something that would have hurt you?

Now, the people who bought assets from you had to trust that GLBSE would actually deliver their money to you. Otherwise, they wouldn't get any dividends. And they had to trust that GLBSE would actually distribute the dividends to the asset holders. And, of course, they had to trust that GLBSE would remain in operation and not somehow lose or destroy their ownership interest. They had to trust that GLBSE would remain operational to ensure there continues to be a market that preserves the value of their assets. So they extend all kinds of trust.

But what was your exposure exactly? Maybe I'm missing something. I guess there's risk to your reputation and risk of lost profits.

Do you realize that you are aggravating his position? If he did not trust Nefario from the beginning, then he voluntarily put at risk his investors' funds from day 1.


False. No other issuers asked for all the crap he is asking up to now (even if many would find profitable to steal their investors' assets in this way).


Which contract? The one he deleted like a weasel just before requiring for lots of para-legal crap? And which risks? To actually pay back his investors? You call that a risk?

He didn't do that, his investors did. If GLBSE had run off with their money, would you have argued that's somehow his fault?

That's kind of a circular argument. If this is his mess to clean up, then he extended trust. And if he extended trust, it's his mess to clean up.

In retrospect, we all should have thought of it, but I don't think anyone considered a sudden, complete GLBSE shutdown likely. So I don't think you can argue trust was extended on that basis. If someone gives you free concert tickets and while you're gone they have a friend rob your home, you trusted them to know when you would be away from home in a sense. But you didn't really decide to trust them if you never seriously considered the possibility that the concert tickets were a trick to rob your home.

Any contract so far as I know. I don't know of any asset listed on GLBSE that obligated the issuer to cover the costs and risks associated with preserving asset ownership across a sudden GLBSE failure. As for the risks, there are many. The specifics depend on the contract. The most common risk is the risk of paying false claims. And the costs are obvious -- figuring out which claims are legitimate is not free. No asset issuer, to my knowledge, ever agreed to bear those costs or arranged a way to pass them on to the asset holders.

Really?  It doesn't take much imagination.

Exposure to lawsuits from investors.
Exposure to release of your personal details after doing the verification process.
Exposure to bugs in the exchange that held up dividends or trading, thus depressing the value of your assets and angering asset holders.
Exposure to legal issues because the exchange wasn't on solid legal ground.
For funds that held their portfolio on GLBSE, exposure to your portfolio disappearing.

Cheers.

These are mostly very minor or aren't a case of an asset issuer having to trust an exchange.

I don't see how this is trust extended to the exchange. You mean if the exchange does something wrong, the issuer might get sued? I would consider that a pretty unrealistic fear. We'll find out which of us is right.

True. As it happens, giga isn't anonymous, but that applies to some issuers.

That doesn't really hurt the issuer.

I don't see how that's trust extended to the exchange.

Yes, I agree that asset owners have to trust the exchange. The question was whether asset owners had to trust the exchange.

Sure, if asset issuers also hold assets, then in their capacity as asset holders, they have to trust the exchange. But one can issue an asset without holding any assets on that exchange. As asset issuers, in that role, very little trust is extended to the exchange operator. (This is not the way it would normally be, it's unique to the Bitcoin universe.)

I live in the US.  Lawsuits are never an unrealistic fear.

True. As it happens, giga isn't anonymous, but that applies to some issuers.


Eh... really?  So if an asset's price tanks, it doesn't hurt the issuer at all?  What if it happens during IPO?  What about the asset issuers operating funds holding that asset?


Because if the exchange leads you to believe they're a company operating legally, and later on you find out they aren't, and they shut down, you're f'd?  Isn't this exactly what happened?


Funds my man, I specifically said funds.  You know, the assets that hold other assets as investments?  If you were an asset issuer operating a fund that held assets on the same exchange, you're putting a huge amount of trust in the platform as a whole.


I guess if you're not an asset issuer with your tail hanging out, you might not see the exposure, but it's there, like it or not.  And even if you can't latch on to any of these reasons discussed, you hit the big one square on the head for me in your previous post:


That's a pretty big deal to anyone trying to operate a legitimate ongoing business.

Cheers.

If he did not trust Nefario from the beginning, but he resorted to use GLBSE anyway, then he exposed his investors to a third-party risk that he knew about without informing them about it. I think it's kind of illegal, and anyway highly unethical. Like blaming the victims after stealing their money, which is what he's going to do behind the para-legal crap shield he's asking for.


Don't try to shift the blame. Nefario has already sent him a list of investors' assets. The jig is up.


There is nothing to claim. The investors' assets list Nefario sent him should be considered true until the opposite is proven. Otherwise it is too easy for him to steal such assets with such lame argument.

Any such risks would have been equally obvious, or non-obvious, to the issuer and to the investors. It's not like some decision on the part of the issuer exposes the investors to this risk in a way that was hidden.

In retrospect, I agree with you. Anyone listing an asset on a stock exchange like GLBSE should have included a section in the offer explaining the risks associated with using an anonymous exchange. And they should also have included a section explaining what would happen if the exchange failed or delisted the asset.

It's hard to blame any specific person for not predicting this because, as far as I know, nobody predicted it. In retrospect, though, it's obvious that it's a significant risk that should have been addressed ahead of time.

It looks like the crypto-currency community is going to have to learn every single painful lesson that the regular financial world has learned. Probably more than once.

Nobody knows how to do this. If you do, please explain it to me. For example, what happens if someone claims they held the asset but the asset issuer claims they weren't on the list? This could be resolved if GLBSE was actively participating or had made the lists cryptographically verifiable. But so far as I know, there is zero participation from Nefario/GLBSE.

Easy: just start paying back who is on the Nefario's list if you want be honest and consistent with your promise and past behavior. Who is not in the list, and say he should, can try his best to get things fixed with Nefario in order to get paid later, or just call the cops (the best option for everyone in this case imho). But using such cases as a pseudo-excuse to steal the assets of the most of your investors is just lame.

Not to speak about deleting the original contract from his opening post and try to negate the content of his OP later, or forcing his investors to commit crimes testifying officially falsities while shifting his personal responsibilities to a phony LLC, etc.
 
Anyway, it does not matter any more. No one can seriously expect to get anything back of their GLBSE investments beyond maybe some crumbs of single-digit percentage points in the most fortunate cases. Another lesson learned the hard way.

Hi conspirosphere.tk,

Your brutal slaughtering of the facts needs to stop.


No one is trying to steal anything. If you would take the time to read anything I've posted, you'd know the PII information is to comply with US federal law along with the other reasons given. Tax IDs are to be able to file the necessary paperwork at year's end.


The contract was never in to Gigamining OP. The actual contract was only ever hosted on GLBSE. I have posted in on the gigamining website.

http://gigamining.com/faq.html


In all of your screaming, you are advocating doing things the same way that GLBSE did them. But what you fail to see is that doing that will only land us in the same spot GLBSE is now.

Regards,
James

So tell me, what are you going to do with my coins since I have no intention of sending you my notarized ID nor signing anything? Return them to me? No? Well that in my dictionary is called stealing.


You cannot force me to accept anything while taking my money hostage. You made your original offer in the undergound economy and it is there that I want to remain. If you want to go legit under a new contract, perform a buyback and send me my coins back or you are a thieve.


So what you deleted from your OP? And why Theymos reposted it, and it was found saying exactly what you was trying to negate in the same thread about your obligations?

You are advocating doing the same things that put GLBSE squarely in the place it is now.

It makes no sense.

Being upset isn't going to change that.

As you said, this process can only work if either Nefario or law enforcement is willing to participate in it. There's no evidence of either. And if law enforcement does get involved, the last thing an asset issuer will want to have done is paid out all the funds they hold to the wrong people.

I understand your frustration, but you are insisting other people do things that have huge risks to them and, frankly, don't make any sense. I would suggest pressuring GLBSE to agree to mediate a redemption process or, failing that, issue cryptographically verifiable asset holder lists so asset issuers can prove a particular person is or isn't on the list they got. You chose GLBSE to protect your ownership interest -- make them do what you paid them to do or hold them accountable.

Giga, if Nefario released a "better" list as he JoelKatz describes would you still force us to give you all of our personal information? 

Also, since you seem intimately familiar with GLBSEs state, what exactly happened.  Who shut him down? Did those details ever really come to light?

Hi vrtrasura,

I have no other information that what has been released through bitcoin talk. I would like to know these answers as much as everyone else.

As to the request for claims, I'll leave the response from Quentin here also.

Best,
James

Is there some way you could not pay me interest so it doesn't trigger whatever federal code you are trudging up.  I gave you money, why can't you just give it back?  It's akin to me dropping my wallet it IRL, would you give it back to me if you found it?

I should not have to give out my personal info to every asset issuer from GLBSE, they didn't do anything like that for me when I gave it to them.  If I were you, I would feel like a thief.  I understand you got a lawyer to figure out what you should do, but I seriously wonder how you feel deep down knowing you are sitting on a pile of hardware other people bought for you.   

He feels great that is what this whole thing was designed for you clowns paying for his hardware or did you think paying at least twice what it was worth was for your benefit.

The funny part is he is claiming more clowns are lining up to buy him mining equipment!

Yep pathetic no wonder these people get scammed.

If I didn't offer Teramining, people would say that I am going back on what I promised. Now that I'm putting the contract together, you make the comment quoted above.

Thanks for showing just how unenviable the position i'm in is.

Hows that old saying go oh yeah google has it.


“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive”

Im not here to intentionally defend anyone.. But can't you all see that Giga is in a damned if he does, damned if he doesn't scenario?

He's doing the best he can in a shitty situation..

AR

If gigavps can pressure its asset holders to get back assets, why he cant sue Nefario for shutdown?
GLBSE shutdown caused all problem & if you are a true person, then SUE Neafrio for doing felony things.

You don't have the courage to pressure legally Nefario , but can pressure assets holders, coz THEIR MONEY IS WITH YOU by asking personal things ?

Drag Nefario to court & prove you are in the side of asset holders.

You are not a true person, you are a duck.

He will need to admit that he issued an illegal security and will be in a  jail cell alongside nefario.

Sounds legit.
I vote to send all the bummers in jail

He was one of pirates shills and currently shills for BFL, why wouldnt you give the schmuck a scammer tag.

If BFL actually blows up it'll be pretty sad.

Well there's actually an interesting point raised there.

In some countries (I don't know the situation in the US) certain types of business have to collect personal ID to do business with someone.  The UK (where I live) is one such country.  IF the person refuses or is unable to provide the ID then the company is not allowed to do business with them and has to return any funds they've received (exception being if the company believes the individual may be involved in money-laundering, terrorism etc when they have to file an SAR and hold the funds until either a deadline passes or they're instructed how to proceed).  There's zero option of "we'll just keep the money" or "we already used it" or "we'll give it to charity".

Certainly in the UK if giga NEEDED that information for legal/regulatory reasons but didn't bother collecting the info when he received the funds then he'd have to just return the funds if you were unable/unwilling to provide the information (which would be what you paid for the bonds less any dividends received).  His alternative here to returning it would be to file an SAR (Supicious Activity Report) with whoever his regulatory aithority was (which depends on type of business - e.g. FSA for most financial servie providers, Gaming Commission for casinos etc).

Additionally if in a regulated business then there's whole ton of hoops to jump through to be able to even collect the information - being registered for that specific type of business, having a formal policy on handling the data, liability insurance against loss/theft/misuse of the data, having an individual appointed in charge of the data etc (in fact two different individuals - one for data protection issues, one for KYC/AML requirements).

Now it could be very different in the US - but somehow I doubt it.  If anything, the US is usually even more anal about the hoops companies have to jump through to do things.

Also in the UK it's mandatory to disclose in advance of entering any agreement if:

1.  ID will be required (you also are supposed to provide your policy for complying with data-protection requirements, disclose what the info will be used for, how long it will be kept for etc.).
2.  The agreement is being offered on behalf of a limited-liability entity.

As giga's lawyer said : "and, in fact, the information requested is no more detailed or onerous than what is generally required to open a brokerage or bank account."

Indeed - TO OPEN.  Not requested many months later under threat of withholding your funds if you don't comply.  The argument that everyone knew ID was needed is clearly junk (if ever raised) for a few reasons:

1.  Not everyone lives in the US.  We have no idea what threshholds there are there for requiring ID.
2.  Simple common-sense.  Many people hold small numbers of bonds whose value is less than the cost of obtaining apostille.  Pretty obviously they had no expectation or belief that this level of ID would be required.

If anyone actually wants to complain, best bet is probably NOT the SEC or whatever - first place to start is his local Trading Standards or similar (no idea what they're called in the US): with the complaint being that he took funds and is now requesting that you complete ID procedures costing more than the total value of the transaction and refusing to return your funds if you won't comply.  They'll then forward the complaint to whatever body is best placed to deal with it.

Now that nefario seems to have got a proper grip on sending out lists there seems no reasonable basis to claim that the ID is needed to identify the owners of assets.  Giga trusted nefario to handle who held what bonds when he listed on GLBSE - and to date there's been no evidence suggesting the lists contain false claims.  Which leaves just the "comply with laws" issue - where giga's definitely in the wrong if he believes it's fine to suddenly ask for ID AFTER accepting and using funds.   But please - someone who knows how this works in the US correct me if it's fine there to take money in return for consideration, use it and/or then dispose of it in some manner other than returning it ALL to sender (or file an individual report with LE/regulators) if you subsequently request ID and they refuse to provide it.

Peer to peer cryptographic ducks. That changes everything.

If he wants us, the investors to go in CORRECT LEGAL WAY to get back claims, then gigavps MUST ALSO GO SAME CORRECT LEGAL WAY.

Is he ready to go jail, for not doing legal things, like creating and issuing illegal security?

Indeed and a claims form that is making the claimants commit perjury to recover their funds is not a legal way to do it.

Question:    What do you say?
Yes    - 89 (70.6%)
No    - 37 (29.4%)
   
Total Voters: 126



how is this not done yet?  isn't Nefario labeled a scammer? i got my btc back and my asset info sent to all security creators that i held - yet this assets rules get thrown out the window and restarted and it goes on like no big deal?

I'm not going to read this entire thread.

In short: giga is suing nefario, nefario is trying to "punish" giga for being sued by not having the data or the money over.

Can nefario get double scammer tagged?

In short: giga has people committing perjury to claim funds, how about single tag..

and how do you know nefario is actually being sued and was not simply
sent a very heated letter or maybe even nothing at all?

one has to look at the results. people do not have their money and a lot of
time has gone by. giga changed the rules on them and broke the contract.
he is not paying people which broke the contract.

seems pretty clear to me what his end goal is. eventually pay, maybe, and
keep all the gear, free and clear, to trade in for asics. bitcoin users lose
again.

Unless a buy back is offered for smaller bondholders, especially non-US, under 18, non-apostille countries and people who would have to commit perjury on the claim forms in order to get their monies back, I say scammer. Seriously? Why deal with the blowback of all the small bondholders who would have to pay more to file the paperwork than their holdings are worth, he is just assuming they will not proceed with the claim and he gets to keep their investment for himself.

I find this case interesting. It is my speculation GigaVPS will not get a scammer tag because he has an active court case against nefario (according to Diablo) and therefore has plausable deniability that Nefario has not turned over data or money. Therefore, it is not his fault, and it looks like Giga really is merely doing the best he can in a bad, bad situation.

I change my earlier call -- I don't think he should get a scammer tag anymore. Didn't know he was suing nef.

Ah the old two wrongs make a right theory and no one knows if he is even suing Nefario if he is where are the case references that is all public information so should be disclosed.

This was the plan from the beginning!
He is the man of changes
He was planning to screw shareholders over from day 1, now he comes with his lawyer crap.

Lots of ppl need a guide dog, why? ARE YOU BLIND!?!

PS: He has not sued James McCarthy.

I don't think GigaVPS deserves a scammer tag.
He has done the best out of a bad situation, instead of shutting down his business or backing away from his contract he has tried to keep following it while not taking any more risks. He has done this by going the legal way in his country and you can't blame him for trying to make the best out off this situation.
I also don't understand what giving him a scammer tag will help?
He's no longer selling any shares and considering all the drama he never will never try to issue and asset again, the people who could get hurt have gotten hurt.
Giga is trust able and hasn't actively stolen, he's still here and he's still helping his share holders out.
A scammer tag will probably hurt more then it will help at the moment.
//DeaDTerra

Some where i read that gigavps issued shares BEFORE releasing in glbse & he didn't asked/took any legal papers for it.

Please, if some one quote it, will help.

He took no risk all machines were paid in advance by a margin of at least twice  if not three times the costs of the equipment being bought, his profit was locked in at the start. If you don't consider a free to him upgrade to the ASICs that he has attempted to charge people for scamming them then I guess you are right. Giving scamming pieces of shit the scammer tag allows people to see just what they are all about that is the entire point of the tag.


He was attempting to do a bypass of the GLBSE issuing process to not pay the fees Nefario got  a little pissed and was not going to list the shares, that is until everybody's favorite starfish patrick among others started complaining how this oh so promising venture was being not listed. Yeah worked out well you would think after that rocky start with people going on about how unreliable the GLBSE was there would have been backup plan in place for $100-200k+ in assets but when your not risking your money what is it to you if you have no way to give back. With this deal he already had his in the pocket anything not given back is extra bonus scam..

Confused as to why this scammer tag hasn't been handed out yet.  Are people waiting to recover some funds before tagging him?

It's Theymos who decides ultimately:

A bit of democracy would be appreciated here.

The shareholders list provided by Nefario is CORRECT!

There should be NO reason not to pay shareholders.

I don't think it's unreasonable for an issuer to be very skeptical of a payout list provided by someone who shut down an exchange without warning, in violation of company by-laws (or "by-morals" if you wanna gripe about it not being legal) with the blatant-"fuck you" intent to start a new "legal" company immediately after, removed users' ability to download their trade history, refused to include people who upset him on a payout list, has financial troubles, took an unreasonable amount of time to release asset info, and has been pretty unresponsive to emails.

At least one BTC address (for a fairly large-quantity unit-holder) in the list Nefario sent me for BDK.BND was wrong (the claimant said he emailed Nef to change it, but it wasn't). By acting skeptically and individually telling everyone the relevant info Nef sent me, that person didn't lose a bunch of BTC to an unknown address.

Taking it a step further, Giga gets to take out plenty of birds with one stone. Users will have plenty of time to review information before Giga starts payments, the new entity's legal status will allow new opportunities (and less risk), and having a more secure claims process would prevent possible unsavory doings by the list provider. For how large Gigamining became and how worried we were about the SEC watching us like hawks (though I now personally have zero faith in their ability to do anything), it would've been insane to have Gigamining on one of the recent pop-up exchanges, while just keeping Gigamining unlisted and paying manual dividends (ignoring the giant pain in the ass that'd be) probably would've pissed people off just as much as what he's doing.

Kluge, it is obvious that Giga is using this whole "legal" stance to invalidate as many shares as possible so that he doesn't have to repay shareholders. Now he's even stated the shares are non-transferable so users unable to jump through his hoops can't get anything for them.

How is that not a scam?

This whole, "I broke the law issuing the bonds, but I'm abiding by the law repaying them" stance is a scam.

Of course. If I were way more bastard than I am I would pull the same trick here (not IRL or someone would shoot me in the knees).

I could just walk away from my own obligations too, like this. But this isn't my point. My point here is new evidence.

Giga now seems to be prohibiting transfers between parties despite KYC ("know your customer") guidelines which state that a customer is merely a beneficial owner of whatever it is he's selling, and further state that a customer/beneficial owner can also be the beneficiary of a transfer of ownership.

I'm sorry to say my stance on this is no longer theoretical -- if GigaVPS does not allow me to transfer my GIGAMINING bonds he appears to be breaking the law by removing my right to transfer beneficial ownership.

I could be wrong (IANAL) but my issue has become I have no intention of dragging a lawyer into this, so I feel that GigaVPS is pretending it's against the law when it's really not.

If I allowed transfer of ownership, I would need to file and register with all sorts of three letter agencies. Before, it was GLBSE's responsibility to do this. Now, it is mine. It is cost prohibitive to allow this due to both legal and federal fees incurred to do so.


Please start reading whats been written on the issue. The most important parts are provided at the link below.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=127437.0


On this point, you are 100% correct.

It just seems like a very convenient excuse. You apply the law when it suits you, and not in the best interests of your bondholders. You said it yourself above; When GLBSE had the responsibility everything was easy peasy. Fine then, go list on BTCT-CO. I suppose there is some legal reason that you cannot do this of course, akin to not allowing anyone to transfer beneficial ownership despite KYC guidelines. I'm not going to hire a solicitor to write a transfer letter so I suppose you just got 10 GIGAMINING bonds richer. That feels like a scam. The technical term is "bait and switch" I believe.

Wow, can you imagine what would happen if I pulled a stunt like demanding KYC for my own shareholders? That wouldn't go over so well.

For someone who makes a lot of excuses, I could see how you could have interpreted it at such.


Payments are my responsibility now. I did not ask for it, it was GLBSE's job. Now that it is my job, it will done right. It is not worth the risk to follow in GLBSE's footsteps.


Because they were not doing what they were supposed to. And when they started to figure out just how fucked they were, they closed the site without warning or notice.


To continue to do things the same as GLBSE with only lead to the same conclusion as GLBSE. That is unacceptable.


This is not what I want. Please compile the information as requested and send it to Quentin. You'll get paid and we will be able to continue with Gigamining/Teramining.

What you keep conveniently ignoring is that for those who only hold a few shares the cost of compiling the information will often exceed the value of those shares.  That's because in many countries the cost of an apostilled document is fixed and fairly high (there's only one authority that can apostille per country - for obvious reasons - so no room for competition on the price as it's a monopoly).

If I lend you 3 BTC then ask for an apostilled claim before repaying and an apostille costs you 4 BTC what are your realistic options?  That's the position a lot of your smaller investors are now in.

Your claim that you can't allow transfer of ownership now as GLBSE were previously doing it is a misinterpretation.  If you sold transferrable contracts (or bonds - as some would say you had previously characterised them) previously then the regulatory requirements on you remain largely the same irrespective of who handles the transfer of ownership.

Does anyone here actually KNOW the US law in terms of KYC/AML?  In the UK if a customer refuses to provide KYC information then the seller has to either provide a total refund OR (if they believe there's an AML-related reason for the refusal) make an SAR (Suspicious Activity Report) to the relevant authorities (who that is depends on the company's supervisory body).  In this instance it's plain that in many cases the refusal to provide the required information is purely an economic one - that doing so costs more than the benefits of doing so - so IF this were in the UK Giga would need to cancel the contract in its entirety where there was refusal to provide the information.

I'd suggest first port of call for anyone getting screwed like this (being asked to incur costs greater than the contractual benefit) would be whatever fair-trading / consumer protection bodies there are in the US.  Complaint would be that he entered into a contract with you then is asking that you pay more than the benefit to you of the contract before he'll honour his obligations - and that he sold the contracts as being transferrable and is now also forbidding transfer which is the only other way you could recoup ANY of the investment you're otherwise losing.

lol did nobody notice that gigavps just admitted that he is pretending it's against the law when it's really not?




This is the only logical and reasonable way to do it. Nullify contracts of customers that do not want to proceed with the new rules, i.e. refund their investments (minus already paid dividends).

Any other way means we have another scammer onboard. (What is actually funny is that scammers are now scamming other scammers on this forum.)

Yeah - I had a look around online earlier at various sources relating to KYC in the US.  Seems the general principle is identical to in the UK and other countries:

1.  If you require KYC you MUST make that plain BEFORE entering into a contract.
2.  If you use a third=party to handle sales you CAN delegate KYC requirements to them BUT if you do so you MUST make sure they comply with the KTC policy that applies to you.
3.  If a potential client refuses to provide KYC your options are either a) Refund them any funds paid to you or b) Raise an SAR with relevant authorities.  There's no option c) of threaten to hold their funds but don't raise an SAR.
4.  If you require KYC information then you MUST have a written policy in respect of it and a named compliance officer.  If KYC requirements are delegated to a third-party then THEY must have a written policy and compliance officer.

It's also not clear on what basis giga is claiming he needs KYC information.  From what I can see, similar to in the UK, businesses that must obtain KYC information need to be registered wuth a supervisory/regulatory authority.  I see no statement from giga or his lawyer as to where they're registered as business meeting the conditions such that they need to obtain KYC information.  Are they, for example, registered as a Financial Services provider?  Any such registration should be disclosed to customers.

The above is important as - if he's claiming legal necessity for his actions then rather obviously:

1.  He needs to meet the relevant legal requirements on his end,
2.  If his failure to proper understand HIS position has led to the problem then any burden of cost in rectifying HIS mistake (in not making plain at the start the need for KYC information - a requirement where such information is needed) should fall on him.

There also appears to be a bait and switch on two specific factors:

1.  Giga is now claiming all deals were with an LLC.  But no disclosure was made that commitments on his end were restricted by limited liability when entering the deal.  Any limited liability needs to be disclosed in advance - it can't later be claimed.

2.  The contracts/bonds were transferrable/tradable.  Now, apparently, they aren't.  That's a very clear reduction in their value - with, as far as I can see, no agreement to such a change ever made by investors.  You can't start changing a contract unilaterally just because it's inconvenient for you to honour it as agreed.  If he's saying he can't honour the original agreement for legal reasons then it would be reasonable to allow him to cancel the deal - refunding amounts paid less dividends paid to date.

Not only would it be reasonable, but it is obligatory to allow customers to cancel the deal and refund amounts paid less dividends to date. Anything else is scamming.

But we all know this is not gonna happen and this will be dragged on for the next couple of months.

Until the mods grow a spine and tag him.

I propose he cannot do the buyback without selling current hardware at major loss and ruin his plans.
The reason for stalling as long as possible is so he can possess asic gear. The income from that, in a short time would allow a buy back or a new terramining crap plan to get fresh btc coming in or simply continue to pay peanuts while he laughs to the bank.

Demand money back before asics arrive. That is how you get even.

That's the point though. He isn't going to give the money back. He's going to make you go through a lawyer.

Then I propose that the bond holders create a thread and get 20+ people to all agree on a date for payment and
if giga does not agree to a reasonable date.. he should get a scammer tag. naturally the mods should be involved on
what they think a reasonable date should be. say 10 more days.

he broke the contract, he has had plenty of time to make things right, and all the BS he has created is not fair to the bond holders.

a person cannot just hold onto other people's money for weeks and months on end without repercussions no matter what excuse they
dream up next. those dividends better be getting interest too.

Question:    What do you say?
Yes    - 104 (69.3%)
No    - 46 (30.7%)
   
Total Voters: 150

I guess it's a good thing that payments will restart Monday for all verified claimants.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=75802.msg1447826#msg1447826

This includes all back payments and Monday's payment.

Best,
James

I wish that you get bankrupted by your lawyer. That would be my best payment.

Hi conspirosphere.tk,

Submit your information to Quentin, and I'll make sure to rush out all back payments for Gigamining.

Being negative and suggesting that we do things the same way GLBSE did won't get us anywhere except where GLBSE is.

Have a great weekend,
James

If I were based in the US I would probably just have contacted the cops. Since I am not, I found this:
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en (https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en)
where I am going to spill the beans.
à la guerre comme à la guerre

If nothing else I should be able to ask for a refund.  Giga please give me my money back, I don't want to call it a loan with interest or anything.  Lets just say I left my wallet at your house, please return it. 

yes.

refund or he is a scammer. there is no other way about this.


i have so little in this that getting a lawyer involved makes no sense but there is no way he could come out ahead

Please make a claim and you will get paid.

You're the one refusing to do business with us based on the terms we agreed on. Maybe you can't legally do business with us without knowing our IDs, but you took our money without requesting IDs first. What you CAN do is undo the whole deal by refunding (share buy price - paid mining dividends) us. At least those who can prove what they paid for their shares.

We've been through this, it's not worth spending the money to get a refund and I don't trust you or your lawyer with my identity. 

Not sure if this was clear but with "you" I was talking about gigavps, not you vrtrasura. And by refund I mean without going through the claim hassle (what would it be needed for if there's no business relation).

My bad, I too was responding to Giga (sorry).

I still do not understand, why GIGA did not get a scammer tag !
He still continues his dirty business ! :'(

Reposted.

This was the old contract:

Hello fellow bitcoiners,

Off the back of the glbse 2.0 release and with a soon to be influx of mining equipment, I am proud to release the first and ONLY 5Mh/s perpetual mining bond.

Introduction:
Mining assets are becoming extremely common on the GLBSE. We have companies that offer ownership of hardware, bonds that correlate to actual hash rate. But overall nothing too exciting, too large, or too profitable.

Until now.
Introducing Gigamining! http://gigamining.com/

The ONLY 5Mh/s perpetual mining bond.

The first bond to offer more than 2 Mh/s per bond, and run by a name you know has the hashes to back it up.

Summary:
There will be a total of 10,000 bonds issued, with each bond worth a massive 5 Mh/s.

During the initial offering of 1000 bonds the 500 bonds remaining will be sold on 4/10/2012, they will be sold for a cheap 1 BTC. All maintenance free.

Bulk pre-sales of 100 or more units can be made at the 1 BTC price BEFORE the IPO on 4/10. PM me to get started.

Each bond will pay 100% of PPS earnings every 7 days.

The bond will never expire.

I reserve the option to repurchase bonds at 105% of the highest traded price over the last 15 days.

About Me
Most of you know who I am, most of you know I have the ability to deliver this kind of power. I'm not going anywhere any time soon, so trust that your coin is safe, and doing its best work for you, here. If you have any questions, ask them in the thread.

Where is 50Gh going to come from?
- I currently run 33Gh in GPUs (undervolted and underclocked to 26.5Gh for the summer)
- I also run 11 Butterfly Labs singles @ 9.1Gh
- Soon 4 mini rig boxes will arrive with a total of 100Gh of mining capacity.

You can see the farm mining at anytime at http://gigamining.com/mgpumon/

Best,
gigavps



The new contract is so far from this.  I want a refund.  I was originally going to pay for an upgrade before GLBSE shut down, I was very impressed by giga back then.  Notice the following.  The original contract that we bought rights to says perpetual, the new contract is limited.  The original contract said maintenance free, the new one pays for it.  Add in that giga ends up our address/identity. Oh, and even if you don't hold many shares you have to pay notaries to get them back.  Finally we can't give our claim rights to anyone else.  If anyone wants to claim my shares I would be willing to handle all emails associated with my glbse address. 

From what I have seen all depends on who you know around here. What would get others tagged in a heartbeat don't seem to apply to him.

giga and bitbond are above rules

they can steal all they want and continue to operate on the forum with no consequences

This thread is over 3 months old now, with 208 posts, and 117 'yes' votes (70.9%) calling for the SCAMMER tag ... and still no SCAMMER tag.  So what's up?

Regarding theymos's "decision" quoted above, my big problem is the following: why was Nefario's lists good enough for pretty much every other GLBSE listing to sort out ownership, but not for GIGAMINING?   Why was reclaiming every other GLBSE share I owned a relatively prompt and painless process, but not for GIGAMINING?

I bought 300 freaking shares directly from giga for 1.5 btc each. He refuses to continue business with me under the terms we both agreed on.
Instead of reverting the deal by paying my money back (450 - paid out dividens) he keeps my money hostage. He doesn't need my ID and stuff to revert the deal. He's the one who refuses to continue business.

Now tell me exactly how this is not scamming.

No I don't want to file a claim, I want my dividends paid out or my money back.

Please submit a claim and you will be paid.

GLBSE is not around specifically because of AML/KYC issues surrounding their activities. In order to continue, VPS must know who it is dealing with.

No payments can be made without a claim whether they be refunds or back payments.

You won't be dealing with me after you've reverted the whole thing.

1. I don't want to be paid. I demand MY BTC back.


The burden of proof is upon you. Including to prove that BTC are legally money and subject to AML.  Otherwise is just b/s.


See 1. above and best wishes for your reputation of thieve. You should not have used your real name to pull this cheap scam off.
The other scammers on the GLBSE at least were smart enough to remain anonymous.

Let me use big and friendly pink letters, so everyone understands (including moderators):
and you deserve to be tagged as a scammer!

Yes, this is just a ploy to keep everyone who didn't or doesn't want to claim's coins.

This would mean you are the one unable to fulfill his contractual obligations. Whether or not that is actually true, there should be little doubt as to what should happen with the bitcoins people entrusted you with.

Seeing how BFL isn't actually delivering anything anyway....

A few months have past since most if not all other GLBSE shares have been linked to their previous owners using Nefarios list.
There was no big outrage of people who claim that they where not or with the wrong amount of shares on that list.
So I think we can say that Nefario did managed to compile a good list.

In respect of this gigavps should start accepting claims using Nefarios list and the list alone (no ID or other crazy ideas) or he should be tagged a scammer.

I am still surprised that he did not get a scammer tag !!!

We as Miners and/or people in the Bitcoin Community NEED to Stop supporting these types of ventures.  Scammers have made more from us then mining or bonds ever will and it's only US that can make this stop.

Do not support any new "Bond" or "Cloudhashing" Ventures, it's eventually the same story for all of them w/i 6 months ---> 1yr Max.  They prey on the newcomers in bitcoin and us veterans need to keep these scam tactics out in the open and people aware.

If the Bitcoin Community can come together and get rid of these Super-greedy folks then maybe we'll be able to expand the network and bring BTC into the open at a faster rate.  If the Trusted folks of Bitcointalk stick together, instead of being frustrated by the scammers out there, and work together we can get what is needed from each other and the Scammers will no longer get a "cut" of our hard earned BTC!

It makes me sick everytime I read these threads on the average miners getting taken advantage of, whether because of their location or due to lack of funds.  With the plethora of ASIC chips becoming available for semi-DIY projects there is no reason to "invest" in these sketchy Bond type Scams.  Show them who's boss and Do Not give them your money!  It may "Sound" easy to buy bonds but we all know how it will end...


As usual, Gigavps is no different from the rest of those sketchy types.  Writes a contract that he has no intention of following then tries to make it appear he's not requiring people to jump thru 50 hoops to possibly get some of their money back.

I am wondering where that Scammer Tag is?!  Stop letting the "Rich" take from the "poor" as Bitcoin is Supposed to be different...but only if WE make it

Well that's a bit exaggerated. There is but one hoop, getting an affidavit. And it's not possibly get some money back, it's been established he will pay all pending payments since GLBSE closed and so far is still paying out the mining proceeds weekly.

So far he's been providing as per contract hashing proceeds to anyone who has sworn before a notary to be the rightful owner of his gigamining hashing contracts, with ID. I do believe fixed hashing contracts have been an absolutely bad deal and I don't fully agree with the way it was handled, but as far as I'm concerned, Gigavps is fulfilling his 5 mhash/s contracts.

So changing the contract in the middle of the deal is now kosher? 

Last i checked we are tossing around play money and the deal did not have anything to do with a fiat currency.
One could swap bitcoin with coke bottle caps and it would be ABSOLUTELY no different. Give ppl their bottle caps back.

What is this about fiat currency being involved?

If you feel scammed by giga, now you can state it here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=trust;u=19617

that is the thing. no fiat was ever involved from a buyer to giga. heck, he even probably paid for the gear with bitcoins.

if you give me a rock and next week I give you two rocks.. do you really need a lawyer involved? that is my point. when
just messing around with bitcoins it is meaningless when it comes to the LAW. Now if you convert bitcoins to a fiat currency that
is a diff story but that has nothing to do with giga.

he brought in this whole lawyer thing either as a way to screw people or he got irrationally scared. pick your poison.

Erhm, law applies to any contract/transactions, whether it is in fiat, Bitcoins, barter tokens or any commodity. I wouldn't say it's meaningless when it comes to the law.

So when he changes the contract at his own discretion would you not agree that he should refund those who want out and disagree with the new pie in the sky made up on the spot contract?

Ugh. This just keeps going around in circles. The dork needs to give ppl their money back and deal with the fall out himself.
The LAW will not come for him with his two bit operation and refunding a few dozen ppl.

When was contract ever changed?

when he made demands of others that were not in place from the beginning in order for them to get paid.
basically holding their btc hostage until they did x, y, and z.

I don't quite see how it can be claimed it's a change of contract. Demanding documents and identification during a claim process would fall outside the scope of the contract itself. It's not pertaining to the execution of the contract itself, but the identification of the recipient. He's currently generating and holding balances for every contract recipient, waiting for owners to claim said amount. One does not blindly delivers and Gigavps decided not to trust data provided by Nefario. I don't really agree with the decision and find the affidavit excessive, but not trusting Nefario is reasonable.

except that he trusted him for a long time to raise lots of coins. Then when it's time to return them to the senders he did not trust him any more. oops

Then every other legit issuers trusted Nefario's data and followed up, with little or no incidents. double oops.

You still don't know exactly how much BTC Nefario has stolen through submitting his own/controlled addresses as ownership of various shares, but I can tell you it's not 0.

Whats Nefario doing now?
He is in any job?

I'm not sure anyone knows where or what he is doing currently.

Really? Do you have any proof or are you juts pulling stuff out of your ass again?
There has been exactly how many "I did not get my shares" incidents with GLBSE (excluding ones where issuer vanished)?

and shit Giga pulled.
 

He asked mo to go to public notary even I only have 2 shares....this is nonsense.
Well it's only 2 share but stealing is stealing.

Yes, he should be tagged as a scammer without any doubt.
Not only for his fraudulent behavior with Giga-Teramining, but also with his participation in pirate's scheme.

Anyway, seem the odds are against him :
http://bitbet.us/bet/486/james-gibson-aka-gigavps-to-be-named-as

Besides this, anybody interested in starting a class-action suit ?

That is just silly.

Wouldn't it be much easier and cheaper to just file your claim with Giga and get paid rather than hire a lawyer and sue him?  Also, if your main complaint is that you now have to provide documents to Giga just wait until you find out the number of documents you will need to provide in order to sue him.

Sure, thanks, maybe you will also be indicted for running a pirate's PT.
Class action anybody ?

Or as I suggested to people looking to injure BFL everyone just does their own small claims cases and pursues double or triple damages. Class actions exist to protect the defendant.

Even if you need a lawyer to help with the small claims process a good drive thru lawyer can be had for $150-$250 for something simple like making sure the paperwork you file doesn't suck.

I'm from the EU so I suppose I can't, but I would be happy to donate a half of my Giga shares (30+) to whoever will recover them, including cumulated dividends in case of their recovery.

Please claim and you will be paid. 86% of all outstanding contracts have been claimed and paid.

What are you waiting for exactly?

As for the gigamining shares, there is no claim to do, you only need to honour your initial contract.
As for the pirate's ponzi, just explain it to the judge that you did not took advantage of it.

If I have to pay a lawyer anyway, I'll pay him to exact justice instead than to jump in your hoops.

Is this the same JG that went to school with CV in KC or a different one?

Your logic makes no sense. Some of the most prolific posters in this thread have claimed and have been paid. You should learn from their example.

Anybody who has taken the time to work with me has been compensated. Your stubbornness only hurts you.

So it's my fault that you keep my coins against my will  :P  That's why 73.7% of the voters here agree that you are a scammer.

This response reminds me of a debate I once saw between Ted Nugent (rocker, avid hunter and hunting advocate) and some lady from PETA.  He argued totally convincingly that allowing licensed, controlled and taxed hunting of elephants would increase the herds and save them from extinction.

The reply from the PETA representative was "I don't care if every single elephant dies as long as you do not get to hunt them."

+1. gigavps is and always has been extremely upfront and honest. I don't really see the problem you have since the original contracts were for far less mh/s per bond and now they pay even more. "Claiming" is merely acknowledging that glbse is dead and you are going forward.

it's just that:
1. i don't have time to waste
2. i don't have money to waste for things not required in the original contract
3. I don't trust either Giga nor his lawyer with my data
'nuff said?