Bitcoin Forum

http://www.sec.gov/News/PressRelease/Detail/PressRelease/1370539730583#.Ue663W1yz-C

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In the long run this doesn't change much.
But right now I'm ready for another epic sucker rally.  :D

This is extremely bullish on multiple levels.

That took a while...

I'd say it is bullish if all the BTCs he had are now out of his possession and into the hands of many.

This is hilarious.

I wonder how (if even) the government will seize the assets... threats of prison?

I love Bitcoin drama :-D

I don't think it matters if the coins come back or not. It's bullish in the sense that the SEC saw fit to get involved. If this was a WoW gold ponzi, the chances of that happening are highly unlikely, despite the fact that they are traded for dollars on the secondary market. This will work as an indirect endorsement for bitcoin legitimacy.

Exactly.

It also reinforces the association by the public: Bitcoin that's a ponzi - now confirmed by the SEC.

They didn't make that assertion, on the contrary they make it clear this was a specific entity operating on top of bitcoin.. just like madoff. They could have made that release sound much worse then they did.. instead they made it seem like they are going to be policing btc fraud.. which from a utility point of view is a huge value add..

That doesn't stop CNBC from putting it that way, but we shall wait and see.

Right, the public that can't seperate those two things in the news story. What kind of timeline to adoption do you think they were on prior to reading this? Any chance that they would try bitcoin before they encountered a situation in their life that required it? No way. This changes nothing for them, but you and I get a different message from this, and we (presumably) use bitcoin already. We create the opportunities and infastructure to support bitcoin, thus the moment in time when that general public becomes faced with needing bitcoin for something just got moved forward. It doesn't matter what they think.

Well, they released this: http://www.sec.gov/investor/alerts/ia_virtualcurrencies.pdf , not sure i'd count this as a seal of approval.  Guilt by association.

This gets more press and raises the awareness level of bitcoins, resulting in higher exchange rate as new people raise the total purchasing poser of bitcoins.

The government response is also positive toward bitcoin, they show that bitcoins themselves are a perfectly legal store of value, but it was the actions done with them that are subject to legal prosecution.

I think it won't change a lot.

Most victims have long given up on the funds and it's unclear if they can be recovered at all.

Even if funds can be recovered it is by intervention of the state, which most bitcoiners do not seem to like.

ya.ya.yo!

There are no assets left. This does not impact Bitcoin.

Who the hell was gullible enough to fall for Pirate@40 and give the Feds another excuse to screw with Bitcoin?

I am :)

Well, don't do it again. :)

Its too soon to say. IT all depends on what the headlines are: "Bitcoin ponzi scheme revealed" (negative), "SEC begins policing bitcoin" (positive), "Bitcoin 'Madoff' caught by SEC" (semi-neutral).

lol ;D

Whatever "semi-neutral" means...

ya.ya.yo!

victims of the ponzi (and I use victims loosely as they should be called something else) are not going to see a dime from this.
they will just get the satisfaction that pirate's life is going to be turned upside down.
indifferent.

I dont know... 60m dollars, the SEC now have a lot of power: they could give it to the FBI to track down dealers/buyers in SR, or just drop the price selling everything and kill the economy

This. We'll see how it plays out. Don't think it means much, really, though.

How did they manage to bust pirate40 ?

Im waiting for the rest of scammers to go under look at my sig

I'm pretty sure the headline is going to be 'Bitoin Ponzi Scheme' and the followup will contain a long list of things like drugs, silk road, illegal porn and it will probably mention the Liberty Reserve bust.

For now, it seems to me that they are just doing their jobs decently.  Press release was neutral to bitcoin, and the alert for Ponzi schemes involving bitcoin, well, they have a point don't they?

I think so...  Just don't know how the-bitcoiners-that-matter will read it.  Tough crowd here, i doubt there's anything FinCEN can do, other than stay away, for everyone to be happy.  The correct answer according to Gox price seems to be "meh."  I'd be a bit worried if i was involved with local "stocks" & PMBs, but even before that PR that stuff was  ::)

You're getting worse.

I just read the CNN version of the bust and it didn't read negatively toward Bitcoin at all.  In fact, it basically justified Bitcoin and other virtual currencies as legitimate and warned people to beware of such scams when dealing with virtual currencies.  I think it's a real stretch to call this "bullish" news but I don't see any need for anyone to panic either. 

if the investors get their btc back, it might be bearish if they cash out.  if Trendon had an encrypted or hidden wallet, or the BTC are unrecoverable, then having 700,000 BTC vanish / locked out of the blockchain would be a bullish thing.

??

It's not 700,000 BTC, nearly all of that had been paid out earlier in the scheme, lost in daytrading or sold for cash already.

-> this amount will not be locked out the blockchain
-> people won't get it back

The benefitters of his scheme were obviously all those day-traders that were on the other side of his losing trades. The money then is long gone.

Whether this is bullish or bearish in the short term depends on how much BTC are left. I suspect well under 100K BTC. Still we must keep in mind there may be creditors here such as the IRS who would likely sell BTC to cover unpaid withholding taxes for example. Short term somewhat bearish. Long term bullish.

Pointless and without teeth. Mostly indifferent.

Short-term bullish, long-term bearish, but not much - I guess. Potentials will be lost by being turned off to BTC as a ponzi scheme, but having it mentioned is always good while BTC isn't mainstream. SEC "involvement," though, I don't think many will take seriously, as there isn't any serious effort being displayed by the SEC.

"We found a guy who people reported stole money, and we believe them. We think he's bad. We charged this guy who may or may not still be in the US, but we think he was a Texan. Please don't start or invest in ponzis. We're still an effective LEO bureaucracy, because even if no results come of this, we've made a statement condemning bad actions."

Lemme know when they have him in captivity, because right now, this comes off to me as an indication of powerlessness by the SEC.

What ever happened to that Bruce Wagner motherfucker? Did karma get him yet?

My thoughts exactly :)
Getting back those coins would be interesting to see... Brainwallets and plausible deniability ftw

Those who benefited most from the ponzi were Pirates co-conspirators (or early investors, depending on your viewpoint) who got out of the scheme before it collapsed.

It is not entirely unbelievable that the authorities will want to go after the early investors and passthrough services. Even if they believed in the scheme it constitutes criminal negligence to actually act on such frivolous beliefs, propagating the scheme.

None of this matters much, as far as the BTC market is considered.

The name is pure win & kittens! :D

it's not good because people are seeing 'bitcoin' and 'ponzi scheme' in headlines and don't read the story - they just comment with told you so!!  eediots.

Back when PirateAt40's inevitable scam collapsed I mentioned the collapse to a friend.  He had heard about bitcoins before and said 'see, I told you that bitcoin thing was just a scam'.  I had to carefully explain PirateAt40 used bitcoin to commit a scam.  It was just a tool. 

In the short term the SEC action means the general public hears about bitcoin and another scam, which is definately not good.  Longer term the news may be better as the US government is interested in chasing people setting up obvious scams, even when it comes to things the US government doesn't recognise as money.

A Zero Hedge link to the main article claimed Mr Shavers had already spent a large chunk of the bitcoins by carefully investing in his own personal lifestyle.  Don't expect a seizure and large amounts of bitcoins to be handed back to mathematically challenged victims.  1% returns per day, who would honestly believe that?  Seems like quite a few did.

On the bright side this news should at least deter any potential imitators.

It hasn't seemed to have any effect so far.

I think anyone who would confuse the Ponzi scheme with Bitcon would have sold out long ago.

BFL jokes aside, I am surprised we have not seen a massive ASIC scam.

I could be dead-wrong, but this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=252531.0
TL;DR: ActiveMining, a shell company ("virtual identity" in the words of its "owner") with a Belize registration, a London PO Box mailing address, an empty warehouse in Missouri, US, claims of 28nm chips and plenty of knowledgeable investors with ~month-old accounts rabidly defending its honor.  Oh, almost forgot -- selling "virtual shares."

It is very naive to believe that blocking US IPs will prevent from crackdown! Erik Voorhees already understand this and took proactive measures (i.e. sold SatoshiDICE while fools still believe IP blocking will save from govt attack and thus ready to pay $12M).

The only safe way is to move away from the U.S./its friendly countries IMHO. Most "grey" BTC service owners will do this in the future when pressure become too tough.

How did he only walk away with $164,000. 

The hackers at bitfloor got away with more in one fell swoop and no coppers are chasing them.

i imagine it takes more thought and planning in hacking an exchange  and leaving no traces vs running a ponzi.