Bitcoin Forum

EDIT: This was obviously a hoax.  The WSJ has issued a correction (behind paywall here (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323997004578644491403250124.html)) and The Tavistock group has put out a press release (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/private-investor-and-trader-joe-lewis-not-backing-bitcoin-ventures-2013-08-05) disclaiming any association:


So the question is, who's behind the Hoax?  My guess is this "Andrew Laurus" person was probably spreading rumors about this "deal" as part of some sort of scheme. Both of the reporters who covered (at bitcoin examiner and the WSJ) follow him on twitter.

_____
Old version of text:


So here's the question: Does this explain all of Josh's weird behavior lately? It's likely that Joe Lewis didn't tell the other people he was looking into investing with that he was also looking possibilities as well.

With Inaba's hubris, he probably assumed the deal was a definite go ahead.  That would explain why he was in here telling everyone that he was going to laugh at people who were predicting their failure, that he was going to "stick it up [our] asses" and that the bitcoin talk forum was a "minor player" in everything - clearly alluding to "major players" elsewhere, like Joe Lewis.

Anyway, obviously this guy decided BFL wasn't for him.  They have a chip design, but Avalon (and ASICMiner) have probably made enough to fund 20nm designs on their own.

Interestingly he also looked at KnC and wasn't interested.    

Great find sir.   The speculation will be rampant.  200m seems like a large amount when you have just over 1 billion market cap total.   There must be another play that either we don't know about it we will soon.

Yes, and the fact that the entire industry only brings in $131 million a year at the current prices, and will halve over time.

And of course, you need to have less then half the network as well.  It's really unlikely that you could make back a $200 million dollar investment purely by mining bitcoin.  This guy and other wallstreet types clearly think the price is going to go up.

thats assuming this story hasnt been misreported ;)

A $200m investment seems overkill given BTC's worth. $20m would easily fund a very professional next gen chip development without the necessity for pre-order funding etc. Why would someone invest 10x that?

It's an enormous amount, yes- but its small if you believe what the long term value of bitcoin will be. Also, it will allow chips to be made extraordinarily cheaply and embed able in all sort of commodity goods. (USB hubs, etc). If you believe in Bitcoin, and that it will be worth one day trillions, then it's not so much. :-)

What's odd is the time the news broke, a Sunday eve, so some journals have run without confirming sources,  the fake shill twitter account that speads fud about KnC for a guy called Andrew Laurus who checks out no where else, and is potentially the worst possible person to have connected with Bitcoin (ex senior gov advisor and Lehman's bond broker - the type of person Bitcoin was specifically created to remove from influence) a half arsed landing page for a site that bears aesthetically too much similarity to the lines drawn in banknotes and a domain created on Friday.

The only thing that made me double take was the WSJ, but they aren't immune to flakey journalism, if this is what it is.

Personally I think someone is trying to flush out Yifu and elicit a response, by causing enough FUD any real contact anyone has for him goes bezerk and he has to respond to question after question until he come's out of hiding from the public and put's the record straight on this, and then clearly the bulk chips issue which he has avoided addressing. I'd hazard a guess Yifu is putting his head down and is trying to deliver on his promises...

http://bitcoinexaminer.org/avalon-might-be-getting-a-200-million-investment-and-20nm-technology-to-become-the-leader-of-the-mining-market/

In this branch the only important factor is speed, BFL is proved to be too slow, Orsoc is good in ASIC design but they have been late to the bitcoin game thus don't follow what is happening behind the scene

There is one thing strange, the Avalon chip is designed by gridchip and now their cooperation broke, so I suppose both NGZhang and Yifu Guo have no good idea about the full design of a working ASIC chip. Maybe that is what those 200million is used for, they will fund a professional ASIC design house to manually create a high-efficient 20nm chip

If I had that amount of fund, I will invest in a quantum chip design :D

https://mobile.twitter.com/ScottWapnerCNBC/statuses/364370798892421120

Not going to read it; Twitter is the root of all of this bullshit, in true fact.  "Journalists" responding to random 120 character anonymous messages.   ::)

The bitcointalk quote of the day, which I failed to note the location of, was someone said Twitter is for narcissists.  Excellent.

The one I want to read is the feckin' WSJ online's correction.  Jackasses.

Wow, how does the WSJ eff that up so bad.

Same way CNN, and MSNBC, and Fox, and Bloomberg have all fucked up recently.  Their "journalist," who these days is a kid out of school, because the legitimate journalists aren't found on the internet side and won't be for a generation, wants to get out before anybody else, and so reports the first bullshit tweet. 

And others respond to the same bullshit Tweet on that network, as well as the now "legitimatized" news blog report, the FUD and bullshit increase exponentially, and the bullshit self-confirms.

There were actually two journalists working on the story, maybe one was just filling in background information.  I suppose it would be possible to con someone at the WSJ but I wouldn't think that a good journalist would would write a story like that without multiple sources unless she had a serious amount of trust in them.

I do think the $200m figure seems way off, though. I think there might be a much smaller deal and the $200 figure got pulled from those old stories and injected maybe some of the sources got confused.

The answer is the hoaxster pulled this shit on a Sunday eve, and journalists are so desperate to be the first to 'break' news and get the story shared through social media, and thus notoriety, they forget to do any err...journalism!

So... I was just thinking about this hoax.

Who benefits? 
Who suffers?

I guess the newspapers suffer, but journalism has declined quite a bit and is used to getting black eyes.

Seems like Yifu doesn't really benefit or suffer.  He might get more pings on his phone/email/PM, but that is a poor way to reach him these days anyway.  Bitsyn.com already has plenty of Bitcoin exposure... though maybe a few people know a little more.  It isn't like he needed a $200M to continue his operations.

I guess it could put pressure on big investment bank/venture capital types to get into the game... which I guess would benefit the new players looking for risky/desparate capital.

Bitcoin community might benefit slightly, with a bitcoin related scandal that doesn't involve bubbles or theft or SR.  Looks like BTC/USD got a small bump on Mt.Gox, but looks like it was probably unrelated.

Trying to "follow the money" here is proving difficult.

My belief a troll was trying to flush out Yifu with any response, forcing his hand over the chip delivery.

Personally I feel Yifu will have laughed and sighed a huge sigh of relief as the forums and customers are distracted momentarily with FUD.

Hopefully he's putting his head down and is trying to appease you guys...

So you think someone with a chip order was able to con a WSJ reporter, along with the person from bitcoinwatch? How exactly would they have been able to do it?

You actually think that a WSJ reporter would write an article like this based entirely on email correspondence from someone she'd never met?

It could be fake, but I seriously doubt some random chip buyer would be able to get a fake story placed in the WSJ. If they could, they wouldn't need chips as they could just make money manipulating the stock market. 

No I think the reporter probably has an interest in Bitcoin, is probably a member here, or follows press releases.

I believe the hoaxster has some Internet marketing experience and knows how to submit copy to multiple pr distro sites.

I believe the WSJ journal ran with the BS story from Bitcoin examiner. I would hazard the author there is very gullible and jumped at the submission of an anonymous rumour, which she practically admits;

http://bitcoinexaminer.org/avalon-might-be-getting-a-200-million-investment-and-20nm-technology-to-become-the-leader-of-the-mining-market/#comment-3379

Irrespective of whether the reporter is a gullible moron on a wannabe Bitcoin news site, or a gullible moron working at the Wall Street Jounal, both are hungry for social media likes and shares, and of course their biggest prize; backlinks, which ups them and their name in Google's organic search results. Basic search engine optimisation 101 buddy...

Yesterday Maria Santos was a nobody wannabe Bitcoin specialist journalist, today she's a comfirmed well known moron pseudo-journalist that doesn't even enter a simple google search for her subject matter to confirm it's legitimacy, much like a lot of 'investors' before 'investing' on this forum!!

The Wall Street Journal though;

http://i.stack.imgur.com/jiFfM.jpg

I have a triple facepalm plus a shocked woman, and was going to raise, but I don't know how to link an image,  so I'll fold and give you the pot with two facepalms.

The real fallout from this, I'll bet, is it put 20nm on the scammer radar.  I wouldn't be surprised if the next cold-fusion powered, mineral oil cooled usb stick 4TH device IPO isn't 20nm.

"today she's a comfirmed well known moron pseudo-journalist " Her mother must be proud.

Yes, the bitcoinexamer person basically said she was getting the story from internet rumors, as well as from a single "source."   The WSJ article is not like that though.

I think you're vastly over-estimating how easy it is for a random person to plant a story in the WSJ. Again, my point is - how exactly do you think someone would con the WSJ?  Do you seriously think they just run stuff that shows up in their email inbox without even verifying the identity of their sources?

Someone with a long standing relationship with a WSJ reporter could potentially do it, but not some random upset chip buyer.

The WSJ reporter couldn't have gotten the article from the bitcoin examiner, because it has details that story doesn't.

The WSJ content is word for word based on that article. No new substance. It appears to have been that easy...

I don't think anyone approached the WSJ, as I said it is likely the jorno keeps an eye out here, especially w.r.t. the timing of the Bitcoin examiner article succeeded by the WSJ hours later when this forum was still mulling it over.

Why do you keep calling this a "fake shill twitter account"? There's no evidence the twitter account doesn't actually belong to Andrew Laurus. Kim Dotcom follows this guy, as does the WSJ reporter herself (https://twitter.com/HarrietAgnew/following)  (She also follows bitcoin examiner, and bitcoin examiner follows Laurus as well)

While it seems likely that whoever runs the Andrew Laurus twitter is the source, what makes you think the guy running it isn't the same guy who worked at Lehman, etc?

I think you're missing the most obvious person to have planted the story: Andrew Laurus - followed by both Harriet Agnew, and bitcoinexaminer on twitter.  He brags to these reporters that he's setting up this big deal. Maybe there is no deal and he's just blowing smoke up their asses in order to get some press for himself and make himself seem like a bigger deal then he is.

If the story is fake, that's a much more plausible explanation then the idea that some random upset chip buyer is able to con the WSJ into running a hoax story by pretending the be Andrew Laurus.


It also doesn't mention anything about BFL or KnC.

So apparently the WSJ has issued a correction.  Here's a press release (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/private-investor-and-trader-joe-lewis-not-backing-bitcoin-ventures-2013-08-05) from the Tavistock group, specifically saying that they have no relation to bitcoin or Andrew Laurus.

My guess is that Andrew Laurus was running a con on some people, and never expected to see it reported in the WSJ, where it could more easily be debunked.

I guess I was wrong about the WSJ taking it's fact checking seriously.

Sorry man, but welcome to the world of mass media where 'likes', and 'shares' have taken greater preference over 'honesty' and 'content'.

On a side note, I bet Joe Lewis is livid with whoever is responsible it has probably caused him and his associated companies a monster headache today as all kinds of lunatics chase him for a comment...

Ah to have been a fly on the wall...

I told Josh to take off that silly red nose prior to Joe Lewis came a callin', but I see he didn't listen to me. Probably calling Joe a monumental asshole and givin' him a quarter didn't help matters either.

Later that day, Sonny arrived at the office and asked Josh what's new, whereupon Josh told Sonny nothing but that he was now able to blow up 22 balloons a minute. Needless to say that for the next few minutes, all calls to Josh's office was put on hold.

I PM'ed theymos to have him remove CNN from the list. Here's my argument: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4nK5cvg_5A

Sorry I hadn't seen you wrote this earlier, the twitter account having looked at it again may well be genuine. I hadn't seen Kim DotCom on there previously as I hadn't noticed twitters action by to load more followers past a certain point. The mentioning of KnC was a rant from his twitter. He was dismissive about them in one of the articles onlines as well, but whatever everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

He certainly kicked up a huge fuss and was distanced by the main player in the article. His tweets come across as irrational and agitated. I wouldn't expect that from a 'Senior Government Insider', and the last person you want involved in Bitcoin is someone that was involved in bond selling from a Bank that collapsed through the misselling of sub prime bonds and was the catalyst to the largest crash in financial history and gave guidance to the government around that time. It's what Bitcoin was created to escape from...

Well, who knows if he actually worked at Lehman, "Andrew Laurus" sounds like the kind of name someone would make up.