Bitcoin Forum

Back story on how Roger Ver did it: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2642600/Are-going-order-hitman-kill-Digital-currency-millionaire-known-The-Bitcoin-Jesus-turns-tables-blackmailer-placing-20-000-online-bounty-head.html


In the spirit of the above, Brock Pierce suggested to the person who had their bitcoins stolen to mound a similar campaign, thus amassing the troops, so to speak, so that at least one person could reap the reward when the stolen bitcoins are returned.

The amount of bitcoins stolen was 1,132 BTC.

The person they were stolen from was me, Bruno Kucinskas, a.k.a. Phinnaeus Gage on this forum.

The bitcoins were stolen on April 1, 2013, during the infamous InstaWallet "hack".

The person who stole the bitcoins is David François (David Francois), a.k.a. davout (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=1929l) of InstaWallet/Paymium, et al. and staff on this forum.

The bitcoins resided in two URL wallets: 1,000 BTC here https://www.instawallet.org/w/rL2DhMWW9tDvs24oFwtiq99zhh7A3ii6bg and 132 BTC here https://www.instawallet.org/w/gZh1afVVl5aAtjNwXo0BiYChTxjwln33ab

I filed three claims at the earliest possible time, the other being for only 0.835 BTC. At first David François wasn't going to honor that claim in spite of offering up various proof that that wallet was indeed mine. The reason for him not wanting to do such is because he knew that the IP associated with that one URL coincided with the the other two URLs Paymium continues to not recognize.

At the onset of the InstaWallet fiasco, all three URLs didn't have a bitcoin wallet associated with the generated pages. It wasn't till after I brought it to Boussac's attention that the lesser bitcoin-containing wallet was well-document that it mysterious had the associated wallet address visible on the URL generated site. This is why they refuse to release the name of the forensics auditor(s) because there wasn't one (or more, according to Boussac), in spite of them saying they couldn't because of some fuckin' idiotic NDA clause.

InstaWallet is now officially off-line in spite of ~20K wallets yet to be refunded, with only >1K wallets returned to their rightful owners, in spite of all the principals of Paymium being refunded first.

It is well-documented that David François announced a week prior to the "hack" that he was going on vacation for a week, but not returning to this forum until April 18, 2013, leaving Boussac (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=31585) - Pierre Noizat - to start and man a InstaWallet claims thread of which is now locked in spite of still owing ~20K wallet claims, according to their estimates.

After hundreds of requests, David François, et al. has refused to name the independent auditors (plural, according to Boussac, singular, according to davout, as stated on this forum) that conducted the investigation, over and beyond what the French PD supposedly conducted.

I firmly believe that my 1,132 BTC is currently residing in one of David François' fat-ass bitcoin wallets, namely https://blockchain.info/address/16d1yGrEDqSY1xhCnAUWrkahGY2mkWdAYk, of which 1,384.35491053 BTC can still be found there.

The above address was amassed during the shutdown of InstaWallet and Bitcoin-Central, with the funds funneled to said address above via some sort of creative Bitcoin Money Laundering, i.e. one of the gambling bitcoin dice sites (not Satoshi Dice).

All three principals of Paymium have acted like assholes during the entire InstaWallet fiasco to their non-customers, a term they coined and used.

Boussac put me on ignore from the moment I entered the InstaWallet claims thread.

Davout now has me on ignore and ceased all communications with me.

Boussac was approached in Amsterdam prior to going on stage at the recent Bitcoin conference held there, and refused to discuss any of the InstaWallet claims.

Bitcoin-Central, owned by David François, is supposedly backed by a bank, when in fact it's back by Lemon Way, an app provided, who three days prior to the InstaWallet "hack" inquired on its Twitter account how to go about obtaining bitcoins, all the while being walking distance from Paymium's backdoor.

Details of the 400 BTC bounty can be seen in Post #3 of this thread, with Post #2 reserved for when I'm duly compensated.

~Bruno Kucinskas

Reserved to announced that I have reunited with my lost investment.

At today's exchange rate, the 400 BTC bounty equates to over a quarter of million dollars, or exactly $255,416 USD.

I prefer to use Rassah as escrow so that anybody who's entitle to the bounty would have an extra layer of trust to guarantee that they do get paid.

I will pay a 2% escrow fee (over and beyond Rassah's standard fee structure) outta my share to not lessen any bounty payout.

Ideally, I prefer to have the entire 1,132 BTC, sans the 400 BTC bounty amount, paid in full to me, but knowing that sometimes arbitration takes place, I'm willing to settle for a minimal amount, with anybody acting as liaison to broker their reward up to 100% of what I may finally recognize. The minimum I'm welling to settle for is $50K USD via BTC or fiat to compensate for my initial investment and the mega hours I have put into this fiasco, not to mention the stress.

I have played this game long enough in good faith, but Paymium, et al. actions, now lack thereof, leaves me no choice but to pursue this route.

I've stated this before, and will now do so again: Anybody having funds in Bitcoin-Central best get them out ASAP, for I have a funny feeling that they're about to be investigated for fraud and money laundering.

~Bruno Kucinskas

You had that many BTC on a online wallet service sorry for your loss. :(

So did others using InstaWallet, but they were refunded according to tx records, albeit they could've easily been Paymium's own funds from their various money laundering enterprises.

Way to keep it interesting Bruno. I read the whole thing.

You could have added that you're a Nigerian prince and I'd still believe you :P

Good luck with this!

Nice bounty....I'm fairly new to this forum but read quite a bit about your quest to get your BTC back. Hopefully this will help.

I've watched the whole Instawallet fiasco like a hawk because I had some BTC in Instawallet.  Only a small fraction of my holdings, and what I could easily afford to lose of course, but it's a personal affront and embarrassing to me to get screwed by (likely) criminals.  I got my bitcoins back with the first round of payouts BTW.

Whenever these things happen there are a handful of people (probably) who will make dubious claims and a lot of noise hoping that the party responsible will find the path of least resistance to just pay them off.  In PG's case it seems that his story was relayed early and has remained the same through the well over a year that this thing has been in play.  That is not what one usually sees when someone is trying to pull a fast one.  I think the odds are quite high that PG's story and claim is completely legit.

PG has been his normal self and obviously very frustrated through this adventure.  Not always a model of diplomacy.  That still does not give davout and boussac a justification to steal from him IMHO.  Nor does the fact that it would cost them a fairly large chunk of change to do the right thing.  (BTW, I would not rule out the possiblity that Boussac himself is a victim of davout to some extent.)

In the interest of being complete, I do have to note that PG seemed to go through a brief but suspicious period of shilling for the infamous scammers at BFL (between rounds of being their worst enemy.)  I forgot about that when I donated a bitcoin to the 100 charity thing a few months ago.  Anyway, aside from that I've seen no reason to be suspicious that he wouldn't do what he says.  I would love to see davout have to cough up the 1300 BTC he very likely stole, and I'd love to see the details of the collection remittance disclosed publicly.  And the details of the extraction for that matter.  If feasible.

It kinda occurred to me that Boussac may have been played by davout, but his actions at the onset of the InstaWallet fiasco are/were in-line with davout's.

Don't worry about the 1 BTC you sent to Bitcoin 100, for it surely will go to some good cause. I'm simply the founder of it, never ever having control of a single satoshi that passes through it. Not another person affiliated with Bitcoin 100 gets a single satoshi for themselves. Any moneys that any principals received came outta my pocket, most of which was also donated.

BFL. Please recall that I have dug up more dirt on them then all others combined, and kinda ran outta ammo, hence scaling back my attacks. I and bcp19 toured their plant, then went to a KC meetup that Goat put together. It wasn't till after I was about to leave the Meetup that Josh gave me a sub-par Single in the parking lot, of which I sold. Josh also reimburse my traveling expenses and one night hotel stay, even though I was on the road for over 3 days, opting to only turn in one night's stay, bunking with bcp19 (two beds, if that needs to be said). I was fair with the billing, of which Josh/BFL was kind enough to round up a tad, all of which I donated away, including moneys from the sale of the sub-par Single since I don't mine. In total, less than $600 I was able to amass outta $700-$800 trip expense, of which I'm pretty sure I donated over $1,500 during that particular time frame.

Apologies for bragging above, but wanted to put into perspective. But, I will brad a tad now: I've donated tens of thousands to date toward a couple local chapters here in Sandwich, IL, that benefit autistic adults, for I have a special place in my heart for them folks. Unfortunately, it's all in fiat. Currently, I'm negotiating a lease for a 5 bedroom farm house for the same group, but different adults, willing to pay two years worth of lease payments up front since the state is so strapped for funds. No apologies this time for bragging.

BTW, the above events you've stated took place from the later part of September, forward. InstaWallet's "hack" took place on April 1, 2013, thus that event and anything similar to the above that others may try to claim as some sort of bearing to some motive I may have will not cut the mustard because they're mutually exclusive.

That said, thank you so kindly, tvbcof, for your post.

~Bruno Kucinskas

PG, I am a little confused with the above part.

You will offer 400BTC and are willing to settle for $50K?
Is that what it says?

Also, how do you expect someone to get your BTC back for you?

For that amount of BTC I am sure you can find some sort of legal way to force conduct an investigation by someone (or more) with expertise on the matter.

I never used Instalwallet, but I did keep an eye on how davout and boussac behaved during and after the incident because they are involved in other Bitcoin projects.

The way they handled the situation looks to me consistent with what I'd expect from scammers.

Honest people would show some signs of remorse and humility after losing so much of other people's money - they were arrogant and hostile instead.

Foregoing allocating legal fees unless Paymium opts to sue me for libel, of which I'm on record stating that I would welcome such, stemming all the way back to April of last year. I'm opting to go the Roger Ver route, being that this is Bitcoin and all.

The settlement aspect is fair, thrown in for what it's worth knowing realistically that it may come to such via some sort of arbitration, albeit I'm not versed on how such works, but I can surmise.

Don't know exactly how others could help via acting as some sort of liaison, but hoping that maybe some chap close to Paymium's principals can put some sort of pressure on them, sans violence, of course.

Also, some more press on this would be welcome, hopefully bringing Bitcoin-Central to a halt, see that it's last of the Mohicans from all the VC moneys Paymium amassed with nothing to show for it but a handful of failed and hacked attempts at startups.

For I care, Lemon Way could go to the wayside as well, seeing that they're now affiliated with Paymium and I don't trust them.

Hope that addresses your questions and concerns, bud.

~Bruno Kucinskas

What if you sue them for fraud?
Wouldn't that start a legal investigation on the matter?

What is it about FRENCH GUYS and Bitcoin?

Karpeles, those Dealco guys out of HK, now these scammers

French Bitcoiner = AVOID

I desire them to sue me first for libel, then and only then will I take action. To date, they have failed to follow through with their threat that they will do such, probably knowing that it's not to their best interest.

~Bruno Kucinskas

Blame it on Canada is a song if I'm not mistaken.

Good luck Phin. I hope this gets resolved.  :-[

All 57 million french people are dangerous scammers. Even if they don't use bitcoin !!!

I loved InstaWallet. I couldn't endorse them enough prior to the "hack" online and off. I trusted them, only for them to stick it up my ass. Well, it's my motherfuckin' time to stick it up their ass as deep I can stick it.

Bottom line, I will do everything in my power to bury these French bastards so that they won't have the opportunity again to fuck with people's money.

~Bruno Kucinskas

That many?

http://usatftw.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/screen-shot-2014-06-11-at-1-57-33-pm.png?w=1000
"I really, really, really love Limey Day."

Well if I was davout, I'd have a "buddy" negotiate this settlement pronto - settle for $50k, take the 400BTC reward.  Easy money! ;D

65 821 000 in fact. 57 million was the number when i was at school.

Yes! Even if they do not use bitcoin now, they WILL in the future. And we all know apple doesnt fall far away from the tree....except on steep terrain....

SOB! I didn't think of that, that he may use this thread now to his advantage, and still come out like a motherfuckin' bandit. Fuck me royal! The only thing I can say about this revelation is that he best have an anonymous pseudo-liaison (or is it pseudo-anonymous liaison?) person in place, otherwise I will get really pissed.

Now I am even more confused.

I thought the $50K for settlement was if Davout was willing to settle.
The 400BTC bounty was in case Davout doesn't settle and to reclaim the 1,132 BTC.

Am I correct or can I just give you $50K and get 400BTC?  ;D

57M Frenchies walk into a bar. One said, "There's almost 18M more behind us ready to surrender." Whereupon the bartender replied, "You lost me at 'behind', now what'll be?" Then another Frenchie cried out, "Let's ignore this place!"

My english is not good enough, i didn't catch it. Can you translate it in french ?

I am french and i confirm: all we do all day is to walk around (we have the time because we don't work as much as you US people) wondering who we could scam during the night.

I don't care how the numbers work out. Ideally, I desire the 1,132 BTC back via some liaison who'll earn 400 BTC from that sum, but will settle for no less than $50K USD via BTC, or fiat, regardless of what some liaison may make, hopefully it's capped at $50K USD, but I may not have control over that aspect. Once paid, Rassah would earn no less than $1,000 USD via BTC outta my pocket.

http://pattayatoday.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Nana-19-300x200.jpg
"We all agree! Tomorrow, when we wake at noon, we dine-and-dash Cafe Crepes."

Good luck Phinnaeus, hope these bastards get their comeuppance!

I started using it before davout bought or was given the funds from Jav.  Jav seemed like a trustworthy guy to me.  Even after davout got a hold of things I didn't have any reason to distrust him at the time.

I was to lazy to take it out  Had something like 50 BTC there, but considering they were like $3/BTC when I put them there it was $150.  I finally got off my ass and removed all but 20-something BTC like the day before the 'hack'.  I wonder how many others were doing the same thing and if a lot, if that triggered davout to pull the trigger.


I cannot agree with that fully.  In all honesty, it seemed to me like they went through a period of confusion then put together a workable strategy to get people payed off.  The nature of the solution being kind of privacy oriented made it a somewhat more difficult problem than it might have been.

I didn't get a strong sense one way or the other on the suspiciousness of the behavior early on.  My best guess at this point is that from day one they planned to skim the unclaimed wallets and had to have a shutdown to do it.  When the opportunity to nail an extra $1M at the expense of robbing one person who had already called them names came along, they could not resist.


Sorry to be disagreeable, but I'm not sure I feel exactly the same way about that either.  I don't know a lot of French people, but they have a reputation for being conceited pricks.  (Not all of course.)  Davout and Boussac sort of match this stereotype so I personally cannot read a lot into that...and I'm a conceited prick myself but not dishonest and not a thief.

The way they handled the supposed investigation and audit was very suspicious.  That is the single biggest factor in swaying me to believe that they probably are crooks.

My sister had a baby yesterday  ;D

I can be neutral party for that transaction if you wish!  8)

Yes, let's turn little bit of fun into nationalism war...good job guys, good job.

Do you have more information about these guys? Besides their names?

Phinnaeus Gage,

Have you spoken to law enforcement? Given the amount of money involved, you may want to seek French legal representation. I'm sure there are plenty of lawyers that would be more than happy to work with you for 250k.

There are also probably US law firms with French connections, so you can probably sue David Francois in French court and have the payment to the law firm contingent on winning the case and collecting funds.

I would not expect a crook to return anything unless significant pressure is applied.

This is a bit mind numbing, there is a guy you can physically reach out and put hands on who stole 1,300+ BTC from you and this is where it is at?

Considering they are in Europe wouldn't the most violent way to recover them be the easiest as well. You need to get some Serbian or Bulgarian friends Phin.

I don't think he will give you $250K in exchange for 50.

He will settle for 50K coming from Davout from what I understand to end this hunt.

The bounty is for everyone that can recover his 1,132 coins and to apply pressure to Davout to settle for 50K and call it a day.

If I was Davout I would pay 50K and end this.

Paying 50k would be acknowleging davouts missbehaviour.. No way they'll settle. Bitcoin is war.

Any French can reach Davout easily because he is not hiding at all.
On the contrary, he goes to many meetup.

This is really weird. Why isn't he hiding if he stole so much Bitcoins ?
Why didn't he disappear and live a good life ??

And why are you ready to give 400 BTC ??

Co create enough preassure, so thing acctualy happens....
Tho, if guy is not hiding, than well...no legal terms or BTC bounty is needed...

Sun Tzu Style :
:)

Or it could be settling for loosing his BTC after the InstaWallet Hack.

Other members got some money back.
Why shouldn't PG, and I think he has given Davout a fair deal here.
Just what it cost him.

Like I said if I was Davout, I would pay out the 50K and make a public notice that PG (just like other members) was refunded some of the lost money from the InstaWallet hack.

So is Roger Ver also on this forum? What is his name here?

I don't think so, the quote is not a post quote.

Satoshi is a member here tho  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

That's great news man!

Well I hope PG get's what he believes it's fair for his loss.

Phinnaeus just one question:

How can you prove that the BTC is yours? I have not seen signed transaction from the originating address in any of your many rants about this and, it's not that I don't believe you, but I am slightly surprised that you havn't volunteered this as it seems to be the sort of evidence you might call for yourself if the shoe was on the other foot...?

Anyway, good luck either way.

Funny thing is from what I remember there wasn't even a 'hack'. It was simply an issue of some people losing money in their wallets due to search engines indexing their wallets. So instawallet shut down to minimise damage.

The fact that they've just decided to keep all this money to themselves with no explanation is pretty incredible.

As much as I often disagree with things the US government does, at least they go after people like Trendon Shavers, who ended up with a much smaller amount stolen from people on here. And it seems there's no one to go after these guys despite them pulling off a million+ dollar scam.

"The problem with the American is that they don't have a word for cliché." - George W. Bush

All jokes aside, considering the financial stake discussed in this thread, I'm sure that a lawyer would be pleased to work on this case for less than 400 btc.

Why the hell would he do that????? Sending 250.000$ in exchange for 50.000$....Would be kind of stupid doesn't it?

Probably means this:

Phinnaeus never said he would pay a 400 BTC bounty for 50k. Read post number 29 again. He said he would pay a 400 BTC bounty if he recovers the entire 1100+ BTC, and would pay a 1k bounty if he recovered 50k.

Honestly, it's a bit unrealistic to expect to retrieve over 1100 BTC. I suspect he should be going after the fiat value of the coins at the time they were stolen, which was probably ~50k.

It is written

So you will never have more than what you get from davout

I highly doubt davout is going to come through. But hey lets wait n see.

Davout is ready to give 50000$ to get 300btc, but Phinnaeus is not going to accept sardokan's deal.

Well, I think you misread the proposal. Davout could settle for 50k$. The bounty of 400btc is when he gets the total amount of btc back. 2 different options...

This deal is retarded.

I think you got a very good english lesson today  ;D

The fucking French are a fucking nightmare.  Do not do any deals with French.  This is the only way they know how to profit because they have ZERO technical ability.

Nope, it's the Chinese.
They just don't brag about it because they don't want the world to know of their true power.

Then you saw just very little in China.
Have you even been there or what you see on the internet?

Talking about crap equipment....
Who is the No. 1 ASIC manufacturer?
In terms of product quality, customer service and immediate delivery?

I am guessing the Chinese win again....

Like??  You must be high or something...
I agree

The name calling... tearing them a new asshole, so to speak, started after I realized wallet addresses no longer were part of the URL generated pages.

Boussac didn't hide the fact that he had me on ignore from the onset, never once addressing any of my concerns whether they were presenting with candy with honey on top or not. In fact, he skipped over a many questions still unanswered today that were asked in the nicest way possible.


I penned this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=167215.msg1867624#msg1867624

Boussac replys via altering the quote: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=167215.msg1869048#msg1869048

I highly doubt the 400 btc bounty would apply to a settlement of 50k.

edit: nevermind what I just wrote above this was just dealt with.




On the main topic:

It's bs if they're claiming he doesn't have proof.

He has the urls, the exact btc amounts, they can check the logs for ips ect. In this case that's all more than enough because with instawallet having the url is equivalent to have a private key. If he has these urls it's effectively the same as having ownership of the wallet. Especially when you can combine it with other evidence.

I don't know what's your claim really for. Roger offers a bounty because he doesn't even know who the hacker is. However, you know who's holding your bitcoin. Just use the 400BTC to pay a lawyer to sue them, or pay whoever to do whatever you want

I hope that 400BTC is incentive enough for you to catch this guy...i really do.

He very likely doesn't have the 400 btc and the 400 btc are going to be coming out of the 1132 btc or whatever that Davout has.

This is more interesting then the average bitcoin theft/scam whatever, because the accused still participates in the community and apparently is continuing to do so with no ill effects.

Unless there are pieces of the puzzle I'm missing here that paint Davout in a better light. Because it looks pretty bad so far. But we've only heard one side of the story(which is somewhat telling).

I specifically remember when instawallet shut down and the owners were saying on this forum something along the lines of 'relax, everyone who was not affected by the address leak will be repaid'. And it's been a very long period of complete silence as far as I can tell. Has there been any progress at all, or even communication?

Because he said he would?

Well, you're wrong on the last point. The discussion and conflict never ended since.

Do some research, it is an endless headache.

Bounty is quite clear for me. Whatever the means, if Phinnaeus Gage get its 1132btc back, the bounty will be given to the one who did the necessary for that.

400btc is so much money, that everything could happen, and it could ends badly for people related to the case.

Alright, if Davout et al. are continuing communications with Bruno and the other customers then that is certainly better than nothing. I haven't come across a specific thread in the last year(or more?) dealing with the issue(other than Bruno's postings). I haven't been going out of my way to search for information either though. So if anyone wants to point me in the right direction it would be appreciated :)

Delusional fuck copy & pastes entire log in case nobody has done such yet: http://pastebin.com/stagriEH


Not sure when auditor became liquidator, for I don't believe I've used the latter term, let alone imagined it.

More comments forthcoming, for I'm behind the curve at the moment, all.

The only fuckin' thing I've read that davout got correct is that I am a n00b when it comes to certain tech shit, hence champion and using InstaWallet back in the day for I felt it was in capable hands by all accounts. Boy, was I fooled, but never again, hence using my experience with IW as stepping stone, so to speak, to call out ALL potential scammers.

In the chat above, davout was asked no less than three times as to whom the auditor was/is, and he still side-steps that issue, just like the where is the police report was side-stepped by Boussac, but finally he releases it in the French section of this forum a couple weeks later oppose to linking it in his InstaWallet claims thread.


davout is waiting for me to show up on -assets again, of which I ask, "What the fuck is -assets?" Must be nice to be a businessman and have the ability to state that they want to pierce a former client of theirs a second butthole, in front of their peers, nonetheless.

This is the mentality of people that shouldn't be running Bitcoin-based entities.

~Bruno Kucinskas

I understand what you are saying with the first point but some people would still give him his money out of a sense of justice. Maybe not many people. But some.

With the second point. If his urls were leaked then there should be blockchain evidence of someone removing the 1000++ btc away from addresses that are controlled by instawallet. It sounds like the wallets related to this event have ~1300 btc in them if I'm understanding Bruno's posts correctly.

Has Davout posted evidence of the 1000 btc wallet having that btc moved from the wallet before instawallet was shut down?

You mean to tell me these dudes are capable of breeding? http://

Well it's not up to dudes...females jump on them and do what needs to be done.

We can imagine another story.
Suppose the bad guy is an honest one. I can't imagine how he could get BTC from davout without threatening him or doing illegal stuffs...
Even if "Bad guy" give back the money, it's certain that he'll will have a lot of problems with justice while the "backer" (I'm not sur it's the good word) will be drinking a Martini at home...

The best way is to sue Davout if he's the real thief.

This is pretty interesting. And it's really funny how these hackers think they are hard asses but back down when the tables are turned on them. 20K in Bitcoin is a hefty sum to bring the guy back to his senses and make him back down.

I've received a few PMs and emails from those suggesting violence, of which I'm not advocating, and that's not what I'm offering the 400 BTC bounty for.

These French fucks wanted to play by their rules from the get-go, but now it's time they play by mine.

Boussac claimed that there was more than one auditor (not liquidator) working on the case, whereas davout claimed there was only one auditor (not liquidator) involved. Except at the very onset of the InstaWallet fiasco, a liquidator was only brought up briefly by some others until most realized that Paymium, et al. was in full control of the situation, promising to return everybody's bitcoins. To date, only >1K users have been satisfied outta the ~20K users Boussac/davout claimed to have claims against IW having ~3M users, presumably mostly inactive, but definitely ~20K active accounts according to their accounts.

Somehow, I missing the terms of said deal. Link please.

400 BTC is approximately a third of the 1,132 BTC they stole from me, that is how.

The only reason I can think of them not hiding is because they may feel they can get away with their crime. Hell, they just recently shut down InstaWallet's site in spite of owing ~20K non-customers their bitcoins. These fucks are totally brazen.

Definitly made my day  :D

Well, seems like a complex story with complex evidences.
Phinnaeus Gage , if those coins really belongs to you, I hope you'ill take them back and get davout recognized as a scammer.
If not, I hope davout will offer a counter bounty of 401 BTC to shut your mouth down for false accusations. ' Cause heh, reputation is everything in the small bitcoin ecosystem ..
Good luck to the truth teller among you guys  ;)

Yeah, it is unrealistic to assume someone is going to steal the btc. I was just addressing your hypothetical about the incentive for the person to give Bruno back his money rather than just keep it all for himself.

So after reading the chat log Davout claims that there is no address for two of the three that Bruno gave him. What was the point of having an audit if not to have the auditor as an impartial source do the searching themselves and make a statement reflected the lack of associated address. At this point it's just Davout's word saying there's nothing there versus Bruno's. For this amount of money there really should be an independent source confirming these things.

Regardless of whether Davout is guilty or he genuinely can not locate any funds related to any of the information given to him by Bruno, for Davout's own sake as a professional who obviously intends to continue his career in bitcoin, he should have these things confirmed independently. Personally, it would be my first priority to remove all doubt as to my involvement with Bruno's claim by having an audit. Otherwise you're only left with two possibilities, one being Davout being completely unable to find any link to Bruno's claimed funds, or an opportunistic theft where the evidence is completely controlled by Davout and there's no definitive way to determine guilt. Why make people wonder?

I've already put a lot of pressure on them sans a bounty. Now, with this effort out in the open, Bitcoin-Central, et al. is going to get a looking into.

First I think both Phin and Davout are eminent bitcoiners and should get the credit/respect they desserve.

However, PG's claim isnt new. He was the only one claiming that those 1k+ BTC belong to him up to now and had put tremendous efforts and time to try to get it back since Instawallet went down. I know davout and PG arent besties but they should be reasonable enough to put an end to this whole story for the sake of Phin's health and Davout's businesses, at the very least.

Bury the axe, settle down and move on.

They way I understood it is that there is more than 40k BTC waiting to be refunded to Instawallet's users that can come up with some more proof, which may just be impossible to get. So if they dont, what will happen with those funds? Instawallet's owners will just keep it all?! That just doesnt sound right.

Dont make this case another Mtgox scandal which would harm Bitcoin in general (and especially in France since davout & folks represents it in here).

PG's reputation and efforts to denounce bitcoin heists & abuses in general should account for his sincereness and legitimacy in this whole drama.

Peace, luv... and bitcoins! :D

What jurisdiction is this guy in?

Am I wrong here or is it incredibly arrogant to expect people to accept your word at face value that there are no matches to Bruno's wallets?

Davout may very well be completely innocent, but how can anyone expect people to believe that at face value with no other evidence?

If I'm off base here, let me know, because I just don't see it.

The fact that you lost this many BTC makes me sick to my stomach.   That is so much to lose, no matter how much you have...

My settlement will now be a minimum of $100K USD via BTC, NO LONGER ONLY $50K USD via BTC.

You now fuckin' tell me these fucks at Paymium and Lemon Way have nothing to hide.

https://twitter.com/lemonway/status/316873425778012160

https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5199/14219852319_4958bcfab1_b.jpg

https://twitter.com/lemonway

https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5075/14405418144_4074cc366e_b.jpg

There is no motherfuckin' way in hell that Lemon Way would have a reason to delete their tweet requesting where they - Sebastien Burlet - could obtain bitcoins three days prior to the InstaWallet "hack" unless they are in on Paymium's scheme.

If the tweet was nothing but mundane, then why delete it after it's been up for over a year, but rid it only after I brought attention to it about a month back? By all accounts, I shouldn't be on Lemon Ways RADAR, but I guess I am, either via their own eyes or from Paymium, et al.

I suggest that Paymium best get this episode behind them ASAP, otherwise ANY plans they have in France or the European theatre pertaining to Bitcoin is going Bye-Bye, and that's not a threat. By the time I get done with you assholes, you'll pay out more than 1,132 BTC equivalent to your French lawyers to defend the charges I'll continue to make via the various internet options at my disposal, and I'll use my real name when I do such. Not to mention the moneys you're going to lose over and beyond lawyer fees. And, I almost forgot to mention future VC funding of the likes of Galitt.

https://angel.co/paymium

https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5491/14129562872_72ea969539_b.jpg

https://angel.co/galitt/followers

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3842/14220202487_d953951156_b.jpg

http://bensonsamuel.com/bitcoin-3/bitcoin-goes-to-cartes-2012-paymiums-newest-offering/


Must be nice to receive $400K USD in funding to back your 4 entities, of which only 1 entity remains - Bitcoin-Central - of which is backed by a bank named Lemon Way which inquired about how to obtain bitcoins via a tweet three days prior to InstaWallet's "hack" and only has some fuckin' app as their claim-to-fame. I guess one needs to be French to get in on this wonderful action.

Full Disclosure: I've only begun to dig into these lying pieces of shit, and can't wait to share with the world the dirt I'd uncover on these bastards.

Continue with your motherfuckin' lies, davout/David François, for they'll be your Waterloo (almost injected 'bane', but my hole-in-head brain kicked into high gear at the last second).

~Bruno Kucinskas

Phinn:

It seems pretty clear that Davout (claims) to not have enough information for the balances you claim. I would think you have two options:

a) Provide Davout additional information about the deposits (tx id or deposit address) that funded your instawallet account.
b) Find a lawyer and take legal action.

If you cannot provide the additional information he requests, if the information does not help Davout or for some other reason he does not pay out, then your only option is legal action.

I've read The Art of War three times, albeit when I was much younger. Time to give it another read. I love that book, right up there with Prisoner's Dilemma by William Poundstone.

That deal is now off the table due to Lemon Way deleting their tweet(s) expressing interest in obtaining bitcoins three days prior to the InstaWallet "hack" because I now honestly believe they, too, are hiding shit. The new deal is $100K USD via BTC with a very favorable bounty in place for anybody willing and able to act as a liaison to this fiasco, with Rassah acting as escrow if such is warranted, him earning at least $1K USD for his efforts.

If/when another can of worms manifests themselves, I'll up any arbitrary deal even higher. Either way, Paymium, et al. has a lot to lose, and I'm more than willing to help them lose it.

~Bruno Kucinskas

Roger Ver's user name is MemoryDealers on this forum, but he's not part of the InstaWallet scam I 99% believe. If I learnt otherwise, I'll have no qualms with draggin' his good name (so far that statement is relatively true) through the mud.

Roger Ver is one of the few I've opted to not dig that deeply into. Others include, theymos (don't ask me why), the BitPay gain (because I like and trust them to date), Erik Voorhees (think he's cool), Dank (not worth it), Goat (albeit, he would be the first on this short list I would spend time looking into), Gavin Andresen (still have some trust for him), Rassah (a person I consider be highly trustworthy), and most the other mods on this forum, albeit not sure about John K. Apologies if I left your good name off this list, but wanted to keep it short to give you folks an idea as to where I'm honestly coming from.

At one time, I regard InstaWallet to the highest esteem... until they fucked me royal.

~Bruno Kucinskas

Sounds like the opening move in some sort of scam.

This deal you speak of still eludes me, but if it was brokered prior to me upping the deal, then I will surely honor it. It's only fair.

~Bruno Kucinskas

I think something was lost during translation.

The 400 BTC bounty is if I receive the full 1,132 BTC owed to me. I, personally, will (at the time) accept $50K as part of any arbitrated deal, with onus on anybody acting as a liaison to accomplish said feet to cut their own bounty deal with Paymium, et al. as long as I receive no less than $50K USD (now $100K if this particular falls through).

In hindsight, I kinda wish I didn't put the lower sum on the table, but it is what it is, in essence offering up an olive branch, so to speak, with nothing else need be read into said offer.

~Bruno Kucinskas

Actually "lake of proof" is not far from "ocean of proof" which would be a valid English phrase (akin to "mountain of proof").  In this case it would have the opposite meaning to what you intend.

Bitcoin wallet service Instawallet hacked, shuts down ‘indefinitely’ (http://venturebeat.com/2013/04/03/bitcoin-wallet-instawallet-hacked/)

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=167215.msg1741392#msg1741392


Note the plural of 'independent auditors'. A month or so later, davout claims the same thing but in the singular form. After literally hundreds of requests to provide a single name of a single auditor, that request has gone unaddressed, with davout claiming that he will not release such, ergo there fuckin' wasn't one, with davout supposedly doing all the investigation leg work when he felt such was/is warranted.

Perhaps, one day he'll be so kind to post such in the Swahili section of this forum like Boussac did with a link to the police report by placing it in the French section and not the official InstaWallet claims thread upped and manned at the time by him, opting to play hide-and-seek with IW's non-customers.

These fuckers want to play assholes, then this asshole, along with some asshole allies, are now willing to play their game, and we have a feeling that we're going to win.

~Bruno Kucinskas

As I've tried to clarified in re. the $50K deal (at the time), anybody acting as a liaison is more then welcome to anything over and beyond that said amount I was willing to settle for, albeit it's now $100K, seeing that these fuckers are going all out to hide their tracks, making my claim more valid, thus worth more.

If somebody close to Team Paymium's camp is able to convince them to settle, then they would be paid whatever they can get from Paymium over and beyond what I'm currently asking for, of which I have a feeling that sum may go up even higher as I dig further. Depending on when and how much I finally recognize, I may be inclined to toss an added bone toward any liaison's way for their gallant efforts to further fatten their wallet with what Paymium may dole out.

~Bruno Kucinskas

What, 'muricans are too dumb so they always get fucked by frenchies ;D ?

That's a good one. I pay davout 300 BTC, then he pays me $50K USD outta that, over and beyond the 1,132 BTC he stole from me. And he I thought since I was a kid that Frencies had tiny balls.  ::)

I concur! I was a tad tired when I penned, but was being realistic too, and would have stood by it till I learnt that Lemon Way deleted the one post that could incriminate them, now the deal is no less than $100K USD, not as retarded... but still.

~Bruno Kucinskas

If Phin knows the BTC are his AND other party knows the BTC are Phin's AND Phin knows other party knows AND there is no proof, what is Phin's recourse?

roger ver is the exact reason why i wouldn't want to be broadcasting myself as some bitcoin millionaire.. but i can't blame him if he wants to do some startups, and people start noticing him. all i'm saying is i rather stay in the background if possible.

But davout, acting as InstaWallet's independent auditor, claims no such wallet addresses exist associated with the URLs he was keenly aware of prior to the "hack". When InstaWallet came back online, I, among others, was not seeing the entire page, with wallets IDs missing. That was ture with all three of my URL wallets, but the lesser one https://www.instawallet.org/w/sMceOus2wYrDVAHxA5BssBwB7kgDqC9r4Q containing 0.835 BTC mysteriously started to include the wallet address after I brought it up and shown proof that the wallet address was public record. Then, for some reason, two foreign claims were made against it that held my refund up, of which I believe was Paymium's plan. I resubmitted all three claims in Oct., Nov., and Dec. It wasn't until I started another ruckus on this forum did davout take the time to finally contact me via email late last December to somehow get a handle on this. I firmly believe that at the time I was going to get reunited with my bitcoins, but I was mistaken, for davout kicked all three claims to the curb, all three have the same IP associated with them.

It wasn't until I had to go step-by-step via email to show davout that the 0.835 BTC URL wallet was indeed mine, reshowing him proof for the 4th/5th time before he allowed it to be returned.

The last transaction of that URL wallet doesn't even coincide with what actually transpired, i.e. the last BTC I sent out from it for, ironically, a bounty.

~Bruno Kucinskas

That's the objective, along with draggin' their not-so-good name further through the mud the longer they take to refund me. I can now clearly see why they act like assholes - because it's fun. And now I'm having the time of my life.

~Bruno Kucinskas

The last statement Paymium said on the matter pertaining to the ~20K users still awaiting payouts is that the next payout was going to be in June.

FUCK ME! I just looked at a calendar and you guys ain't goin' to believe what month is it, but take a guess nonetheless. Hint: It starts with J.

~Bruno Kucinskas

And, I will do every motherfuckin' thing in my power to make sure it doesn't end happy for Paymium and their principals and employees, along with any entity that associates with them, including Lemon Way and Gilett or any other VC having more money then brains that backs them. I WILL dig them a new asshole.

That said, Paymium best hurry up, for I'm dying to make this an even uglier mess.

~Bruno Kucinskas

The onus should be on Davout to provide the means for an independent evaluation of Bruno's claims.

Why state you are going to have an auditor(or the originally intended auditors) and then either not actually have one, or have someone audit and then release absolutely no results?

Am I going crazy or is this not shady as fuck? I can't be the only one here who thinks this is ridiculous?

Either way I hope both Bruno and Davout take you up on your offer to help find evidence.

What transaction ID am I suppose to have when Paymium deleted the wallet address from generated URL pages?

https://www.instawallet.org/w/rL2DhMWW9tDvs24oFwtiq99zhh7A3ii6bg
https://www.instawallet.org/w/gZh1afVVl5aAtjNwXo0BiYChTxjwln33ab

Paid in full: https://www.instawallet.org/w/sMceOus2wYrDVAHxA5BssBwB7kgDqC9r4Q

http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/instawallet.org

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2903/14384312256_46b762181c_b.jpg

With ~20K claims yet to processed and next payout in June, the above is what InstaWallet customers are currently met with, in spite of the below.

InstaWallet's claim thread is locked, hence: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=167215.msg6015535#msg6015535


In re. the bolded text above, the following...


It ain't goin' to take much for me to add another $50K USD to the bare minimum I'll accept in any settlement arrangement.

~Bruno Kucinskas

I'm goin' for the throat, wishing/wanting Paymium to sue me first for libel and defamation of character, for they seem to have more than enough proof that what I've been claiming is nothing but falsehoods. Obviously, they have more info than I have, having deleted any records from their servers showing that my two URL wallets never existed, if I understand that being the case correctly.

Until then, the course of action I'm taking is to destroy their brand and anybody/anything associated with them. David, et al. may desire to be the Bitropolis of France, but when I get done, they be the Bitropolis of some jail cell with a cozy cellmates to boot, at worst, or shunned in France/Europe, at best, not even able to get VC funding for a busker tin, regardless of their singing abilities.

~Bruno Kucinskas

It's now $100K USD due to Lemon Way deleting a mundane tweet asking where they could obtain bitcoins, when the answer was walking distance to Paymium's back door, a back door, I may add, that used to launder bitcoins.

I'm sure somewhere in France there's a DA getting a hard-on right about now. If not, there soon will be. Then again, maybe that's what Paymium desires so that they'll have a reason to lock down Bitcoin-Central. Hmmmmmmmmm!

~Bruno Kucinskas

I can easily pen at least three dozen lies davout, et al. has penned in the past pertaining to the infamous InstaWallet "hack", among other issues. Then I'll juxtapose them lies with what he has stated, that being that he personally looked for such-and-such, but to no avail. I feel so Goddamn bad that I messed up his two days worth of plans while my plans for hundreds of thousands of dollars remain in limbo for only a year now that I entrusted InstaWallet with, even champion their name at the time up to the "hack" that if one did occur, they orchestrated.

~Bruno Kucinskas

FYI:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2rEgdm8AEIc/T7J-OOsVeEI/AAAAAAAAAx4/_68eDi5qBPU/s1600/trust-no-one.jpg

Reputation is everything, and I'm putting mine on the line with this quest, and at the same time destroying their venerable brand.

It's been a long time i haven't seen a thread with so much action

http://replygif.net/i/149.gif

This is exactly what was asked of them directly after the "hack", but davout opted to withhold the name of any independent auditor for whatever fucked up reason, of which doesn't make sense. No motherfuckin' auditor is going to not want their good name out there, coupled with they know exact what to say and what not to say. Since no auditors were named, there simply weren't any, thus we've all been forced to take davout's word for ALL the events that happened, just like we were all forced to take Mark Kapeles' (David's friend) word for what was happening behind the scenes at Mt Gox. Guess what! Virtually none of Mark's words were true.

Now, I'm the one holding the key while I push these motherfuckers into a corner with few exits available to them. My biggest fear is that they're not that attached to Paymium, and am willing to let it go to the wayside, whereupon I hunt these fuckers down and attempt to destroy their next brand, along with any VC that funds them.

~Bruno Kucinskas

+1

That being said, a friend of mine once said "I don't even trust my own asshole".
When I asked why he replied: "I had attempted to fart once, but instead I shit myself".

Oh gawd you killed me hahahahaha ;D

Thanks kindly for the generous post, but I will not give up the leverage I have in regaining control of what was stolen from me. If a bigging scandal arises due to my efforts, so be it, for that's my serious attempt until justice, as I see, is at hand.

I draw a line in the sand right here, right now, to put a stop to these scamming bastards - to the best of my ability - starting with those still considered viable, namely Bitcoin-Central, of which, BTW, I've shown in the past that bitcoins were indeed funneled back and forth between it and InstaWallet prior to and after the "hack", something of which should never have been the case, especially when said coins were then immediately funneled back, then the process continued. Sound familiar? Mt Gox should come to mind.

I'm sure that Paymium is just dying to have their books scrutinized to show the world how such was done. I'm also sure that Paymium can't wait to show what other venerable Bitcoin-based entities they've been laundering moneys for. CS's BitInstant comes to mind, albeit not related to this fiasco, I don't believe.

~Bruno Kucinskas

The option I favor is dragging Paymium, et al. name through the ringer, using the same washer they use to launder money. Fuck, I'll even use the same clothes line they use to hang them out to dry.

~Bruno Kucinskas

Fuck it! Let's settle on "lake of proof" as in either they need a slab of concrete for my ass, or I'll use to sink their leaking ship, with it doesn't matter what lake we opt to use.

~Bruno Kucinskas

I'd be interested to hear both Davout's and Bruno's response to this. Keep us updated please.

"If french justice have put the hand into this, we should find a way to read the reports of the case."

This is a big one. What if they refuse to give your lawyer the police report number?

I was well-aware of that fact, of which always begged the question why the switch, especially to an entity wasn't even able to obtain bitcoins on their own accord three days prior to the InstaWallet "hack", then a couple months later was acting as Bitcoin-Central's bank. Totally fucking amazing if you ask me. Almost as amazing as me stating to produce 14nm chips in some barn with goats doing the assembling after I tweet, "Where can I get me some of that sand used in making silicon wafers?"

Then, once I claim that I'm in production, I'll delete my tweet once I'm called out on not knowing what I'm doing, in spite of claiming to have highly trained goats on the payroll.

~Bruno Kucinskas

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTac2EdmrjPUhiRYM_3GxE_GVj1I6CxOjFs0QgJBWy5FT9WeKxW
"Please, Phinn, please stop! You win!"

My evidence is scant, since davout probably erased the info on the servers just like Lemon Way deleted "where can I get me some bitcoins?" tweet.

I suggest he pull that independent auditor outta his ass, and not one that he recently commissions.

I'm not versed in such things, but I fear that so much time has passed that who knows what has been altered or not by now, that's why it was so imperative to know who the independent auditors (plural, according to Boussac, singular, according to davout, ergo one of them was lying) were ASAP at the time, with each passing day shit may happen.

~Bruno Kucinskas

Phinnaeus Gage, why don't you have any Tx Id that served to make the transfer to Paymium ?
Even partial information would help to find it in the blockchain, I can run a block scan for that if it can help.
If it is just that an privacy problem, pm me.

+ a lot, thanks for putting some sanity into that thread  :)

we're currently looking at :

* an online wallet that used URLs to identify accounts
* said URLs listed by a search engine at some point (due to the hack or for some another reason, who knows) (nope, my bad)
* potentially the full URL database compromised due to the hack
* said database seized during the police investigation (as davout said in the logs above)

Basically an epic mess, which would likely have a better chance to get settled properly without threats and name calling IMHO.

All I need to have is the two bitcoin wallet addresses associated with the two URLs and I'm pretty sure we can reconstruct this with no problems. But, here's the rub. David has control of said wallet addresses, and when I was first able to revisits all three URLs, none of the addresses were available for viewing. Once I brought said anomaly up, offering up proof of at least the lesser wallet, the address for the 0.835 BTC wallet mysterious appeared, but not for the other two. At that time, I presented three claims. Davout even claims to this day that I didn't even have a single claim on file. Well fuck me in the ass on that one, for I did such again in Oct., Nov. and Dec., but still no claims appeared on his end, so he claims.

The best I can make out is that davout is claiming that not only didn't I have three wallets, later reduced to only two (lucky me!), but I didn't even place any claims on said wallets not even once, and that this is some sort of ruse I devised from the onset of the "hack" making up the URLs (paraphrased, but that's the best I can ascertain trying to get into his head). Perhaps, he's trying to make me out as some sort of scammer, I don't know, but for some motherfuckin' reason that's how it's currently reading to me. I'm the bad guy, and every motherfuckin' thing they've done on their part is gospel, ergo they're Saints.

~Bruno Kucinskas

Make sure you have enough popcorn for everybody, bud.  ;D

Wish he lived in the US I would be knocking on his door.

Do not settle for anything less than owed! Renege publicly right now and use the scenario above. All BTC not a single fucking satoshshi less. They are enjoying the value of your BTC. Personally, I would not wait. I would sue the them and go for max value in US dollars because you would have sold them at their peak, being the savvy investor that you are (hint hint). Use a US Court because they are notorious for awarding high damages. Your pain and suffering is worth BTC.

The least I will now accept is $150K USD via BTC. (not meant as a diss toward you, ghdp, kind sir) Now, I look even less retarded, eh?

On March 27, 2013, Sébastien Burlet asked via his Twitter account https://twitter.com/lemonway how to obtain bitcoins as shown below.

https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5199/14219852319_4958bcfab1_b.jpg

Yet, just 24 hours earlier guess who he is setting next to. I bet you'll never guess in a million years. Hint: GG.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:m5byqzAYb7AJ:www.payforum.fr/files/PROGRAMME_PayFORUM_vf.pdf+&cd=18&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us


I have to admit, that's some n00b!

"Damn, I was sitting right next to that Bitcoin dude, and never took the time ask him how I can get me own hands on some precious. What to do? What to do? AHHHhhhh! Me thinkith I use my Twitter account and ask me keen followers if they know, for they're the bestest. Later, when I'm well-versed and somehow weasel my way into that very lucrative Bitcoin space, I'll simply delete the tweet, and nobody will be the wiser, eh, Kitty?"

"Meow!"

Here's another mundane tweet that Lemon Way opted to delete: https://twitter.com/lemonway/status/192001692177412096

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2907/14408257665_ef98292c2f_b.jpg

Want more proof that we're not dealing with a n00b here? Okay, here it is:

http://www.lefigaro.fr/conso/2012/06/14/05007-20120614ARTFIG00693-le-smartphone-revolutionne-le-paiement-en-ligne.php

Sébastien Burlet is the only person that commented on the article linked above (I had to use Google Translator, for the page won't translate on its own like they normally do)


For sure, for sure, that Sébastien Burlet is one amazing n00b. What to know what's even more amazing? Thought so! Wait to read what the translated article he was commenting to. I took the liberty and bolded the important part. Fair warning! Don't dip into the popcorn just yet.


That's pretty fuckin' amazing to find an article where the sole commenter is commenting on an Bitcoin-based entity a year prior to them both sitting next to each other to give a talk on virtual currency and payment systems, yet said commenter had to ask his twerps where he could get his hands on some bitcoins. What are the odds?

The following image comes to mind, hopefully, you all, get its meaning.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5y-fqGz_ucI/TfaFkFA4ifI/AAAAAAAAAcw/-eRIZNstwo4/s1600/some+pig.bmp

To be clear, davout, the minimum settlement I would now consider is $150K USD via BTC, thanks to the above revelation.

I have done nothing today except work at this thread of which I've yet to reach its end, albeit I did take a quick breakfast break, but posted about David while taking a shit - literally!

~Bruno Kucinskas

Could you provide people with all public information you can about where the bitcoins you put into Instawallet came from (another online wallet ? only a single transfer or multiple transfers over time ?)

I think that'd be more productive that trying to find some sense in PR strategies or press quotes  ;D

Must have missed the goat thread.

All I have is what InstaWallet gave back to me once it came back online. That is all. The same was true of the third 0.835 BTC wallet, but a bitcoin address finally did appear just prior to me being able to submit the three claims the very first time.

https://www.instawallet.org/w/rL2DhMWW9tDvs24oFwtiq99zhh7A3ii6bg
https://www.instawallet.org/w/gZh1afVVl5aAtjNwXo0BiYChTxjwln33ab

I guess the following is the reason InstaWallet is offline:

Early on during the InstaWallet claim thread posting, I resorted to vitriol attacks, but put a cease to end when a kind fellow Bitcoiner echoed your same sentiment. But, once that effort went nowhere, I restarted the practice, but chill when davout and I started a dialog via email the later part of last year.

Since Februaryish, I have once again restarted the practice with no intent this time of ending, hence being on full-tilt with this motherfuckin' fiasco. I tried the honey approach twice, now I love the taste of vinegar and salt.

~Bruno Kucinskas

I'm trying to be fair, albeit going from a $50K settlement to now a minimum of $150K USD, and possibly climbing all the way back up to the full 1,132 BTC the more I dig. Holy fuck! I just realized that I'm now a miner. It's a fuckin' shame that it's my coins I'm mining, but a miner I now is nonetheless. It feels good to be  miner.  :'( Okay, maybe not that good.

~Bruno Kucinskas

Great! Now, I can continue to drag their good name through the mud till them bastards give, seeing that I probably won't be suing them, with holding out hope that they sue me. Either way, somebody, somewhere, somehow is going to be opening up Paymium's books, books I know as a fact they rather not have open, for their concern and, moreover, other Bitcoin entity's concerns. Know what I mean, JellyBean?

I say I got these Frenchies by their tiny balls.

~Bruno Kucinskas

I hope that you get your coins back, but I believe that it is a long shot that your bounty will help.

The reason for this is that you are asking for the wrong outcome. By offering 400 BTC to get your ~1.1k BTC back you are essentially saying that you will give someone money if they give (get) you more money. Due to the fact that whoever holds the keys to the address that contains the unspent outputs of BTC owns the coins there would be little incentive for someone who was able to somehow get your coins in their possession to return them to you.

A "better" bounty would be one that offers 400 (or other amount) BTC for the arrest (or indictment, or conviction - it is up to you) of the person/persons that stole the BTC. This would give people an incentive to spend time and resources investigating who stole the coins and would also give an incentive to return all/some of the stolen coins.

This is going to come as a shocker to you, but I seriously don't know what a bitcoin-QT is unless I Google it first. InstaWallet was the only wallet I ever used due to its simplicity and, moreover, the people operating it were held to high esteem, myself even elevating them higher. Sick, ain't it? Motherfuckin' sick!

~Bruno Kucinskas

easier said than done I guess, but you should try your best to calm down, forget about davout (he might not be providing the most conventional customer support for you ;D) and provide everybody with as much information as possible regarding where the coins you put into Instawallet came from - every little piece of information is welcome, and there are concerned french people really trying to help here.

Except if it were running on a sort of fractional reserve different than 100%, in which case, one part of it was just debt, off blockchain, without any proof, and bruno bought that. (nothing wrong doing it, that's how our banking system works)

Well I guess, as long as they have your money, they are the one that get you by the balls. :o

Anyway, if I can run a block scan for particular transaction information (id, timestamp, amount of btc, whatever) I can do it, so if you know more let me know.

They were purchased anonymously at a restaurant halfway between Sandwich, IL, and Chicago, in Naperville, IL, about the second week of December, 2012. Taxing my memory, the total was 1,132 + x(single digit).xxx... and immediately put in a freshly created InstaWallet bitcoin wallet. A couple/three days later I split the three accounts up into 1,000, 132, and x.xxx... wallets, always using InstaWallet while in my possession. Hope that helps with your plans.

At one time on my old laptop that I no longer have due to going dead, I took a couple screenshots of URL pages and had the old URLs bookmarked. One of the last things I was able to do was recover the URLs via a thumbdrive. The old laptop was still functional when I made the initial claims, but no longer when I resubmitted all three claims in Oct., Nov., and Dec. of last year. Claims that davout claims he now can't find.

~Bruno Kucinskas

thanks, do you remember how the first transaction in that restaurant was performed ? using which client ? on a smartphone (maybe unlikely in 2012) ? anything else ?

The initial goal was to offer a bounty for somebody to act a liaison to pressure Paymium to refund what's due mine, with them getting a third for their efforts. I apologize for not offering a bounty to have them arrested, paying such outta my own pocket, when I can sit here for as long as it takes to pressure the fuck outta them till they surrender.

Remember, there's still another ~20K non-customers that have yet received their bitcoins besides just me.

~Bruno Kucinskas

Thanks, bud. My sanity will remain intact while I drag these son a bitches by their fuckin' French pig ears through the mud until they give me reason to stop. Enough people played their game, now it's time for them to get a taste of their own medicine. Besides, I have fellow bitcoiners cheering me on, with very few cheering for Team Paymium who, BTW, is on the defense, and I have the ball.

~Bruno Kucinskas

an output above 1100 going into an input of a transaction going into 1FrtkNXastDoMAaorowys27AKQERxgmZjY in December 2012 / January 2013 looks like a good starting point.

The little, tiny, itsy-bitsy information I desired is one they're unwilling to cough up, and that is the name, just the motherfuckin' name, of the independent auditor that conducted the investigation April of last year, not some new kid on the block's name, for at some point in time they WILL be under oath, and Paymium's books will be opened for the whole world to see what they are hiding.

Damn, I feel so much better after penning and getting ready to hit the post button.

BTW, where the fuck is the end of this thread?

~Bruno Kucinskas

Once, for the 1,132 + x.xxx... BTC after I created the initial InstaWallet URL. Once the bitcoins were transferred, I handed over the money, not even waiting for any confirmations because I had faith in the system. Besides, he was in hurry and so was I, for I had a load of barn wood to pick up north of Chicago that day and I was running late, and still had traffic to contend with.

~Bruno Kucinskas

I've stated before that I burned the old laptop oppose to putting it to the curb, so no worries there.

I did have control of the bitcoins, albeit via InstaWallet, but you know what I mean. When I first learnt that InstaWallet operated like a fractional reserve, i.e. pooling all the coins, I no longer felt the need to move them to any new wallet. Hell, all the times I visit blockchain.info to view my bitcoins, it always shown a zero balance, with half the time I viewed the same on InstaWallet URL-provided site, I was greeted with the same, but rested assure by davout that all is well and that it was normal. Even psy concurred at the time. It was at that time that davout would have been aware as to which addresses I possessed via the IP of the address I gave him as an example of what I was trying to relay at the time. Then he announced that he was going be outta pocket to after the first of April, of which he didn't return til the 18th of April, 2013, with Boussac not addressing the myriad of concerns as to where the hell was davout.

Perhaps, I may lose my sanity after all.  ::)

~Bruno Kucinskas

I had a laptop and he had a smartphone (don't believe it was one of those tablet thingies). What do you mean by client?

The software / website used to perform this transfer.

Although from your previous information someone with a scanner should be able to confirm the first wallet address.

Holy motherfuckin' shit! I've reached the end of this thread, and it only took me 9 hours from when I started, not yet visiting anything else on this forum, sans a tad of hunting, or Google news. I did follow a link to some flood in South America though via the IRC link, but that's it.

I feel so much better now knowing that I honestly/justifiably increased the bare minimum I will now accept from Paymium to $150K USD via BTC, no longer feeling retarded. http://s19.rimg.info/5b9b428df56bc710754c1526537b1e19.gif

I have Windows 8 now, but the old laptop was Vista, if that's what you're asking. The address was scanned via QR-code either from InstaWallet's page, where it was created, or from blockchain.info, even though there was nothing in it at the time.

Sorry, not clear on that. I'm asking what was the software/website used by the guy that did the transfer to your first address in that restaurant.

Also why are you mentioning blockchain.info ? Was your first address hosted by instawallet or blockchain.info ? (supposing they had a wallet at that time, I don't remember)

@btchip: I'll bring back my laptop to the hackathon. Finding the tx corresponding to these criteria should be pretty doable with a graphdb.

Tx matching your description.

You're really too fast !  ;)

Shameless plug, thanks NBitcoin ! https://github.com/NicolasDorier/NBitcoin (https://github.com/NicolasDorier/NBitcoin)  8)

Thanks, Phinnaeus, I guess you can start digging from those and see if you recognize something (or other amount / addresses from your split, depending how Instawallet worked for that).

Time to sign off here  :)

@Phinnaeus : another list here (http://pastebin.com/Egp4kqXn) if it can help.
It's a list of txs sent in December 2012 or January 2013 with a txo between 1100 and 1200 btc (ordered by ascending amounts and then by dates)
EDIT : Here (http://pastebin.com/jP3HYA3E)'s the same list but ordered by dates first.

I've also looked for amounts > 1100 and directly sent to 1FrtkNXastDoMAaorowys27AKQERxgmZjY (cold wallet) but nothing seems to match your amount (Tx sent on 01/17/13 is a split of the cold wallet).
---------------------------
0b02ac8679f3fef2bf7b87da5c0cb20c1db1417ad7f8a3f047ff5dbc1b959c82 - 217859 - 2013-01-24 15:47:43 - 3000.00000000
5578ddc44d318b7196ec5859e2c6d299b521e2e77edc4e02af2440962669f7b2 - 216889 - 2013-01-17 10:19:23 - 1300.00000000
f6b21f88cc75556f0ac852d32e8e6422d9647c51345ad515b4ec505850c9e929 - 216634 - 2013-01-15 10:38:46 - 4500.00000000
483fd6d4d19839cf004da451d20e95a8b30d6ecef3e6461dda31b9618461da4e - 216634 - 2013-01-15 10:38:46 - 8500.00000000
72035bfa3e7ac5207f884766ef6adb0b5885e7721e3485b7e860b4735c04353d - 214776 - 2013-01-02 08:46:31 - 2900.00000000
5d8579d0c992188eec9c3057ccde4be7349c000946e44ad9e72857542372314c - 213676 - 2012-12-26 11:33:06 - 2500.00000000
c0ac09d534266892e6226c2d21b2cfc71ff2d5e49437a3aeba90e296673b709a - 211162 - 2012-12-06 21:17:08 - 2000.00000000
---------------------------
Now, we would need to do some taint tracing to check if we can link one of the tx identified with the cold wallet. I'm going to do some tests with some of the identified txs.


Definitely the proof of a good job. Congrats ! But can you do it with less lines than this ?  ;)

I don't read the leveldb, NBitcoin use Sqlite as a nosql store :(

It is more along these lines


I did not checked for the 1FrtkNXastDoMAaorowys27AKQERxgmZjY in my first dump. What does this address correspond to ?

Well. I've used a trick. I've got a blockchain loaded in a neo4j db (which has a sql-like language called cypher).

It seems to be the cold wallet used by Instawallet but i didn't find anything which looked like a direct tx to this address with the given amount.
I'm going to check if I can use one of my previous dev to compute some tainting and find an indirect link but not sure of the result. Tainting is very ressource-consuming and requires something stronger than a laptop.

laurentmt, refactored because my previous code will make python programmers think C# is not nice... SQL Style ;)
(Actually, I rarely use this LINQ syntax, it is just to show off  8))



Maybe we can find a graph relationship... fun thing to do if bruno need it... (and willing to lend a small motivator bounty :o)

I've done some C# (with WPF) in the past and I can testify that it's a very nice language.

Yep. I'm going to try that. Keep you in touch.

[EDIT] Time to sleep. I've launched a search for a graph relationship between candidate txs and the cold wallet. I'm not sure if it makes sense to look for this relationship but we'll see the results. If I can, I'll try another search corresponding to the split.

I have no idea as to what software/website the other guy was using.

I only mentioned blockchain.info because there's a QR-Code associated with each wallet, and the transfer was done via that QR-C or one on InstaWallet if it was available with the newly created bitcoin wallet.

All depends how small. I don't want to be giving away the farm.  ::) ;D You all know that I'm on record in stating that I'm willing to dole out 400 BTC once I'm returned the entire 1,132 BTC, thus anything you want between 1 and 400 BTC is on the table, not a satoshi more or less.

Thanks, guys. You seem to have done more in hours what davout claims to have taken him a couple days, and he's running an exchange. That's a scary thought.

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for davout to the independent auditor outta his ass.

~Bruno Kucinskas

Clearly there was no independent auditor with any credibility to support the claim or there would be independent verification by that auditor, one with the pertinent qualifications and references to support such a claim.  This is sufficiently established.  The misleading information concerning a validation by an independent auditor contributes to criminal intent by a party to the incident.

That's exactly what I'm been trying say, albeit I did such with 5k-10k words, but I like your version better.

I'm in the process of digging up as many references as possible connect

http://www.yasni.info/ext.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fmobilepayment.typepad.com%2Fpaiement_mobile%2F2010%2F06%2Fj7-pour-sinscrire-et-participer-%25C3%25A0-mobile-payment-2010.html&name=Pierre+Noizat&showads=1&lc=en-us&lg=en&rg=fr&rip=us


Yes, it's 2010, but it was a small conference with an elite crowd, with Sébastien and Pierre developing a relationship since they're in the same industry.

Here's another workshop Sébastien and Pierre attendant.

http://insiden.blogspot.com/2010/06/tomorrow-mobile-payment-2010-paris.html

Do you remember if you did it with a single or several transactions ? It you did it with several tx, I fear the results sent by Nicolas and I won't match your case.

Same question: Do you remember if you did the split in a single or several transactions ?

we're not doing the same thing - we're trying to look for addresses that could match your original deposit given the information you provided while davout was recursively looking for all addresses generated by Instawallet. Hopefully both approaches will meet at some point, and even better there'll be a way to verify that you actually were the owner of the address (still blurry there, but at least you'll get a starting point)

I also hold the secret hope that a graph oriented database will be faster than a recursive loop, but that's out of the scope of your current issues  ;D

It would help if you could somehow recognize your original address from the list of addresses posted above, but that might not be very realistic.


what are you going to do with this information once you get it ?

you're wasting time here. The payment / banking / mobile / security / smartcard industry is small and you'll end up with the whole set in no time  ;D


I also assumed one. It doesn't really make sense to do several transactions for a single purchase.


this might or might not lead to something according to how Instawallet managed internal transfers.

also it would help to know when collections to the cold storage were done to limit the scope

I believe it was just one, but taxing my memory that one stemmed from several wallets combined, taking him a tad while to configure whatever he was doing to accomplish the task. I had no reason to believe that whatever he was doing, something nefarious was afoot.

In re. that last question: For some reason I'm having trouble recalling the exact steps or how many, but I want to say it was done all at the same time frame, but another part of me is thinking I waited to one of the first ones was confirmed before preceding further the same day or next.

Hell, a couple hours ago I tried to put a gallon of milk in the microwave thinking it was the refrigerator, but chalked that up to having shit on my mind, oppose to... now what the fuck is that word that describes people who forget shit?  ::)

Another genuinely naive question, of course you have no way to contact the guy to see if he had logs of his own ?

No worry. I understand that it's hard to remember something done in 2012.
It's just that the more information we get, the more we'll have a chance to retrieve one of these transactions.
In my first search, I've looked for 1 transaction with 1 output value between 1100 and 1200 btc and I think Nicolas did something similar.
But if it was done with several tx, this search won't give us the right tx and we'll need to search in another way.

Posting so that I have this thread in my "new replies to your last posts" list so I can remember to follow along daily with your journey to be made whole again.

Also, I really wish I was some epic Black Hat and could get in, get your BTC back, and massively fuck/deface that shady Instawallet system. Good luck to you Phin. I may not be that person, but I'm hoping you already have a few people that do have those capabilities following along with it. A 400 BTC bounty will definitely turn heads and grab some headlines.

Of course, none of the wallet IDs look familiar, for the info wasn't retained. Hell, I have a main address on blockchain.info I've used frequently, but couldn't tell you the first character after the one. And to thinks, back in the mid 80s to early 90s, I could easily retain 100 phone numbers sans writing them down simply by visualizing them to the name, or some characteristic of the person it was associated with. Or, give me an address and only a couple reference streets within a city I've never been to before, and I could find the place without looking at map.

In re. the auditor. For starters, it would prove that David was telling the truth that there was an auditor. Then, possibly it can be confirmed that there was a "hack" from some source outside of Paymium. Finally, we will learn if it was tampered with.

No I don't, for it was a Craigslist ad. To this day I've always had a feeling that it was Jeff Ownby of BFL, but not 100% certain of that. I wish it was, for it would make this episode a tad easier.

That was my intent, albeit the 400 BTC bounty was not a ruse, hence offering up escrow via Rassah. I just don't want this to be a total lost, with somehow, someway keeping as many future scammers at bay.

The wallet that contained the 0.835 bitcoins, which was returned to you, must have a deposit address which was used to fund it. Could this address then be used to locate to larger original deposit?

my point is that the auditor is not supposed to tell you anything, especially when there's a police investigation ongoing. So in the end, that information would be useless, you wouldn't even know if it's true or false.


and the story a little bit better, I didn't expect that to be even possible to be honest.

Did the anonymous seller generously offer a wi-fi hotspot for you to use to complete the transfer? Perhaps suggesting DNS changes when you had trouble connecting to the wi-fi hotspot?

Brock Pierce made a general statement intended for anyone who lost a large amount or you talk(ed) with him directly?

I believe Phinnaeus verified at least once with blockchain.info that it was there at some point in the past.

So once the origin deposit address is found

  - Either Instawallet internal logs can be accessed, and it should be easy to trace when this was split then emptied.

  - Either Instawallet internal logs cannot be accessed, and Phinnaeus should get access to them with minimal lawyer time involved given this information.
 

No. That one was first funded via a different means sometime in February if I'm not mistaken.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/11/prweb3164764.htm

Ah, thanks for the clarification. Besides the split a few days after the deposit, were there any later minor transfers to or from the wallets in question between the time of their funding and the "hack"? Or did they remain undisturbed until that time?

This is where it took place: 1191 East Ogden Avenue
Naperville, IL 60563
Ogden Mall‎
(630) 548-5070
panerabread.com‎

In the parking lot. I had a good signal in the parking lot prior to his (John, a generic name I just assumed he made up) arrival probably less than 5 minutes later. I now do recall he drove a red pickup, remembering such because my truck is red (same truck I own today). I'm almost certain his was a later model, but didn't register the make, e.g. Ford, Chevy, etc., but it was full size, and no crew cab like mine.

Directly over the phone. He called me.

Awesome.... I was away (most of the time) for a few days. Is there already a thread about your talk?
I'm curious if you have a different view about him now? Certainly, talking is one thing he is really good at.  :)

None, but I now do recall that since I moved them a couple time, I believe a miner fee was deducted, thus the wallet amounts WON't be exactly 1,000 BTC and 132 BTC. Also, there's a very slight chance that the lesser wallet may have been 123 BTC, but in no way am I trying to get what I don't deserve. For the longest time, I stated such in the IW claims thread, opting for the lower amount to be fair, but change to the higher amount because I honestly believe that it was 132 and not 123, only after I got sick of the runaround.

Forgive for forgetting all about the miner fees. I just keep the whole numbers in my head spacing that aspect out. I do recall that the first time the fee was only pennies, but was taken aback some subsequent transfer when I noticed it was several dollars, but not double digits, but didn't sweat it.

No there is not. I was thinking about penning one, but changed my mind and was busy on some other tangent. He offered to meetup with me in Chicago during the upcoming conference.

He's takes controls of the conversation, akin to what have you see him on video, and very sure of himself, neither of which are bad attributes. The only time he seemed off-guard was when I asked him if he was bisexual. He kindly quickly replied with a no, but when I mentioned a name and witness, his response took longer and distant, but was still a negative, but in a different tone. Something you pick up if you're a poker player like I am.

I sincerely wanted to believe him, just like I wish I could believe Josh of BFL when I met him, but things just don't add up during and after said conversations.

There's more, but I'm not trying to be elusive here by not bringing it up, but did want to give you some sort of reply since you asked.

Gotta say it's nice to see you going after these scammsters.  Can't speak for everybody else but it makes me feel a little bit better about the coins I've lost to schamsters like this knowing that at least some of them might have to face some sort of music!  I'm keeping my long list of scammers as well and hope to one day be able to do something similar when I can afford it.


Best of luck Phinnaeus.  I hope you get some resolution on this issue.

Thanks for the updates, and good luck with the coin recovery/bounty.

It's better than any cyber detective crime novel.  :o
I used the wrong amount of BTC (1132) in my last dump.
Here is for 132.

Are we searching for 132, 1132, or 1000 ? I don't understand.
I can try to draw a dependency graph of transaction that goes from one of the suspected transactions to a transaction of InstaWallet... but it would be better if I knew the amount to search.

When the 1000 deposit was done ?
When the 132 ?
When the 1132 ?

Ah and when did he sent you the refund of 0.835 ?

In my opinion you should focus on the first transaction (the ~1100 one, done second week of December 2012) and the refund - all others could have been handled off chain.

The refund, how much exactly and when ?

Let's ask Phinnaeus again as I feel too lazy to search right now  :-* that's the 0.8 something done "recently" (last year ?)

You are right,
Phinnaeus, can you make a listing of all transaction movement you remember having done in the following format.

Time Range, Amount Range,Additional info that can help

(I am french by the way, before you come bombing us :o)

i want to point out that at the begining of the thread a lot of commente were against frenchies and now the 2-3 guys who are helping Bruno are FRENCH !!

what an irony :)

French always agree to disagree... That's why you always have the two extremes with constant fight between each others :p

this link has information on the refund of 0.835 : www.instawallet.org/w/sMceOus2wYrDVAHxA5BssBwB7kgDqC9r4Q

It lists a "wallet public address" 1JppeHVdYQEBGR4uHVTqLQsb2FY1wUTziH

and a "bitcoin payout address" 18LQJiPJ2ULVLYF5Q7JKgSBDkktByZmpXB

Yes, I am pretty sure, a shortened summary of facts, or you could call it a protocol, of what happened, when, where in which amounts on what ways...
could help the most, at this point.
Atleast it could clarify what actions Phinn already took and what proofs are on the table.

For the start...
Please add or correct the dates/facts/amounts

Fact?: In December 2012, Phinn bought 1132.08 BTC for Cash, with a laptop, on a parking lot, from someone he believes it was Jeff Ownby.
Questions:
- Did you try to contact https://www.facebook.com/jeff.ownby ?
Maybe he is willing to answer you, ...still has the Tx details somewhere or at least can confirm you bought it?

- Is there ANY chance to get hands on the laptop you used? If not, what exactly happend to it?
Because, if I had a case like this I would'nt want to "lose" any tiny piece of this puzzle that could help to solve/proof something.

- do you remember what time it was, as you met? This could help to identify the initial/purchasing transaction, too.

F?: a few days after the purchase, you transfered 132 and 0.8 BTC into 2 newly created wallets, and 1000BTC remained in the wallet/address that was used for the initial purchase.
Q: Or have you made 3 new wallets and cleared the one you've initially received with to 0.0BTC?
As long as we don't find a correlation to any of the used addresses, all this is hard to proof. (again, the laptop or maybe Jeff Ownby(?) could help)
I am not so much in Blockchain scanning, but I could imagine it should be possible for someone with the right skills, to find the addresses,
and with that maybe "the ways your BTC went", if you could tell us exactly what and how you did.

I made some comments agains french at the beginning, but it was ironic, i am french too.I just can't understand people who do such stupid generalities about people.

I agree as well, we need Phin to get us as close of an account of dates, times, and transfer amounts as possible because there is some confusion here. As I understand, the 0.835 did not originate from the 1132+x.xxx deposit. It was from an unrelated source. The original deposit could have been as high as 1141.9 or so given that it was 1132 + x.xxx. x.xxx could have been 9.999 or it could have been 1.000 or anything in between there. He also expressed some small doubt as to if the 1132 might have actually been 1123, so theres an off chance it could be as low as that.


I'm also interested in the split. You mention that you believe miner fees were taken out. This would imply that the split was not conducted off-chain and should be visible in the blockchain. Or could it be that Instawallet charged its own fees for internal transfers (this doesnt seem likely)?

The 0.835 BTC wallet was returned Feb. 14, 2014, but it's mutually exclusive of the 1,132 BTC original wallet.

There is a third wallet that was split from the 1,132 BTC that I totally forgot about (I've mentioned it at least once before on this forum) that I never put a claim in for. I forgot all about it when I filed the initial claims, being only concerned about the two larger wallets and the one active wallet I had at the time. I have no info on that third wallet, even forgetting to trying to pull the info from the now discarded laptop.

That's it, but remember that this wallet is mutually exclusive of the larger two wallets.

In red is the best assessment.

I'm not sure how, if any, the fees were calculated.

Phinn,

I can understand you might be exhausted etc.
But I also think you need to get the facts together and answer to asked questions, if you're looking for help.
I am pretty sure no one wants to collect all "maybes, im not sures, i can't tells" from all over this many sites in this thread to start with "investigation".

Take a rest - then try to remember as good as you can what happened and what you did, step by step,
collect each and every piece of the puzzle, that could anyhow help in your case.

Bring it to a short but detailed list, (including dates, times or timeframes, what exactly you have done etc)
in chronological order to have a overview for yourself - and those that want to help you.

As soon as you / we have this list, it would be much easier to check out for possible solutions in track & approving, with your help.
Thats the only "advice" I could give for now.

For example, it is confusing what happend to your laptop since then or if you already tried to find / contact the guy that sold you this BTC,
just to verify you had this amount, for example. See my questions before.

That's what I said, I disagree with you, we're all the same...  >:(


+1
We need a precise list, fluff extracted, a developer is like a computer, give us a formatted list of what you know about each transfer, amount, time span.
We need this list, we are too lazy to make archeology in such gang bang of comments.
Everything in one simple list. The stupider it is, the better.

I am not fat as karpeles is. I don't want to pierce a second buthole to anyone as davout would like ...

Phinn, you've got a lot of detectives ready to help you to establish the truth, but they need facts.

Help them to help you.

I agree with this. Compile everything you know about what happened in to one chronological list.

The interesting part will come when Davout is presented evidence of your funds. But first we need to cut through all bs and make sure these guys who are doing the blockchain analysis can get as much info as possible.

phin,i bought sweet and salt pop corn.this story is now a joe pesci movie for me .as the time will pass the non violence rule will be more flexible,thats the ice cream part.

What is davouts official response to this?

something like : "we don't have in our database any transaction that link any of your adresses to any of yours, please provide us a transaction ID or proof of ownership"

it is my interpretation of everything i have read here and in the french part

and of course it is a simple way to say it, much more technical words have been used  ;D

i'm french too honey :)
 it was directed to some people who refere their country to a whole continent :)

PG,

Not that I doubt you brother, but I do question what the original address was that you sent BTC from to their site?

Or did you buy the account from someone?

Who approached him?

After reading up on the posts from boussac and davout concerning this fiasco, I agree with this post. They had really no remorse and made very little attempt to make things right with PG as far as public record confirms.

Wait so the bounty is still on?  :o

It sounds like it was either sent directly to an instawallet address when he bought it from the guy with the red truck, or something about a blockchain.info address. I hope he can clarify all of this so people can help.

Looks like davout is posting in the french section:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=649320.msg7268591#msg7268591

Here above is his first post I believe in that thread of many. Perhaps someone can translate and persuade him to come to this thread to discuss?

Seems like he is hiding out over there instead lol

Perhaps you should require the person to prove their identity to get the bounty? Just a suggestion.

Proof? Link?

but the deal was : davout sends 50k$ and sardokan gets 400btc and gives back 100btc to davout

it was based on a misreading of the bountie that PG is giving

So basically a joke

So this must be largest bounty ever offered in history of BTCBTCBTC.I think it should be featured in major magazines. Good luck to OP

The bounty is not doing to do much if there's no way to obtain more information about transactions.

Again, I'm not saying that Phinnaeus is lying here - just that without more information it's not possible to prove anything, neither on his or InstaWallet side.

One thing that would easily tell everyone a lot would be the audit which was supposed to have happened.  Or information from the analysis of the supposed hack.  Or from the police investigation which was supposed to be underway.  Or especially all of the above.

For some reason none of these things seemed to be very forthcoming and any questions about them were studiously ignored by the Paymium folks for a long time.  When little bits of information did appear they were extremely vague.  True, it is 'none of my business' since I was payed off for my minor loss at the place.  An audit of the records from Instawallet, on the other hand, may very well be the business of those who have not been paid what they claim to be owed, and would very likely confirm or deny the parts of PG's story that he can remember.  It is a very reasonable hypothesis that this is exactly why the audit, if it ever happened at all, remains shrouded from view.

You have facts.
But you aint gonna find any proof.

http://discoveringdifferent.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/and-its-gone.jpg

Its as simple as that ;D

Ask the NSA, they must have copies on file :P

It almost certainly is gone at this point. And now Davout et al can just go on ignoring.

Or maybe this mythical auditor will appear someday and everyone will live happily ever after.

I don't seem to understand... I've read quite a few accusations against staff on this forum. How can staff here have been involved in illicit activities?

How is it possible they can't? Theymos can't possibly keep tabs on everyone's actions in his staff.

Sort of shows a corrupt system. You can't have the leaders of a community (in this case a forum) who are guilty of theft. If there's proof then that should suffice. Just seems daunting that people who you trust can just stab you in the back. They should be leading by example and should be here to make the forum a better place... Not actively involve themselves in the scams themselves!

Now I'm not saying they are all guilty. I'm sure most are perfectly honest. Just speaking hypothetically if all the rumours and accusations are true.

Erm, how many thousand administrators are employed to keep the bitcointalk.org site running?
(There must be a few hundred working full-time on the avatar bug alone, I presume.)

Uh-oh, this thread needs some Round-Up.  The Stolfi weed is trying to infest. 

Better get Ignore!

Since the bounty is contingent upon PG first receiving the money, it's not really that newsworthy in my opinion. Now if PG had set aside that much BTC in a trusted escrow account to pay out to the winner, then that would be something else!

I really hope that a bounty this large will lead to the recovery of your stolen coins. Good luck to you!

This thread is running for 3 days now and phin didn't give the informations requested by the ones ready to help investigating. I begin to think this thread is going nowhere.

In this case the accused holds the proof himself so he's either innocent and failing to alleviate doubts regarding his guilt, or he's guilty and probably thinks he pulled off the perfect crime.

Maybe Phinn took my advice and takes a rest, calms down and is trying to write down whats needed.
If not, then you might be right with your assumption.
People willing to help can't sort this mess out, if there aren't all infos ... so without his help and the requested overview, we won't get far.

Hey Phinn,

I'm just curious,...

What about that list?!

Are you still on it?
Is this case solved?
Or is it a sign of capitulation, that you're not replying to this thread anymore (but had around a dozen other postings, the last days)?

Even after reading through the whole thread I still haven't seen any proof regarding all of this? I just finished the french thread and found nothing there either.. So I'm at a loss here?

Is there any real evidence that the Starter of this thread actually lost money to this "Davout" guy?

Plus offering a Robin Hood style reward after retrieving the money isn't going to help much, what's to stop whomever reads this from going in there and forcing Davout to give him the btc? Nothing...

You are right, there is no evidence at all. Phinn has to give a proof, or at least give so many details than "blockchain detectives" could find an evidence. If he doesn't have any proof, he must give up.

He can mod and delete posts he doesn't like there. He can't here.

I created the french thread on this subject, and davout didn't moderate any post in it. This issue is nothing new for him, and it is like he doesn't care at all.

Well...

it's somehow funny, but ... to me, it looks like Phinn changed his mind to something like:
"mehh, who cares!? It's only 1130 BTC or ~680k USD, so why should I invest any more time to answer questions, only to get those peanuts back. I'm better off posting in other threads instead."
 ::) ;)

Maybe a healthy decision, who knows...

Phinn's silence on this thread is worrisome, but so is that of the InstaWallet ex-owners.  I understand that Phinn is not the only person with such claim.  Also, it is claimed that the ex-owners refunded themselves before the customers, which is the opposite of the established rule in legal liquidations.

Is there any post (in some other thread, on reddit, etc.) where they have responded to these claims?

EDIT: I see that the French language thread has 7 pages of discussion on this.  Could someone please provide a one-line summary of the ex-owners counterclaim?  (With my poor French, I think I understood that Davout denies that Phinn had those coins in IsntaWallet, is that it?)

In summary I said that it pissed me off when I waste my time helping someone that does not even care.

Thanks! Well, it seems that we must wait for Phinn's to provide a reasonable reply to that.  If he lost records of his deposits/holdings,  I don't see much hope of him getting the coins back.

I understod that.  My point was that in legal liquidations the managers of the company have the lowest priority; their claims are considered only after all the others -- even if they are not charged with fraud or negligence.  I suppose that this rule is intended to remove certain obvious temptations from managers.  It seems to be a sensible rule, that bitcoiners should demand when bitcoin ventures collapse, too.

Peace, I must have minsunderstood a remark in this post as claiming that the owners of InstaWallet (or was it Paymium?) refunded themselves before other clients, after the hack and closure of their wallet service.  If that was not the case, apologies for any unwarranted implication, and please forget it.

I assume because he doesn't really have anything else to add. The only useful information he can provide is the two InstaWallet URLs and the approximate balances, which InstaWallet has no record of. Bruno either needs to find additional information or take legal action. Presumably legal action would a difficult route if this is all the information he has.

Still... Phinn provided two URLS that, as I understood, are connected somehow to InstaWallet wallets.  Are those two URLS legitimate?  If so, has Davout provided his version of what those wallets may have contained? Does the instaWallet databases have any records about them?  If so, have those records been posted?

That was exactly my point. He wrote a thousand words of "this and that" etc.
but fails to give useful information/answers to additional questions that came up
(and could easily help solve his problems).

I / we just asked for a simple, clean list styled summary / protocol of what exactly happend, how and when...
just to help finding a approval that he really had those funds, in the first step.

If we could track down (one of the) the addresses / transactions involved, anyhow, based on all those "missing links" that we were asking for,
because we couldn't dig that out of those dozens "walls of text"... I'd guess, he would come a big step closer to his coins.

So, if his claims are for real or not,...
as someone stated before, if he wants help from one or another side (us or lawyers, or whatever), he has to do this list anyway.
And also has to be ready to answer questions like "have you already tried this..." or "can you maybe get some more details on that..."
in a timely manner!

It is unnecessary to say that, as long as PG isn't going to "support" / work with the people that want(ed) to help him,
all of the already taken, and also, any further efforts are rendered useless.
*shrugs*

I see.  If anyone stlll cares, please:

I presume that the search was done by the InstaWallet owners themselves?

Are the two URLS at least self-consistent (right format, numbers in plausible range, encrypted with the InstaWallet public key, whatever)?  Could they be forged by a hacker, or have come from some other similar service?  Did BK say how he kept or recovered them?

Are there other similar claims against InstaWallet from other ex-clients?

I'd like to know if the wallet address is consistent with the format as well.

And there are lots and lots of people with claims that haven't been paid yet.

FYI, I've published the result of my "investigation" in the french forum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=649320.msg7528946#msg7528946).
There's no english translation but here's a short summary.

Context

3 IW urls were claimed by PG but the IW team was unable to spot 2 of them

The IW team has asked PG to provide adresses or transactions related to these 2 wallets but PG was unable to provide this kind of information.

The IW team has developed a set of scripts to parse the blockchain in order to:
  - build a list of bitcoin addresses corresponding to IW deposit addresses
  - check if any of these addresses has transactions matching informations sent by PG.
No matching address was found by the IW team.

Analysis

I've followed these steps:
  - parsing of the blockchain to identify transactions (and addresses) matching information given by PG (date, amounts, hours)
  - development of a script similar to the one implemented by the IW team, in order to list IW addresses
  - matching of the 2 sets
No significant result was found.

Then, I've analyzed the principles of the script used to build the list of IW addresses:
- as a first step, the script lists addresses having sent coins to IW cold wallet. These addresses are considered as IW deposit addresses.
- in a second step, the script uses an heuristic named "multi-inputs transactions" in order to find additional IW addresses.
- the second step is repeated recursively.

The main hypothesis associated to this script is that it allows to list all IW deposit addresses. IW was a shared wallet mixing coins from all deposit addresses, thus it may sound like a reasonable hypothesis. But it appears that some cases break this assumption. One such case is when coins sent to a deposit address are consumed alone before having a chance to be sent to the cold wallet.

Activity of the cold wallet (https://blockchain.info/address/1FrtkNXastDoMAaorowys27AKQERxgmZjY) during December 2012 shows that no coin was sent to the cold wallet between 12/08 and 12/26. In fact, during this timespan, the flow was reversed (5,500btc sent from the cold wallet to the hot wallet) surely indicating a period with more withdrawals than deposits. This period also corresponds to the period indicated by PG for his initial deposit and his splitting operation. Thus, it doesn't seem unlikely that the funds deposited by PG may have been consumed during this period and can't be found by the recursive script.

This hypothesis would explain why the IW team was unable to find transactions and addresses matching information given by PG.
WRT missing urls, one of my hypotheses is that IW db may have been altered by hackers to hide that some funds had been stolen (wallets deleted from db).

Next steps

IMHO, it's required to use a backup of the IW bitcoind, in order to export the full list of addresses and be sure to avoid false negative results.
Thus, I've forwarded all results and information to the IW team. It should allow them to investigate the case further.

Wow. Good work. It's nice to see that people are still on this. Despite Bruno's very bizarre sudden lack of interest. Hopefully he sticks his head in here to acknowledge you.

User @Phinnaeus_Gage (who has by far the largest number of posts on this forum) has been inactive since 2014-06-17, 18:38:34 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=24792 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=24792)

Oh. That's kind of scary actually considering the amount of posts he makes targeting people while at the same time posting his home address. I bet he's fine, but he does go out of his way to invite trouble. I hope nothing has happened to him.

Indeed, considering the number of people he has fished embarassing things about, including people with means (and history) of suing people, it is highly likely that he got at least a letter from a lawyer threatening a lawsuit.

Or he simply may have given up hope of recovering his lost bitcoins, and got fed up with a community that, by and large, is indifferent to crime.  When they do not side with the criminals against ther victims.

Indeed.  This finding seems to render the IW team analysis of the blockchain irrelevant.  They looked in the wrong place, so no wonder they did not find anything.  

Assuming that BK was unaware of the flow between the hot and cold wallets, this finding also restores the credibility to his claim.  Back to square zero?

However, wouldn't the hot wallet be caught by the recursive script during its first pass?

I don't know how  InstaWallet worked.  Is it possible that BK was the victim of a phishing-style attack?  Say, he was led to a fake IW site, or the real IW server was hacked to divert some client deposits to an address that did not belong to InstaWallet, and omit those accesses from the database?

Not sure we can say that they looked at the wrong place. It's more that the view was incomplete and thus can't deliver 100% certainty. A set of addresses exported from a bitcoind backup should be more reliable.

Well, what I call the "hot wallet" is the complete set of IW deposit addresses + some "internal" addresses generated by bitcoind (change, ...).
Some of them are caught during first pass. Some are caught later. Some are not caught at all. I was able to validate the latter for some "internal" addresses (but we do not really care about them to identify the initial deposit) and it's likely that some deposit addresses are also missed by the script during periods similar to december 2012.

IW was a shared wallet. Imagine that you share your bitcoin wallet with others users. Each user has one "personal" deposit address to receive coins but withdrawals are done from any subset of addresses found in the wallet with enough coins to fund the transaction. Data required to know users' balances and transactions are recorded in an external database.

Phishing attack is another possible hypothesis. I've also heard that there has been some scam attempts with a fake IW website running on TOR.
Records deleted from the internal ledger is just an hypothesis among several others. Its main difference is that it can be checked by comparing content of db backups. There's also a message (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=150724.msg1614425#msg1614425) posted by Phinnaeus Gage on March 2013 (15 days before the service was shutdown) which seems to confirm that everything was ok at this date.

PG is on holidays.

While possible, I find it hard to believe that a phishing attack would be practically executed. I've never heard of an actual instawallet phishing site, other than the one on Tor.


That's an interesting theory. Practically this attack wouldn't be so easy - it can't just be a simple address replace, but it also needs to hook into balance checks, etc.


One thing I'm not sure that's been discussed here is if the IW team still has web server access logs, and if they do, simply grep through them for the addresses? The hacker of instawallet probably didn't go through the trouble of erasing the logs for specific wallets.

^THIS!