Bitcoin Forum

I really think it is a bad idea to talk with the Police at this point of the story. First, because that would make this last forever, second because that would lead to the seizure of all the IT equipment so the private keys of the cold storage might get compromised.

So our best option is to let Simon work, and help him if possible.

What i think Simon should do is to take the time to comunicate with us and explain:

• What happened.
• What happens now
• Main problems he's facing to fix things up
• How can we help
• How long is it going to take to withdraw funds and how can we speed this up.

Now, being said that the use of the force might not be the best option  right now (calling the cops)...

I think we could help Simon if we tell him

• Our username
• The balance we remember.
• The active orders we had
• And if required, our password so he can log in as the user and check our account.

Then, after withdrawing funds, he could close our account, or mark it as processed.

Afterwards we will need to lead with 2 other problems:

• First, the transactions that were sent to the engine and the engine didn't detect.
• And second, the transactions to were sent to users with excesive funds.

I would start with the second issue, and, because he has all the transactions logs and identified all users (And because he only sent what was on the hot wallet) he could kindly send these users an email asking for the funds. And exposing them if they don't collaborate.

And of course, if you know that you have funds that doesn't belong to you, you can post here your intention to refund them.

Simon, think that you can work with us. And we can fix this working all together. :)

Hope you like the idea.



P.S. There are at least 18079+ BTC in control of Simon Hausdorf. And all mistakes were in favour of the customers (not his own), so be helpful and have faith.

There are two obvious issues with this:

1. Users can report higher balances than they actually have.
2. Passwords should not be needed; he already has access to the database, and if he really needed to be able to log in as the user, he could just temporarily change the password hash stored for the user.

Posting this here also.


Simon Hausdorfs Bitcoin Wallets:

Cold Storage:

1GcWYgqbdtzZAGsX2iSVBS74cPBiQjCiRg > https://blockchain.info/address/1GcWYgqbdtzZAGsX2iSVBS74cPBiQjCiRg
Balance: 8,848.39013303

Semi Hot Wallet (maybe Cold storage):
1AnixjBYxpTzAmfSa8kRdBiUaSGV2e9d26 > https://blockchain.info/address/1AnixjBYxpTzAmfSa8kRdBiUaSGV2e9d26
Balance: 7,100.77857022

Hot Wallet:
1BTC24yVKQdQNAa4vX71xLUC5A8Za7Rr71 > https://blockchain.info/address/1BTC24yVKQdQNAa4vX71xLUC5A8Za7Rr71
Balance: 0

Affiliated Wallets, probably his own, since all the affiliated addresses send each other coins:

1AfY3571v8VbhMq19DA44378qSXPQmv734 > https://blockchain.info/address/1AfY3571v8VbhMq19DA44378qSXPQmv734
Balance: 599
Received BTC from 1GcWY as well as 1Anixj
https://blockchain.info/tx/e83076451c35e85733686d238ba6ae0d5bf7a3ce80d4c04390625e6f6e75157a
https://blockchain.info/tx/d50082cf25e3ea2b9f7811c5c747fd2414004c2bb1e7f100028f23f642c65565

1MVCn7PuFtnCgHKjYvVpqE62ifVKNCA8mU > https://blockchain.info/address/1MVCn7PuFtnCgHKjYvVpqE62ifVKNCA8mU
Balance: 1,532.00
Received BTC from 1Anix as well as 1AfY


Makes a total of 18079 BTC in control of Simon Hausdorf, and thats what I found in about 5 Minutes work. If we search deeper, we might find more. I found some edgy 96.xxxxBTC transfers from 1Anix but I am not sure if they are his because some of them are spend. But its unusual he sends money from 1Anix, since this is his cold storage(or maybe not).

Feel free to contribute.

1. Of course he has to check everything we tell him. But for example in my case some transactions were repeated, so maybe if i tell him exactly were were the errors, that can speed things up.

2. I don't know the database structure, maybe everything is splitted in tables and he has to build a complex query to extract that info. About the password when the hash solution is true, we don't know if the user password encrypted something in order to make it not accessible to him (or the gov) so changing the password might not be a solution in some cases, that's why i said "IF REQUIRED". (i like to to do this things to protect the user from seizures)

But this is anecdotic. The key point is that the initiative is to offer him what he needs in order to help him to help us.

Do you expect to give Simon some deadline?

He doesn't need to know how much money you think you had, or what your password is.  Realistically there's nothing you can do to help except be patient.

If I were he, I would:

1. Analyze the past transactions to work out how much has been lost to errors
2. Figure out how much is recoverable by fixing the broken trades, i.e. how much has not yet been withdrawn, and also decide whether this is ethical
3. Figure out how much is not recoverable, and whether the business has enough reserves to cover the losses
4. If not, figure out if he can prop it up somehow or whether he must declare bankruptcy
5. Overall, limit his business's exposure to lawsuits down the road, either people who disagree with the outcome of (2), or people who feel robbed due to the exchange's downtime and freezing of their BTC during a crash, or... etc, the richest people will find many reasons to sue
6. Plan how to restart the site without bugs or bad publicity

To me, that (2) is ethical or fair is not obvious.  It is a very difficult situation.  See (5).

Yeah, this looks reasonable. Except the patient thing. I need him to say something in order to know what to expect.

A marketplace is not a place where people go to hold hands and sing kumbaya. The fact is, he his holding other peoples money and I (like many other people) can't access my money.
To be honest I don't think I'll see that money again. I pretty much consider it gone.

I don't know if he is a nice guy or whatever, all I know is that my money is there and I can't reach it. Turns out he is technically not capable of putting together a robust trading system. Well, that doesn't make him a more serous person.

People need to be confronted with what they are responsible for.  This guy didn't honor his word. It doesn't matter if he did it on purpose or if it was out of incompetence, as things stand ATM he is a scammer.

How is it that Bitcoin-24 is still making trades in EUR? (http://bitcoinity.org/markets/bitcoin24/EUR)
but not in USD? (http://bitcoinity.org/markets/bitcoin24/USD) This is not so interesting question as the first one.

Probably because the bot running on the server and arbitraging with Gox is still up :D

The lack of communication in the past from Simon should have been a red flag for everyone. 

Do you think we will ever see our right amount of money again?

We should probably move this to the german section of the forum. I am pretty certain that we will not receive eloquent replies from him in English.

Also, I believe that we should stop painting things black and white, aka talk in absolutes when we don't know how things work. Nobody gets put into jail because someone wrote an angry letter.
If a police report (yes, you don't go to the Staatsanwalt, you go to the Polizei, who work the case and present it to the DA) was filed in the matter presented in the other threads, they would, once they stop laughing, check that he is still residing at his home address and forbid him to move. Then the DA would maybe (!) put him on house arrest until it is certain that he did not intentionally defraud anyone. After that, even if the platform stays down and everyone lost everything, it's not a matter of criminal law, so he will not be put in jail for an investigation.

Rather, because he does business over his LTD, a settlement procedure for the capital of the Limited will be instigated in civil court in Britain by those who lost enough to make this worth their while.

These are all eventualities. So just calm down and wait. The platform was buggy in June 2012, it will remain buggy. What matters is the balance in the BTC and Fiat accounts, and although it was a tactical clusterfuck to put "we lost our bank account" in a 302-message, your and my funds are most likely still there.

Now safe your breath and wait a day before starting to lynch people. Although it might get him to hire an IT consultant for his code. Maybe the bitcoin-central team is still available :P

does anybody knows, wtf happened?

One way to cope with the situation would be to
1. undo the faulty transactions (even though it would lead to a situation where someone's balance would be negative if they withdrew too much because of the bug)
2. FIX THE BUGGY SOFTWARE
3. "kindly" ask the people with negative balance to pay back the extra they have withdrawn (which is, likely, a criminal offence - and bitcoin-24 has their ip address, email address, bitcoin address they have withdrawn to, and possibly bank account number, and possibly phone number)
4. continue operation
5. introduce transaction fees to cover the losses, of which will inevitably be some. It might be possible to continue operation, for now, with negative total balance - it's not likely that everyone withdraws their funds at the same time. (After all, banks do the same thing.)

Oh, and step (0) and everywhere in between would be to COMMUNICATE - I want to know what's going on, what's going to happen to my balance, will the site ever come up again, etc.

I suspect that many won't trust bitcoin-24 after this. But then again, other exchanges have been faulty/hacked, too, and have recovered.

It is interesting to think about what Simon might be doing while so many people are wishing he would post something on these forums.  If he has been held by police for any reason, that would explain it, but is it common for people in Germany to be held incommunicado?  I know that it's embarrassing to call a friend or family member from the clutches of an authority and try to explain that you have customers who ought to know what's going on.  If that happens, I would be impressed, since what I have gathered from reading posts about bitcoin-24 is that Simon Hausdorf is pretty green.

In my Internet search, I found this address where it says he was born in 1989:
BTC24 LIMITED
69 GREAT HAMPTON STREET, BIRMINGHAM, UNITED KINGDOM, B18 6EW

Does anyone live near there or know anyone who might live near there who might go visit the address?
Has anyone scanned police reports or anything to gather more info?

Is this the same Simon Hausdorf who has a facebook page for a band?
I found an email for him too and wrote to it.
I found a number for him too at this page, if anyone wants to try calling it: http://bitcoin24.zendesk.com/entries/22197853-Payment-with-Credit-Card-Liqpay

Thats the address of the registered office for his limited company, it doesn't mean he is there. I can run a british ltd from a remote island if i wanted! Plus, I don't think paying him a visit is going to help anybody's case.

Actually it is, but I don't think that happened to him (yet). But it may happen in the next weeks or months. Maybe they don't arrest him but only search his home. That depends if someone presses charges of fraud and/or money laundry against him.



 ;D This is only a very well known letterbox shell corporation. Google "69 GREAT HAMPTON STREET". Having a company there may be a reason for a search/arrest warrant already  ;)

Wow, people actually don't have a clue how __hard__ it is to build an exchange? It's not a matter of fixing the bugs. Have you ever wrote an engine which handles 100 simultaneous requests per second with bi-communication? The guy has worked on a file server before. Look at MtGox. 10 people and they can't get it done. And there is a reason why. This stuff is damn hard. You need worldclass hackers for this, who have worked on matching engines before. And some ventures which are being started right now will fail. All exchanges currently are a joke. You need an extremely good team to get this right, and I doubt Max Keiser will get it done.

'continued

.... think about it. The more flow comes it, the harder it will get. One thing to show how hard this is: co-location. Once an BTC hopefully gets a certain size, people will start co-locating. Then you have to deal with the question at what time clients get their requests. Currently the state of the art is in 50 microseconds. I have spoken to a guy who works with AMD to build special processors (FPGA) for this stuff. There are perhaps billions invested in trading FX infrastructure, for an armsrace in this space. Billion $ hedgefunds doing 100 trades /sec, with 50 person teams. Compared to this level, MtGox, B24, BTCe, BTCde are a joke. BTCde doesn't even know that you can virtualize servers and that you need an API. Somebody will enter this game and show MtGox how it should be done.

'continued

.... think about it. The more flow comes it, the harder it will get. One thing to show how hard this is: co-location. Once an BTC hopefully gets a certain size, people will start co-locating. Then you have to deal with the question at what time clients get their requests. Currently the state of the art is in 50 microseconds. I have spoken to a guy who works with AMD to build special processors (FPGA) for this stuff. There are perhaps billions invested in trading FX infrastructure, for an armsrace in this space. Billion $ hedgefunds doing 100 trades /sec, with 50 person teams. Compared to this level, MtGox, B24, BTCe, BTCde are a joke. BTCde doesn't even know that you can virtualize servers and that you need an API. Somebody will enter this game and show MtGox how it should be done.

But for that B24 had a pretty decent front end. I doubt this will get "fixed" in 2 weeks, because it is only a question of time until the next bug. And you can't have bugs like that. Failure is not an option here.

The more important question is whether or not I (and other users of BTC24) will get my Euros and Bitcoins back.


As for the trading engine - wouldn't it be possible to make it execute the trades less often (say once per second)? It would make the coding easier and discourage the use of bots (but not affect humans putting the orders since a human cannot add/remove orders much faster than once per second).

@btcmind I think you should be interested in the buttercoin project then

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1c7v6z/buttercoin_open_source_highperformance_bitcoin/ (http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1c7v6z/buttercoin_open_source_highperformance_bitcoin/)

The LMAX architecture that they want to replicate sounds very promising

http://martinfowler.com/articles/lmax.html (http://martinfowler.com/articles/lmax.html)

My guess is that we won't hear much the next days, then suddenly some sort of ill conceived claims process will be announced. I requested a sepa withdrawal 10 days ago, but I am highly skeptical that I will ever see my money again.

I bet he just saw this post.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=23819 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=23819)

I bet he did saw everything as he changed "YOUR ACCOUNT" for "OUR ACCOUNT" in his website.
Which i would say its a good sign.

THANKS!

Well, is it once per second or once per 1.000001 second? There is currently a stupid debate on high frequency trading for normal exchanges. Problem is, that computers are just better at this stuff. Hence the very natural relation of BTC and automated trading. People trading on the exchanges are mostly liquidity takers. Liquidty providers, provide the service in the form of tighter spreads. Marketmakers and exchanges are both part of the infrastructure. Building the exchange is not enough. So, discouraging bots is the LAST thing at BTC exchange should do. It's a shame that Bitfloor didn't get this right. But the source they published was, well, not up to the task. One needs stuff like volatility interruptions and single timed auctions.

HEY GUYS... WANT TO SEE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL?

It turns out that there aren't so many cuadruplicated orders....

http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=An7AkdaW

Mine is the one with this amount: 6.35472050 and you can see it 4 times.

I don't think Simon Hausdorf is arrested.
There seems to be some testing activity on his website.
And then this sentence on his website.
"We will back with Bitcoin-24 2.0 on when all declarations are finished."
He probably starts to see that restarting the trade engine is no longer an option
He was already searching for coding solutions on the internet before the site was shutdown.

Personally I think the Polish authority frozen his bank account to prevent money laundery.
I have withdraw multiple 5000 Euro per day without having myself verified on his site.
I can't do that on MTGox or BTC-Central without myself been verified.
On MTGox you need to verified yourself to withdraw 1000 Euro a day and if you want to withdraw more than 1000 Euro, you need
to send MTGox a apostille of your passport.
If he co-operate and redesign the website to prevent anti-money laundery, his polish account will be set active again.
"Our lawyers are working with high pressure on a solution."
I think this is the reasson why he need lawyers working on a solution.
This mean all users need to be verified if they want to do bigger transactions.

These are my thoughts and I hope I am right about it.

this can't be all. I myself had a list longer than that.
i remember at least orders with 62.2 (those where split-executed, so this should have been 8 or 12). 51.1 and 52.2 with split orders, so another 8-16 lines of orders. and there where more but i dont remeber the exact price.

This is very frustrating. Many people live outside Poland, Uk or Germany, and doesn't speack German language. Many €, many BTC involved. Its very hard to cope with...
 :-[

He is alive:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1c7utl/bitcoin24com_the_polish_authority_closed_your_our/c9eb1h6

I see disagreements as market opportunities.  We can all put our money where our mouths are.  Following is an idea I thought up to make this happen.  It will relieve those who fear that bitcoin-24 is going to rob us, and it will punish whoever is wrong about the site - either those who don't trust will lose their 10%, or those who put (more) faith into Simon will lose a bit more than is already at stake.

The main thrust of my effort is to protect someone (Simon) who I think is currently vulnerable to legal attacks that will hurt everyone (because governments LOVE to do that :-( ).

So please critique:

Bitcoin Insurance Contract
Whereas the website operated by Simon Hausdorf under the domain bitcoin-24.com has been inoperable for some time, and
whereas bitcoin-24's account holders (HOLDERS) would like their holdings, both in fiat and in bitcoin, to be insured against permanent loss,
whereas some HOLDERS are willing to take a 10% loss for this insurance on some part of their holdings, and
whereas Dave Scotese (SCOTESE) and others (together, INVESTORS) believe that the owner(s) of bitcoin-24 is a trustworthy business which will honor the purchase of HOLDERS holdings represented by QUALIFYING TRANSACTIONs (as defined below), and
whereas SCOTESE, who owns the bitcoin address X (ADDRESS), wishes to provide such insurance service, and
whereas INVESTORS would like to earn a piece of the 10% that some HOLDERS are willing to spend,
therefore, SCOTESE represents that he will perform the DUTIES described below within one week following the end of every month starting with April of 2013:
DEFINITIONS
MARKER: The last four digits of the amount of satoshis represented in an INPUT to a transaction sent to ADDRESS.
EXPIRATION: The time at which the first block is added to the blockchain in a given month.  If a block comes after another block but has an earlier timestamp, both blocks will be considered to hold transactions made AFTER EXPIRATION.
QUALIFYING TRANSACTION: Any transaction in which A) bitcoin is sent to ADDRESS, and B) the INPUT to ADDRESS has a MARKER that indicates a month later than March of 2013.  For transactions which have multiple inputs to ADDRESS, each input will be considered separately as a QUALIFYING TRANSACTION if a transaction containing that input alone would be a QUALIFYING TRANSACTION.
INVESTMENT TRANSACTION: Any transaction in which A) bitcoin is sent to ADDRESS, and B) the INPUT to ADDRESS has a MARKER that indicates a month later than March of 2013, and C) the MARKER is preceded by the digit 1.  Note that HOLDERS who would like to invest are, at the same time, insuring themselves if they use addresses that have
TERMINATING INPUT: Any input in a QUALIFYING TRANSACTION for which the MARKER indicates the latest month for which EXPIRATION has passed.
TERMINATING OUTPUT: The first output in any QUALIFYING TRANSACTION that has an associated bitcoin address (excludes scripts that do not represent sending addresses).
TERMINATING ADDRESS: The bitcoin address associated with a TERMINATING OUTPUT.
DUTIES
1. Compute the INSURED SUM by adding up all TERMINATING INPUTs.
2. Compute the INVESTED SUM by adding up all INVESTMENT TRANSACTIONs and subtracting out the INVESTED SUM computed the last time these DUTIES were performed, if ever.
3. Determine whether or not A) each TERMINATING ADDRESS belongs to a HOLDER and B) the bitcoin-24 account for that HOLDER contains at least ten times the TERMINATING INPUT amount.  Anyone who disagrees with the results of this determination is invited to use their bitcoin client to sign a request for evidence with their TERMINATING ADDRESS and post it to this thread for public scrutiny.
4. Distribute up to the INVESTED SUM to the TERMINATING ADDRESSES that passed both tests A and B listed previously.  If the INVESTED SUM is less than ten times the INSURED SUM, then:
    4.1 The COVERED PERCENTAGE will be computed by dividing ten times the INSURED SUM by the INVESTED SUM, and
    4.2 The COVERED PERCENTAGE of the TERMINATING INPUTS will be subtracted from each of the TERMINATING ADDRESSES and the remainder will be sent back to the TERMINATING ADDRESSES.
5. Create a report for Bitcoin-24 indicating the TERMINATING ADDRESSes and the part of the INSURED SUM for each one so that bitcoin-24 can reimburse INVESTORS from the HOLDER's account.
TERMINATION
If and when bitcoin-24 is able to respond to this effort, either by demonstrating a resolve to keep what they have and destroy their reputation, or by reimbursing INVESTORS, SCOTESE plans to keep 1% of the reimbursements as payment for the service he has provided.

I think you are correct, the bank suddenly realised that this was not an ordinary online business but an exchange. As the account holders were not properly verified it attracts laundering from ill gotten bank details.

Perhaps someone who had trouble with the trade engine short changing them by a large amount contacted the bank complaining.

So we have two issues, a trade engine that was starting to screw up under the load. And regulatory measures being imposed by the bank.

So now everyone probably has to submit verification documents before they can receive some of their money back. Probably documents have to be notarized or what it's called too.

The biggest risk with your bitcoin investment is not the price swings, it's trying to cash out your gains! They may or may not end up in limbo.

In english, please?

What a Gumby!

no, seriously.

That can be a good thing.

So true.

Simon has posted some information on Reddit.

Read here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=174600.msg1835562#msg1835562

If all the btc are safe, why isn't he reopening the website to let everyone withdraw at least their btc?

Could be lots of reasons.  I read in the other thread that he tends to keep the hot wallet empty.  It would make sense that he manually approves BTC withdrawals.  Before he honors any of them, if he has half a brain (I suspect he's pretty smart, but obviously still pretty green), he will audit the entire history because of the reports of duplicated trades and people trying to steal by exploiting the glitch.  In fact, here's my spiritual contribution on that front:

Glitch exploiters: You will suffer small pains (stubbed toes, getting sick, maybe cancer, maybe paranoia or some tainted weed that destroys your sense of smell, perhaps a sty in your eye that won't go away, maybe some botulism or insomnia) because of your depravity.  These ills will plague you until you make things right or die.  You know who you are.  You helped fuck up something that was pretty cool.*

Also, he's probably trying to deal with a lot of things right now, and pleasing his customers fell far down on the list of priorities when legal and financial issues with his bank and government got added.

*These things will happen to the rest of us too, but we won't let them bother us because we have conducted ourselves properly.  The conscience can be suppressed and buried, but look at what happened to Ronald Reagan after he insisted that he "could not remember" involving the US in the "Iran-Contra" affair.  The conscience kicks your ass no matter how much you suffocate it.  Be good.  Everyone (including you) will be happier.

to be fair, the trading engine fucked up. Dont blame the messenger. (note: I didn't get any free money).

Hmmm ....

Still waiting for coins. Looks bad.

Well yes. Now it is getting too long!

more news on reddit.

you have a link for that?

http://www.reddit.com/user/TAiS46

Still waiting for the withdrawal page....

I expect Simon to provide information once a day.  Reddit is good tool for that because users can move things around with their voting so the most important stuff is easier to find.  I just do a search on TAis.  He has been providing information often enough for me, but I know how to find it (See previous sentence).

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1c7utl/bitcoin24com_the_polish_authority_closed_your_our/c9fjrtj

I have a problem with this reddit profile page...

It's been saying his last posts were 9hours and 11hours ago for the last 20 hours. How do I know when he last posted? Of course I can just keep an eye on updates.. but for me there is nothing new yet that gladdens my heart :o

i hope there wont be any withdrawal page until eur bank account locked by authority
cos if it wont be unlocked never,  we lose all our money (eur), and you get back all of your bitcoins (earlier), it would be unfair,
so i hope the eur loss will shared beetween all users, and we get back only 30-80% of their money (if eur account/money lost) , so the coins will stay locked

I have much more in eur than in bitcoins, but what you're saying is stupid.

I own both, my eur and my bitcoins, there are two different balances.  If the wallet was hacked and no bitcoins were in bitcoin-24, would you be fair if Simon took your fiat money and pay the bitcoin loses?

What you are talking is not about fairness but about luck.

+1
you are right my friend
especially for people like me who didn't have the chance to trade their coins for Euros

guys guys
Simon is online!!!!


edit: not any more
(20 minutes later)

Where?

here
but not anymore
no posts

http://i1362.photobucket.com/albums/r683/greek-geek/simononline_zps8b400fe3.png

Online again
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile%3Bu%3D23819

edit : gone again

Update: http://board.btc24-help.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=18&sid=8332b6e8753a7f3084015bd68d3a580f

The fact that this isn't on the bitcoin-24.com domain suggests that it isn't Simon Hausdorf.

someone translate please, and confirm it's Simon

I can't make a good translation, and I'm not even going to try to understand it because it isn't on the bitcoin-24.com domain.  This isn't just a telling lack of evidence - that tells us it isn't Simon - it's actually positive evidence that it probably isn't Simon, because it is extra work to register the new domain name.  It would be simpler to put the help page up at bitcoin-24.com.  So I ignore it on the assumption that it is an imposter.  I suggest you do the same.

I'm getting impatient with Simon. I have a 5-figure EUR balance stuck in his exchange. He should update us ASAP even if there is not much new news to give. I am already considering LEGAL action against him.

Simon, if you are reading this, do the right thing and return our money! This is all we ask, nothing more. It will save you A LOT of stress, hassle, jail time etc...

open your eyes and look on the forum...

this is a help website set up by members of bitcoin-24.......

now also look on the original bitcoin-24.com URL for evidence, and join the fucking discussion on that forum in a productive manner so we can all work this out and stop bitching

http://board.btc24-help.com/viewforum.php?f=3&sid=750d2bc83dccc8492e2b043f1614af7a

Hi Michael,
I looked through the site, and again, I have to say, there is a telling lack of evidence.  The closest I could come is a GRAPHIC on the thread http://board.btc24-help.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=18&sid=8332b6e8753a7f3084015bd68d3a580f showing a box that shows Simon Hausdorf signed something.  There is an email in the background, but whether or not the signature has anything to do with the email is impossible to determine without the original text that Simon signed.  One could attempt to re-create that text from the image, but no one has done so.  The post itself is from the site Admin.  Perhaps the site admin should post the original text that Simon signed so we can verify it ourselves.

I'm changing my mind in this issue: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=179829.0

ok, I'm taking the stance "innocent until proven guilty", you not, that's ok, but we need to stop talking and decide on a plan of action together. Suspicions and negativity is not getting us anywhere just by typing it in a forum.

I can't read German, but it seems things are moving, slowly... and maybe the banks are frozen etc etc...

the only way we can rectify this, WHATEVER happens, is by working together, writing the to the police/courts/banks and giving them evidence of our transactions etcetc....

join the other forum, and let's stop complaining and start working on a solution together

I'd rather stay on this forum.  It has history, scammer tags, and a boatload of really smart people.  It feels much safer to me.  I will agree to "innocent until proven guilty," but I will continue to be cautious and ask that others do the same.  By the way, do you know whether or not "ThreeMan" (who is the site admin that posted that image) has an account here on bitcointalk?

ok, I believe that site is altruistic... but anyways...

read this... and keep your eye onthe threads on the other forum... this will only work if we stick together.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=179827.0

read this:

http://board.btc24-help.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=18&sid=8332b6e8753a7f3084015bd68d3a580f

The username TAiS46 is the same as on Reddit, so it might be him. I can't confirm that of course.
http://board.btc24-help.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=18&sid=8332b6e8753a7f3084015bd68d3a580f

I'll translate the key information from that long post. This is not an accurate translation, I'm only giving the highlights in my own wording:

"Why was a Commerzbank account necessary?
Because Giropay required a German account. So I personally openend an account and clearly stated my intentions with the bank clerk.

Why was the Polish account closed?
The Bremen (Germany) police called the Polish authorities for help in an investigation of "money laundering and financing terrorism". The account was subsequently closed. On April 16 we supplied our written protest.

Who/what is behind all this? What is going on?
The Bremen police accused me of holding large sums of cash money. However, this has nothing to do with user payments. I promise!
Like most Bitcoin users, I distrust banks. How I handle money is none of their business. The Commerzbank accuses me of the following:
--He [Thomas] intends to use the sums of money paid by customers via Giropay for the purchase of Bitcoins for payout in cash for personal gains. (Intends to use the cash for himself)--

Commerzbank called the Bremen police who seized the account.

What is the current situation
We protested in writing against the closing of the Polish account. We are suing the Commerzbank, because they have caused us great damages.

People what do you think of me? That I'm on some island driving a sportscar living the good life? HELL NO!

I just wanted to build a platform for people to trade Bitcoins. Honestly, if you think I tried to screw you, why didn't I split with the 5 million a long time ago? The authorities don't care when I tell them I'm receiving legal threats because I can't run my business.

The problem is, they dont understand how someone can receive so much funds in such short time. I promise the money is STILL on the accounts and I haven't touched it. All payments are recorded and can be checked.  
"

-----

Please be aware this is an abridged and bad translation. I'm not a professional translator, I just can read German well enough to understand what is being said. Apparently we were trading 5 million EUR on his site! This alarmed the authorities who believed to have a case of "money laundering and financing terrorism" on their hands.

read this.. and join the other forum, I'm sick of reading all the threads  :(

http://board.btc24-help.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=38&sid=d6fecdf4bffc63f3aecec3cd88ea6cf8

And still not a single word on the tens of thousands of BTC he is holding.  It is almost like he is pretending they don't exist.  Has anyone called him out on that?

An English document was recently posted on the bitcoin-24.com domain.  It's a PDF which contains the following text:
From:
https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/922749_10151889075210031_1117966488_n.jpg

Payout of the coins has started. Was able to log in to my account and send them to another address. All payouts are said to be done manually during the next 24 hours. Keeping my fingers crossed.  8)

Still unclear when cash payout will be possible, fortunately did not have any on that account at the time of the shutdown.

i'm not receiving a confirmation code for the btc withdrawal.. did that work for you?

Yes, got one via SMS.

yeah.. the website said it sent a code via sms, but never received one, and I'm not even sure if I actually entered a mobile phone number on my account (and no way to access the account details now).

I got one via email. Check your email!

If he pays them out now, while under investigation, this would get him jailtime.

In §261 of the german penal code you find a parapgraph dealing with obfuscation of money laundering funds. Sending them out would mean he is likely breaking this law, while under investigation.

He might get lucky if his lawyer gets him out under §258 that says that obfuscation measures are not penalized if he is trying to help himself, but in germany, we have a saying "Out on the sea and in german courts, you are in the hand of god."

It might net him 2-3 years of trials and costs.


I know that it sucks, really sucks donkey balls for everyone who has money with him, but he is an idiot to make ANY statement. He should shut the fuck up and say no. word. at. al. Not to police, not to the DA, not to his customers. And definitely not in an open forum.

I repeat, Simon if you read this: Shut the fuck up and stop trying to be nice to your customers. It is hurting THEM and YOURSELF.
You want them to get their money back? Get your site back online? Great, stfu. And I don't know how good your lawyer is. I really don't. But I suggest getting in touch with Udo Vetter, a criminal defense lawyer from the pirate party.

BTCs were able to be withdrawn as of Sunday night.
I could log in to both my accounts, € balance was still there and as I remembered it.

I have filed for a title (court order for payment) with the local DA.

This is not an act against Simon whom I personally like a lot, but to secure my assets agains confiscation by the authorities.

Unfortunately a probably smart move, but since this should be Zivilrecht, this should be not damaging at all. I hope however, that the court costs won't destroy him.

I strongly disagree. We need more transparency and communication from Simon not less. (And returned BTC and EUR as soon as possible to restore some trust.) ( Not supporting government "guilty-until-proven-innocent" AML witchhunt. :-] )
Actually withdrawals of BTC are working for 22 hours (with remark "All of them will be processed manually in the next 24 hours"). Lets hope this time Simon will keep the word. Some people (claims that they) already received their BTC so I am becoming lightly optimistic that perhaps I will be also one of them soon. For fiat, we have to wait.

Absolute transparency when under penal investigation is the stupidest thing you can do.

There is ONE rule that you HAVE to follow when under investigation. Only ONE rule, that every lawyer should hit into people's heads: You keep your mouth shut. Everywhere, anywhere.

I know this sucks for customers. But I do not know how many times a lawyer in my vicinity says "Well, if half of my clients would just shut the fuck up, I'd be a hero lawyer. But the problem is, my clients are idiots when it comes to this."

Ingrain this video in your heads everyone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc)

Got my btc back. Good luck everyone!

According to the lawyer,


So that's what I'll do. I'm not taking the risk of the "lazy approach".

I also got my BTC back from Bitcoin-24. I have left some of them there intentionally though.

Still waiting for mine. It's been 25 hours which is a touch over the 24 they said but I'm willing to cut them some slack since things do appear to actually be moving.

Have you got them back? How much time has elapsed?

Yes. They arrived yesterday afternoon. I guess around 4 hours after I posted. That's good enough for me.

I'd be interested to know what they were worth when the site closed down but that part of the interface isn't available. I think they're up though.

It's been 3 weeks and a few unanswered emails since I filed for my btc withdrawal, and no response, no btc yet. I'm really getting pissed now.

new lawyer statement wich isnt posted on bitcoin-24.com yet

in german

http://www.rdp-law.de/uploads/media/Erklaerung_13_05_31.pdf (http://www.rdp-law.de/uploads/media/Erklaerung_13_05_31.pdf)

and in english

http://www.rdp-law.de/uploads/media/Statement_13_05_31.pdf (http://www.rdp-law.de/uploads/media/Statement_13_05_31.pdf)

Just so its clear to everybody this concerns only funds that were wired to the German Commerzbank account between 09.04 and 12.04.
Which should be only a friction of the cash frozen there.

Has anybody actually received the BTC that were promised to be transferred "within 24 hours"?  I made a transfer request some *6 weeks* ago, and, while the BTC did indeed disappear from my bitcoin24 account, I have yet to receive them.  All of my numerous attempts to contact Simon Hausdorf and bitcoin24 have been met with silence.  I've taken contact with RDP, the law firm representing him, who have been a bit more communicative, but they are equally unable to provide any insight as to the meaning or cause of this extreme delay in processing.

As this is not a small amount of money in question, I'm starting to consider legal action.  Has anybody been in touch with a German lawyer regarding this matter?

I did get my BTC, though not in 24 hours. It was close to 26.

Got my BTC the day it was announced.

@madc0w
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=171307.msg2523725#msg2523725
Although i doubt it will do you any good atm, they can simply claim that payouts are impossible due to matters beyond their control.
And all you gained is a bill from a Polish lawyer.

I can hardly believe my eyes... but after *2 solid months* and innumerable unanswered emails and support requests to Simon, my transfer finally came through!

Don't act like that.
The guy has been in a REAL pinch, one that I don't wish upon anybody.
That this has been resolved halfway gracefully and decent with the help of the law can be viewed as a major, major success.

I appreciate that, but he must also appreciate how it looks to the outside world when he fails to reply to email and to support requests.  Yeah, I'm glad I'm not him right now... but sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between scammers and regulatory victims.  A little good faith communication (not just from his lawyers) would go a long way.

Regardless, I'm here to testify... it took some time, and a lot of insisting, but Simon came through!

He can't. He's probably under gag order from his lawyer. When I sent him an eMail, his lawyer wrote / called back (that was in the very early stages of this, and I have significant amounts on their Polish acc). After this - nothing. I can fully understand that.

So the new update sux!
I have been a vivid supporter of Simon until now, actually i still am, but his lawyers latest statement just makes me mad.
It basically says "There are few a few black sheep and because of them nobody will receive their money back in the foreseeable future. Oh and btw dont wait for any updates."
Also this was known to them for a long time and they didnt inform their customers.

I am considering hiring a real lawyer(cause theirs apparently isnt), who will get us some clarification.
And just to be clear, i am not looking to go after Simon, but rather the authorities.
Please PM me if you are ready to do so, too.

Have you uploaded your verification documents? You have to do this to be able to withdraw.

Save your money, i have a lawyer monitoring the situation in Poland and until the authorities release the money or even give access to records you dont even have grounds for a charge.

I suppose they have much work with fiat withdrawals.
However, I have problems with bitcoins withdrawal. I asked for withdrawal of my bitcoins 9.11.2013, got the code for transfer, entered this code and waited for BTC to arrive. My ballance was reduced, but no bitcoins arrived. After one month, on 9.12 I opened a ticket #263? (last number omitted here) for this issue, but no response yet.

I have not uploaded any documents (not worth the small amount of fiat there), but I am also not asking for fiat, so this should be no problem.

Seems like the first waves are arriving this week:
https://i.imgur.com/Z6JBRXq.jpg

Now Simon has relaunched the site and seems to have no intention of refunding the remaining 28% of everyone of his previous customers.

The previous help forum has gone down too.

Is anyone taking further action on this?

The situation looks bleak indeed, i wouldnt have expected that from Simon.
On the other hand the majority voted for this option.