I know people in the US think litigation is the answer to everything, but what value is there in filing a lawsuit at this point?  It's just an expensive way to reach the very same settlement you'd reach without involving courts. 

Pleased to read this.

He is asking the pass-through operators to submit information about their lenders to him by Friday and saying that the lenders will be contacted directly by certified mail.  If you're not OK with that, you might want to talk to your pass-through operators.

I don't believe pirate is being legit but if he was then you pay creditors directly rather than through intermediaries so that you're not liable if the pass-throughs don't pay.

There is no good reason whatsoever for him refusing to give the pass-through operators contact details for his lawyer or accountant though.  It makes me wonder if pirate is collecting information because he hasn't maintained adequate records and he needs it to now create them.  Normally, the information would be submitted directly to the accountant/lawyer handling an insolvency and verified against existing business records.

He's probably bullshitting.  It's a 60 year old company and he definitely doesn't hold a significant role if he's even associated with them.

http://www.tlpwebsite.com/aboutus

If he's truly smart he appropriated the identity of someone else and leaving his IP exposed when connecting to IRC is just a means of convincing people that he's the person whose identity he's appropriated.  If he's not actually Trendon Shavers (who does seem to exist), people don't know who to start looking for or where.

Interesting.  This is why it's so important to know exactly what applies in the jurisdiction in question.  How quaint that liquor licences and permits are exempted - they're a valuable asset which would be sold to meet claims elsewhere.

Are either BS&T or GPUMax incorporated?

There are advantages for him in going through the legal motions even if there's not a cent available to pay people.  I'm curious about why he's not shutting down GPUMax, though.

I've known people who've scammed way more than pirate has who didn't go around looking over their shoulder.  Businesses fail every single day owing more than is owed to BS&T users and in most cases nothing of consequence happens to their operators.  

If I was in pirate's shoes and I was planning on winding down operations in a legitimate manner, I would want to deal with the pass-through lenders directly, so I'm kind of surprised by his request because I wasn't expecting any legitimate moves by him at this point.


I suspect something similar to be the case too.  If he can come to an agreement with his creditors, he can probably avoid total bankruptcy and any obligation to apply future earnings to the debts.

I'm honestly not familiar enough with the terms of all the pass-throughs and the jurisdictions in which they operate to give an informed opinion on that.    I don't know how their pass-throughs would be regarded legally in the jurisdictions in which they're located or whether they'd be regarded as promoting/operating an investment scheme, or if they've fulfilled product disclosure requirements.

My uninformed opinion is that in some jurisdictions the operators would not have personal liability because the product and the risks were fully disclosed and investor funds weren't misused.  They may have technically breached financial services regulations in some places, but that alone won't necessarily make them liable for their lenders' losses.

It's what I'd expect if he was filing for bankruptcy protection.  If that's the case, expect clawbacks.

Even though I think it would be supremely stupid for anyone who intended another member harm to state so publicly and it's therefore likely that those threatening harm are just venting, I'd still be happier if explicit threats of violence weren't tolerated.  I'd also like clarification from theymos about the extent to which he'll co-operate with authorities if threats of harm are carried out and law enforcement looks to this community to identify likely suspects.

It's a reporting threshold transaction so I can see why their system counts it against AML limits, and yeah, their accounting system should regard the cancellation as a withdrawal and a credit - you can't just pretend the transaction never happened.  They should be able to manually over-ride the system limits, but it's possible that doing so would trigger enhanced due diligence requirements which they don't want to deal with. They need to be clearer about this with their customers, though.

You realise this would affect people sharing the same house, posting from the same school/workplace/hotspot, and people whose ISPs use a common gateway.  It's also going to have limited usefulness with regard to people who have dynamic IPs (most people I know use some kind of wireless internet access).

Or a guitar?  Or your gender being reassigned?  Will you offer your soul as collateral?

I thought it might be that.  Thanks for clarifying.

At least Bitcoinica's off the front pages for a change.

That's kind of interesting.  We knew that the original ruling related to "acting as a banker", which didn't really require any determination at all about the nature of Bitcoin.  "No legal value" is a bit vague, though and I'd be interested to see that expanded on.

Thanks for the non-defensive answer.  I honestly have no idea whether pirate is a confidence trickster who planned to take the money and run all along, a ponzi operator, someone who thought he had the perfect business model but was operating out of his depth and now doesn't know how to deal with the collapse of his scheme, or something else entirely.  Maybe he's the predator some people are making him out to be, maybe he's just a guy who isn't as smart as he thought he was when it comes to making money (and both the Bitcoin world and the conventional business world are filled with such people).

What I can't do is blame pass-through operators for whatever pirate's scheme turns out to be.  People were virtually begging to be given a piece of the pirate action which was not directly available to small investors.  That the scheme went sour is not the fault of the pass-through offerers.  That some people got back more than they invested before the scheme collapsed and others didn't is also not the fault of the pass-through operators.  Nobody would be complaining about the role of the pass-through operators right now if the scheme was still profitable.  The pass-through operators didn't take people's money under false pretences - people knew it was being invested with pirate and that his venture was high risk.  You can't blame your stock-broker if the stock you chose tanks.


1 and 3 are the big warning signs for me.  Why a single, uncapped fund?  Unless he could place the ever-increasing amount of BTC in his fund at 10% every single week and the interest he was receiving was being compounded, his scheme couldn't be sustained.  But if the demand was predictable, then why weren't the loans fixed term (even if that term was short)? How was he protecting himself against a sudden decrease in demand or against someone else offering his clients a similar service for less?  How was he hedging his risk?  Were his clients repaying interest only?  If so, when was the principal due to be returned?  What allowance had he made for his clients defaulting?  Why wasn't he trying to entice the hoarders who are still sitting on large amount of BTC which barely ever move?

These are all questions to be asked the next time a similar scheme comes along - and it will.

I do think there are circumstances under which people will both buy and borrow at a premium, but when that appears to be happening on a large scale I think it's probably wise to curb one's enthusiasm and ask some difficult questions before assuming you've discovered the goose which lays the golden egg.

I don't know how they're going to handle outstanding GBP withdrawals, but their "banking relationship" with Metro bank is ending this week. 


https://support.intersango.com/status