Which is why I would not expect any statement from Zhou.  If Zhou has been successful in recovering USD, I would expect Patrick Murck to confirm receipt of those funds though.  It is reasonable to assume until such a statement is forthcoming that further funds have not been recovered, which will have a significant effect on the final amount available to a liquidator for distribution to creditors.

Whether or not HYIP need their own sub-forum, they probably shouldn't be allowed to dominate the front page of the lending forum.  Perhaps the rule for the lending forum should be that only loans can be sought there, that deposits can't be sought there and stats can't be published there.  The investment side of lending should have its own threads elsewhere.

Yeah, well the whole "you see there's this Chinese relic collector..." story is going to be extremely hard to sell to a judge/jury without hard evidence of that person's existence and alleged confession.  And there's no way that Zhou would not be called upon to provide testimony because his claim regarding the Chinese hacker exonerates Patrick, Amir and Donald as suspects in the MtGox theft.

Zhou isn't one of the named defendants in the lawsuit.  If anything, not acting to recover the funds from an allegedly known person could work against him if he eventually becomes one of the DOE defendants in the lawsuit as he -personally - is the only link to the alleged hacker and "cut a deal" with that person.

Nor is a statement from Zhou necessary.  I would expect any statement about the funds having been recovered to come from Patrick Murck once they are under his possession (because until they're under his possession they aren't truly recovered). 

There really needs to be an update on the recovery of the fiat funds.  It's now been 10 days since Zhou's "finishing next week" post and there's been no indication yet that any of the fiat funds have been recovered.

Thus the many threads on how you should secure your computer if you're going to dabble in the world of Bitcoin.

In order for them to be able to exchange your MtGox codes for USD, they need to have USD on hand - that depends on other people using AurumXchange to exchange USD for other currencies.  Temporary shortages of a particular currency aren't unusual in foreign exchange.

A liquidator doesn't have to wait until foreign legal action is settled.  They'll distribute the estate in the manner laid down by NZ law and after that no-one can pursue for any deficiency in NZ (unless they can establish personal liability on the part of the directors, but the directors have no known NZ assets anyway), but creditors can still pursue deficiencies in other jurisdictions.  

It's worth noting that the creditors' petition doesn't seek to have a lien placed on Bitcoinica's MtGox or bank accounts.

On another note, I've just been on the phone with NZ's Insolvency and Trustee Service who confirmed that there are no barriers to unsecured overseas creditors lodging claims in a New Zealand company liquidation (including a limited partnership liquidation).

It depends on the nature of the investigation and the jurisdiction involved.  Where I live, if you continue to fail to adequately identify yourself to PayPal on request, they will eventually transfer your funds to one of the government's unclaimed money funds so you may never get them back (because to claim them from the unclaimed monies fund you'd still need to verify your identity).

In AML investigations, it's generally not sufficient to prove that the funds were given to you by someone else (people laundering money often route it through multiple other people in an attempt to legitimise it) - you also need to establish that the source of the funds was legitimate.  There's not necessarily a bright line between where an internal AML investigation by a financial services provider ends and an external investigation by a regulator/financial intelligence unit begins.  The suspicion is tied to a specific crime in this particular instance which makes any investigation different than it would be if the investigation was based on more generic factors.

It's also worth noting that Dominica repealed its existing AML legislation last year and replaced it with several new pieces of AML legislation (one of which allows for the immediate seizure of proceeds of crime).  At this point, that legislation appears to remain substantially untested.

Pretty much anything can get hacked given enough time and effort.  As you shouldn't be re-using your MtGox email or password elsewhere, the major concern about exchanges being hacked is whether they have enough reserves/insurance to cover any losses.

You'll have to wait until a liquidator for Bitcoinica is appointed and then lodge a claim with them.  Keep checking back here as there'll definitely be a thread posted when the liquidator is appointed.  There'll be a set period in which to lodge claims so if you don't check for information regularly you may miss the window of opportunity.

Are you able to give us any further information about the transactions in question?  While I realise that privacy/confidentially considerations come into play here, it would be absurd if you were able to publicly state your suspicions to us but unable to publicly disclose to us if you were now satisfied that the transactions in question were legitimate.

To avoid the "retraction being buried on page 13" scenario, are you willing to undertake that if further investigation on your part reveals that Zhou's transactions were entirely legitimate you will publicly make a statement to that effect in a separate thread so that your findings are as visible as your original statement?

I don't think you need to hand it over.  By not vigorously defending the trademark, it pretty much becomes generic and available for use by anyone by default.  The issue only really arises if MtGox wants to restrict someone else from using the trademark and the longer its use has been unrestricted the harder it would be for Mt Gox to prevail in any attempt to prevent a specific use.

Thanks for my daily chuckle.


Not verifying customers is apparently the latest way to avoid your exchange being used for money laundering.   

Quite a few pretty significant errors.  Their lack of accuracy in this report would make me disinclined to regard them a credible source of information on other matters.

Arstechnica has picked up the Verge report and run it with the same inaccuracies that appear in the Verge original.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/bitcoinica-users-sue-for-460k-in-lost-bitcoins/

I'm sure that no matter what has already been posted Tihan is still trying to find a means of resolving this without putting Bitcoinica into liquidation, but if the partnership does end up being liquidated those wishing to make a claim will have to do so directly to the liquidator using the appropriate claim form.

If you'd taken it to Judge Judy you would have got free publicity for Bitcoin as well as your money back. 

It's based on speculation from two years ago.  We now have concrete information about the extent to which services based in different locations are being required to comply with AML/KYC requirements, both directly - as entities having a reporting obligation in their own right - and indirectly - in the case where other financial service providers are requiring them to collect KYC information.

The plaintiffs would likely seek default judgement.

It depends on whether the defendants take other action, though.  From what I've read, it's absurdly easy for foreign entities to seek bankruptcy protection in the US and such protection goes way beyond what is common in many other nations.

It depends who they file against.  It's likely that a cascade of insolvencies is going to happen in the not too distant future.  Even if those involved have personal assets, not all jurisdictions recognise the claims of overseas creditors in the case of personal insolvency.  The issue of disputed debt also complicates some potential remedies (especially low cost ones).