Also this thread, which links to pdfs of government documents related to the closure.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=181458.0

Regardless of Simon's intentions, there's a money-laundering investigation under way and that is going to affect his ability to do anything at all with the funds in question.  That money isn't moving until the authorities say it can be moved.

It depends how many TH they can ship and how quickly.  Whether it ships as Jalapenos or Mini-rigs doesn't really matter.  If they - or any other ASIC vendor - can get significant hashing power into the hands of their customers quickly, it's a game changer.

I'd be less worried about customs than I would be about when Singles are actually going to be manufactured by BFL.  Customs is the least of your worries until Singles actually exist.

Not really.  I've ordered stuff from the US on a Saturday and had it delivered in Sydney by Thursday and that was just normal express, not priority - and that was on a public holiday weekend (mind you, the tracking info was telling me it was still in customs even after it had been delivered).

I understand the reference to national pot day but because our date format is d/m and we don't generally speak dates as number/number unless we're giving our birth date or something, I don't make those associations automatically.  Anything which uses American dating as a reference point always seems a bit pretentious to me when it's being used by non-Americans.

Guess I should have made this thread self-moderated...

You poor innocent boy.  Trendon Shavers is a case in point.

Scammers have no hesitation in ruining the reputations of those close to them.  Hopefully people using Ripple will be careful about who they vouch for (although based on the level of trust people extend to near strangers on social networks, I'm not so sure about that).

I still have trouble wrapping my head around 9/11 meaning 11 September, never mind 420 as code for 20 April.

You can get Zhou's location by running a paid ASIC search on NameTerrific.  That's how I found out that he's the beneficial owner of 70,000 $1 shares in the company (which was, as he said it would be, incorporated on his 18th birthday).  There's also no special protection available to Zhou under Australian law if he committed criminal offences from Australia while he was 17 (as he was when the Bitcoinica "intrusions" occurred).

You might want to link to one of Josh's posts.  Your link goes to the top of a page which starts with a post by me.

I'll get the popcorn ready.

You should probably learn to use your shift key if you plan to issue media releases.

Australians concerned about how Bitcoin will be taxed can ask for an individual ruling from the ATO.  If you have an individual ruling, the ATO is bound to honour it for that financial year even if the ATO's eventual decision on how to treat something for tax purposes in general is at odds with that ruling.  They basically have no recourse against you if they get it wrong (bear in mind that Australia works on self-assessment so the onus is usually in the taxpayer to get it right).

Different taxation issues will arise for different Bitcoin users.  Following the advice of a tax agent does not protect you from liability if your tax agent gets it wrong.

Their bank account is being closed - something which has happened to exchanges so often in the past that they should have had a contingency plan.

They could literally have Googled "crisis management" or "damage control" and come up with a better plan of action than the one they've implemented.

I understand that not everyone has experience in handling these situations (although an intrusion isn't just a possibility for these services, it's a likelihood) but there's absolutely no excuse for not having a disaster plan for them, and there's especially no excuse for making people pull teeth to get information.  Yes, people were able to track down the real life identities of those behind Paymium - but they should not have had to.  Those people should have been very visible and providing a constant flow of information to users.

The way this incident has been handled doesn't inspire confidence in their ability to handle a critical incident with their paid services.

You should offer to buy Berkshire Hathaway shares instead.  They're bound to crash any day now.

You do realise that staff are not necessarily officers of a company regardless of their inflated job titles.  If you've managed to get 4 people to admit that they're directors of BFL, then more power to you - but you still have to prove more than incompetence on the part of BFL before you can pierce the corporate veil and go after their personal assets (assuming they're not smart enough to have made their assets judgement-proof).  

The reason why such litigation is so rarely pursued is because it's so damned expensive and the prospects of recovering meaningful amounts after legal expenses are so small, especially when multiple jurisdictions are involved.

Motives aside, I'm not sure how the OP can't lose money on this.

If he buys people's BFL "debt" now and BFL delivers, they're going to deliver to the people who ordered the units, not the OP.

If BFL gets to the point where they start refusing refunds, then it's unlikely they'll have any assets which can be recovered by unsecured creditors in a lawsuit.  I'm not even sure about how customers would go about legally assigning their interest in a "debt" which isn't yet due (it's not a debt until such time as a refund request isn't honoured).

What's to stop someone from selling their BFL debt to the OP now and getting a refund from BFL or taking delivery of their unit and making themselves and easy 10%?  BFL's under no obligation to honour any agreements made between their customers and third parties in respect of ASIC orders.

How is the OP even going to confirm that someone hasn't already cancelled their order and received a refund?  I seriously doubt BFL is going to share such information with the OP.

FTFY

There are sellers cancelling orders all over the place on SR at the moment because they're losing money on the volatility.