From the desk of There's More Than One Nutter On This Planet:http://siliconangle.com/blog/2016/03/13/rofl-cryptsy-offers-bounty-for-the-return-of-stolen-bitcoin-in-latest-piece-of-absurd-theatrics/Just when it was thought the saga of failed Bitcoin exchange Cryptsy (Project Investors, Inc.) couldn’t get any more absurd, it has, with the founder of the company offering a reward to a hacker who is alleged to have stolen funds from the exchange.
Founder and Chief Executive Officer Paul “Big Vern” Vernon has posted a contract (pdf) titled “Cryptsy Recovery Bounty Final” on the Cryptsy website that promises to pay 1750 Bitcoin ($725,000) to “Cryptcracker,” the alleged hacker of 13,000 Bitcoin ($5.38 million) from the site should he or she return them.
The contract (we use the term loosely) also promises a further reward of 250 Bitcoin ($103,000) should the 247,000 Litecoins ($817,600) allegedly stolen be returned as well.
Vernon claimed in January that trojan malware was inserted into Cryptsy’s code by the developer of Lucky7Coin giving access to the company’s wallets, but more remarkably claimed this had occurred 18 months prior in 2014. Instead of letting customers know what had happened, they had decided to continue trading in an effort to work their way back to solvency. Even more funnily, Vernon claims to have never reported the theft to authorities, as he didn’t know to whom to report it.
Since that announcement it has since been all but confirmed that the hacking story is a complete lie, with a copy of an affidavit Vernon made to a Florida divorce court in December being revealed where he stated under oath that the exchange had been able to stay afloat thanks to fee income, but that profits had dried up, leading to the exchange’s collapse.
In his own words:
“Due to downturn in profits, not currently taking a salary, expect corporation to dissolve due to economic conditions.”
Vernon, and his now ex-wife are currently subject to a class-action lawsuit that suggests that the alleged hack is nothing more than a poorly masked ploy of their efforts to move assets away from Cryptsy before the company officially went under; of particular note, and despite the alleged hack taking place in 2014, Vernon made an all-cash purchase of a $1,374,881 waterfront mansion in Palm Beach County, Florida, in May 2015.
ROFL
Even if we pretend to believe Vernon’s claim that the site was hacked, the bounty contract is nothing more than pure theatrics because it’s highly unlikely the contract would be valid to begin with, particularly when the person to whom the “bounty” was being offered isn’t even listed properly on the contract to begin with. Cryptcracker may be a pseudonym for a group, not an individual, and even then, if they had stolen the funds, why would they want to return them? After all, it’s not as if Big Vern has reported the theft to authorities.
Perhaps what’s also a little sadder in this absurd tale is that many members of the Bitcoin press are taking this offer seriously without even the slightest bit of investigation into the background, with one actually going as far as writing:
One silver lining to the whole episode is that if this all goes well then the funds will actually be back in Cryptosy’s posession [sic]. So it’s good that the customers will get their money back, that is the most important [sic].
ROFL, it’s not going to happen.
If you’ve been a victim of Paul Vernon’s Cryptsy Bitcoin exchange scam and haven’t joined the class action lawsuit yet, contact the good folks at Wites & Kapetan, P.A. and get you name added to it.
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That happens with time and with increased audience from all over the world, it would be lower from before when it used to be a technical highly specialized forum. Consider it a part of the main stream adoptin people involved with bitcoin are talking about always.
@Gleb I ate em
I just edited my post upon figuring it on my own because I'm learned. HAHAHAEDIT: Just changed my settings. Back on time, albeit I have to do such again come next weekend here in the States. EDIT: WTF! If was today. I've been fucked up all day and didn't know it. Did you guys have a clue that I was fucked up? |
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Has this site been down the last couple hours. Looking at a few of the boards, the activity is virtually nil. Am I the only person left on the planet? If so, where did you guys hide the donuts, the ones with the holes?
EDIT: My bad (just like last year). Time zone change. That said, can I at least get a hint as to where them donuts are hidden?
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There is nothing but bitches and punks left on this forum. The quality of the threads has gone to zero. With all the censorship and strife in Bitcoin - I guess everyone quit trying to have intelligent discourse here. Every thread is the same meaningless bullshit for over 6 months now. 'How to get girls to use bitcoin'; 'do you know how I can have 1 bitcoin?'; 'Bitcoin and Porn' Lots of very dumbass bullshit.
Bitcointalk has jumped the shark.
 The new rules state that one can't merely start a "jumped the shark" thread sans an animated GIF of The Fonz jumping the shark. |
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From the desk of How Many Jim Slockney Lies Can You Count?:I really dont have alot of time for reading this thread and i apologize to those with inquiring minds for that.
Two things id like to clear up.
Me, my wife and a customer support team known as "Support Shift" were brought in to assist in Dec 2013
due to the fast growing user base after that WSJ article came out.
Me and my wife managed that business and it was a perfect ready made team of awesome agents.
Yes, me and Paul worked on afew projects over the years together but i had no idea what a bitcoin was
when we first came to Cryptsy and Bitjohn and others gave me a crash course.
Marshall. ha Bloated hot air balloon was how I visioned him right out of the gate.
He did replace our current CTO for a short time but it didnt take long for ppl to lose respect for him because
he would do things like post being co creator. (100% bullshit) This pissed off alot of employees who worked'
their ass off and knew better. He may have had some investment, but he wasnt the only one who invested abit im sure.
Marshal was more blow than go
If anyone was Co Creator it was Bitjohn. Not owner but hes been there helping Paul since it was first created.
Eventually Marshal was sent to pasture. Im not exactly sure why, but everyone was glad to see him go including me.
Currently: I am still Customer Service Manager over the agents handling tickets, our PR guy (Horus), and some
of the verifications for upgrading Tier Levels.
I do not know whats happened. All i know is it all started going bad right after we added the new Tier Level systems for KYC
requirements and the major facelift and feature additions. So I can only "assume" that this is where the problem lies.
I do know this system is an extremely large, very complicated setup and when things go wrong it can prob be tough at times to
pinpoint where a problem lies.
I pass on info to users as I get it. Thats all I can do.
I have been informed that things should begin improving soon, what that entails or means is yet to be seen.
Knowing BigVern for many years, I can attest to the fact that whatever is wrong it is not something intentional or done maliciously by him.
Hes just not that type. He works hard, has a big heart and has always tried to make things right for users.
Im sure in the end this will be no different.
Greenlion was a volunteer mod he doesn't count probably. The layoffs were devs, netadmins and compliance there was a Tier II support employee in there in CS as well. So hes most likely referring to the Tier I CS agents.
Edit: Yes Jim did all the hiring. I was asked to bring him up to speed since the interface, and company was new to him and his team.
Edit 2: I was put on payroll when Jim came to the company for that reason. Yes I worked for Jim for some time.
Edit 3: Was going to quote gleb but its too long Ill just comment. Yes your timeline is pretty accurate 6-12 months not Leroy time. Ginny was not the first accountant. The first accountant left the company about 4-5 months ago. Bryant was the first CTO replaced by Marshall Long who also left a month or two ago. Supportshift was the company that came in and took over support and later just merged in. Yes myself Mullick, Horus and Pr9me were paid all at the same time when Jim was brought in though it was as contractors for the first check or two don't remember exactly. Jim did the hiring though a few folks were already doing most of the support so no he didn't hire them. They did all work for him.
http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/ConvertTiffToPDF?storagePath=COR%5C2013%5C0131%5C44196936.tif&documentNumber=P11000090223 http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/SearchResultDetail?inquirytype=EntityName&directionType=Initial&searchNameOrder=SUPPORTSHIFT%20P110000902230&aggregateId=domp-p11000090223-d3ee05a5-b53d-4504-9ac4-3b679b9e0567&searchTerm=SUPPORT%20SHIFT&listNameOrder=SUPPORTSHIFT%20P110000902230 To date there's not a one person involved with Cryptsy that has told the truth. NOT A FUCKIN' ONE! This motherfucker, John William Hammes III aka BitJohn knew the fuckin' truth from the get-go and opted to continue the lie years later. Support Shift was dissolved approximately four months prior to Cryptsy coming online May 20, 2013. Jim Shockney supposedly joins Cryptsy in October 2013. Ironically, Jeff Ownby of BFL used to work for John's father setting up a distribution in Russia for some sink thingy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KuRDb2OZaEGleb you post here for free yes? So yeah I volunteered just like your volunteering to solve the evils of the world. As far as picking coins yep I did that as a moderator at the time. There were not a million to pick from I maintained the list. The list if you spent some time you would find the old one I emphasized no pre-mine fair releases. I did it because I liked crypto. You post here because you I assume like crypto.
Unless your saying your a paid shill and doing it for money. I do not think saying I volunteered is a reach. I will also say prior to the time I was paid the company didn't make much money. Vern had a side job.... Companies have costs the costs ate the majority of the revenues in the first year.
Cryptsy started on May 20, 2013. For the first year, you were an unpaid moderator because Cryptsy didn't yet have enough support to pay out salaries after having to pay overhead. This is up to circa Q2, 2014. Backing up to Q3, 2013, Cryptsy was overwhelmed with users due to the run-up of bitcoins, in turn, myriad altcoins, the viable ones (mostly, supposedly, at the time) trading on Cryptsy. This took enormous personnel to handle, yet you're saying that nobody at Cryptsy save for an accountant was paid for their services during the first year of operation? This doesn't even begin to make sense. Prior to the run-up just mullick and I worked support and did it as volunteers. The next person hired after accountant was the first developer/CTO. Im really not concerned if you think it makes sense its a fact. The site only had 30k account after the first year. EDIT: The support scaled pretty quickly when the support company was merged. Jshock and his crew joined the team. Mullick, and I trained them. Mullick moved to Florida, and started getting a paycheck. I joined after that. The CTO was Bryant Ibana: http://web.archive.org/web/20131102234026/https://www.cryptsy.com/pages/about https://www.linkedin.com/in/horus-thesun-48a56241 Don't forget that Horus was hired on in October, 2013, while you were still a moderator. You were still a moderator, supposedly, when you and Mullick trained the support team. I can only guess as to how much arm-twisting Paul Vernon had to do for you to finally start accepting a paycheck from the then-now in-the-black Cryptsy oppose to performing tremendous duties sans pay up to fully getting compensated. Horus was also a moderator at the time he, Prime and myself all started getting paid the same day shortly after Mullick. So yeah your tracking now. Yes Bryant was the first CTO. EDIT: It wasn't my only job unlike everyone else I had a job. I also was not available for 9-5 work.
Im not saying your the bad guy, but at this point gleb how bout letting us try to get the coins back for users without all your extra nonsense?
As far as what was told to users by myself, horus and others who communicated to users: We were not informed as to why there were problems getting coins out until late 2015. We could only go by what little info was being passed to us.
Im not here to justify how the stolen coins were handled and Paul agrees that it should have been handled differently at the time.
However, the coins were stolen and are currently in process of hopefully being returned.
So lets hope for the best on that so that we can make alot of ppl happy and go from there.
December 22, 2015: Jim didn't know what's happening. March 13, 2016: We knew late 2015. Jim was hired on in October 2013, not in December 2013. Jim said that he came directly from Support Shift with a perfect ready made team of awesome agents in Q3 2013, albeit the company was defunct in January 2013, with the awesome agents sitting around with their 'library of thumbs' up their asses waiting till the end of the year when Paul Vernon will put them back on the payroll. Current: Jim Slockney now wants you to believe that I'm a fuckin' nut case in sprite of the truism I penned above, and that he's the savior for all those that lost millions. My response? GO FUCK YOURSELF, JIM SLOCKNEY!
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Hello I have offered to give big Vern the identity of the person that committed the theft against cryptsy and help them be put to justice
So Cryptcracker appears to know the identity of the person who stole the coins and is asking for a % back once recovered. He does not have some magical way to brute force the private keys. Now it appears that he is not divulging the identity but acting as an intermediary most likely threatening the thief with exposure if they don't comply. I imagine the delay is attempting to communicate with the person holding the coin. Cryptcracker is putting a lot of trust in Paul that once the funds are recovered he will get paid. He is attempting to use public pressure and exposure of a "contract" as leverage. This exposes a naiveness on his part as it would have been better to have BTC initially transferred to an address under his control and sent the remainder back to Paul. It is conceivable that Cryptcracker could be wrong as to the identity of the thief. If Mr. Cracker has the kind of leverage you're suggesting wouldn't it be easier to just extort the thief instead of involving BigVern and other risks? The whole scheme of returning all coins to BigVern and then expecting the bounty within 3 hours makes no more sense than BigVern getting hacked, not telling anyone, buying a fancy house etc. Which is to say - smoke and mirrors. IMHO. Paul Vernon: Fuck my wife and kids while I now live in China with a new piece of Chinese ass, but I'm going to do everything possible to make sure that Cryptsy's users are whole again because I love them more than anything in the whole wide world. Makes sense to me. Lock the thread! |
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Hello I have offered to give big Vern the identity of the person that committed the theft against cryptsy and help them be put to justice
So Cryptcracker appears to know the identity of the person who stole the coins and is asking for a % back once recovered. He does not have some magical way to brute force the private keys. Now it appears that he is not divulging the identity but acting as an intermediary most likely threatening the thief with exposure if they don't comply. I imagine the delay is attempting to communicate with the person holding the coin. Cryptcracker is putting a lot of trust in Paul that once the funds are recovered he will get paid. He is attempting to use public pressure and exposure of a "contract" as leverage. This exposes a naiveness on his part as it would have been better to have BTC initially transferred to an address under his control and sent the remainder back to Paul. It is conceivable that Cryptcracker could be wrong as to the identity of the thief. Here are the transaction details from the Bitcoin wallet:
https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/0c07e0bec1002bd2
As you can see, 2014-07-29 13:17:36 is when the event occurred. A very interesting fact here, however, is that those Bitcoins have not moved once since this happened. This gives rise to the possibility they can be recovered. In fact, I’m offering a bounty of 1000 BTC for information which leads to the recovery of the stolen coins.
If you happen to be the perpetrator of this crime, and want to send the coins back no questions asked, then you can simply send them to this address:
1KNi4E4MTsF7gfuPKPNAbrZWQvtdQBTAAa Supposedly, Paul Vernon wasn't aware of the additional 500 BTC taken from Cryptsy, pushing the time of the event back a few hours. For the past couple years, Paul has acted nothing less than a snake, but we're now to believe that he's operating on the up-and-up thanks to a tweet sent back in January of this year. Seriously, what part of Paul Vernon and Jim Slockney being pieces of pig shit don't you understand? |
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why Paul no reply to my email or pm me ? having second thoughts .
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=93918Name: bigvern
Posts: 100
Activity: 100
Position: Member
Date Registered: April 06, 2013, 09:29:52 AM
Last Active: February 11, 2016, 08:18:31 AM May I suggest try sending a PM a few seconds prior to February 11, 2016, 08:18:31 AM (CST)? What have the authorities said about this deal? Or about anything really? What have you done to get the coins back besides sign a contract written by a random person who sent you a tweet? We do, however, fully comply with our Federal MSB requirements. This includes filing SAR (Suspicous Activity Reports) and CTR (Currency Transaction Reports). We also have one of the most extensive KYC programs in the industry, scrub accounts against the OFAC list, and perform Transaction Monitoring. At a federal level, we are compliant.
Federal compliance is the only claim we have ever made and will make.
https://www.fincen.gov/If a weekend, permission is hereby granted to form partnerships and draw up contracts with hackers if the stolen amount is less than U$20M. |
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https://www.docdroid.net/HRCBL8f/cryptsyrecoverybountyfinal.pdf.html4. The recovery of the Bitcoin is the primary concern so it will receive attention ahead of the recovery of other coins. The recovered Bitcoin is to be sent to First
Party owned Bitcoin address: 1Mr4WJMQCXs9WtvHTwafQnXbtSXCMc9eSr within a maximum of 3 hours of receiving the Bitcoin the First Party is to
send 1750 Bitcoin or %13.46154 of the recovered funds to Second Party
owned Bitcoin address: 1H9utcaSkwstmP4qFgoE3HyBjkM1oeFTLK Hacker: Hey, Paul, are you sleeping? I wanna make sure you're awake when I sent the millions back so that you can uphold your end of the deal in paying the bounty within 3 hours. Paul: You're such a fair dude!
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When the piss-poor excuse of 'hackers stole our BTC' was followed by 'we'll give a 1.5k+ BTC reward to whomever returns it', I knew this was all an inside job by the pathological liar BigFern. He (or someone he's working with) will simply return all the funds in question, and make off with the rest (aka 'bounty').
This is pathetic....looks like Vern is now 1750BTC richer, and no one will bat an eyelid.
 "Yeahhhhhhhh! Offer a 1K BTC bounty to the crypto community for information leading to recovery of ~13K BTC, ignore all viable offers by going dark, but come months later to accept a 1,750 BTC bounty by a complete unknown." |
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It sounds like this was just a hoax. I don't think they fooled many people though. It was probably cryptsy that did it as a distraction.
Paul: Hello, Jim, Paul here. Jim: What's up, man? Paul: Dude, I have over U$10M and I'm bored. Suggestions? Jim: Hmmm. That's tough being a Saturday and all. Hey, let's fire up Cracksy or whatever you him. Paul: Dude, that'll be so much fun. Fuck with the people we've stolen from. Jim: Cool! I'm not doin' much myself with Ginny out back fuck the pigs and all. Let's roll! Paul: Wait, what happens with Gleb joins the convo? Jim: Sec, while I check my word Rolodex. Got it! I'll play the "Nutter" card. Paul: Excellent! Meanwhile, find a convincing anagram for Lorie Ann Nettles so to introduce another character in our Funsy. Jim: You are so bad! |
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Don't get it. Why would any hacker steal coins and leave them sat in the same account for months, just to hand them back for a percentage of the stolen coin? In those months, those stolen coins could have been sent through numerous addresses, coin mixers, exchanged etc.. making it very difficult to trace. Smells like a scam to hide a scam.
Wish I could answer that myself. At this point were not holding our breath on this, but it was presented to us in a somewhat believable way so Paul decided to give the guy a chance to prove himself. So far nothing Wouldn't it be rational to claim that Zhou Tong is one person, and Chen Jinghai is another?
There's no reason whatsoever to involve a second person called "Chen" in anything. The simplest explanation that fits all the known facts (including the LR-selling you, just like Zhou, seem to skip over) requires only ... Zhou.  |
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why Paul no reply to my email or pm me ? having second thoughts .
send an email to reward@cryptsy.com and show proof you have the coins. Then paul will talk to you Cryptsy_Jim, So this agreement with Cryptcracker was a scam right? I think it's safe for us to assume that. Not counting it out just yet. Will give it a little time. But as of yet he has produced nothing. We have to explore any "possibles". Maybe hes the hack. Maybe he knows the hack and is cutting a deal with him. Who knows. We just want the coins back so we can make things right with users. The title of the post is "Funds to be recovered immediately once deal finalized". I don't think this is immediately. Wait till they define Funds. I'm leanin' toward Funsy. |
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I too am negotiating a contract with Big Vern and Stinky Long, for a bounty for the resurrection and return of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Despite all rumors and evidence to the contrary, Big Vern not only has Gods-like powers but is accessible and open to negotiations of any sort. Stay tuned while I make history right before your very eyes...
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What if they told you there was no hack?
The updated lawsuit reads: “Upon information and belief…the millions of dollars in customer assets that “disappeared” in June 2014 are not missing; they were taken by the CRYPTSY Defendants… to pay for their own business and personal expenses, including all-cash-purchase of a $1,374,881 waterfront mansion in Palm Beach County, Florida in March 2015.
As cynical as I am about the "hack" itself, this money couldn't have come from the bitcoin which has been sitting in these wallets all this time. It's obviously untouched. Of course there is no telling how much they made in profits over this time..they may well have enough to cover this 11,300 in any case. Profits from what? running the exchange for several years But ran in red for the past several months. There were layoffs, office closure and other cost cutting actions taken just to try to keep it open. Theres been no trading and withdrawals are at minimum right now so im not sure how you figure there's profits Exactly how is a party commissioned to ONLY handle support so versed in the profitability of an entity he's under contract with? Recall, according to BitJohn, you and your team were hired and trained by BJ to handle support, with you and your team coming from another entity owned by Paul Vernon, this taking place circa Q3, 2013. Ironically, said support entity was declared defunct in January 2013 by Paul Vernon which this nutter - ME - has fully documented. |
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What if they told you there was no hack?
The updated lawsuit reads: “Upon information and belief…the millions of dollars in customer assets that “disappeared” in June 2014 are not missing; they were taken by the CRYPTSY Defendants… to pay for their own business and personal expenses, including all-cash-purchase of a $1,374,881 waterfront mansion in Palm Beach County, Florida in March 2015.
Try July 2014, not June 2014. If you were a lawyer, you wouldn't be making these silly mistakes. If I was a lawyer I'd have fancier shoes. ...that I would kiss.  BTW, I am well aware that it was the silly lawyer that mistakenly on several occasions penned June instead of July on the docs now in the hands of a judge. |
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What if they told you there was no hack?
The updated lawsuit reads: “Upon information and belief…the millions of dollars in customer assets that “disappeared” in June 2014 are not missing; they were taken by the CRYPTSY Defendants… to pay for their own business and personal expenses, including all-cash-purchase of a $1,374,881 waterfront mansion in Palm Beach County, Florida in March 2015.
As cynical as I am about the "hack" itself, this money couldn't have come from the bitcoin which has been sitting in these wallets all this time. It's obviously untouched. Of course there is no telling how much they made in profits over this time..they may well have enough to cover this 11,300 in any case.
Before I said I was looking to get 30% of the recovered funds as a bounty but now I have changed to a more fair 3/4 of profits.
Notice Jim Slockney didn't ask that question when it was penned in the OP of this thread. Cryptcracker: I demand a percentage of the profits. Jim and Paul: Game on! We'll draw up the contract. BlindMayorBitcorn: Blah, blah, blah, profits. Jim: What profits? |
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What if they told you there was no hack?
The updated lawsuit reads: “Upon information and belief…the millions of dollars in customer assets that “disappeared” in June 2014 are not missing; they were taken by the CRYPTSY Defendants… to pay for their own business and personal expenses, including all-cash-purchase of a $1,374,881 waterfront mansion in Palm Beach County, Florida in March 2015.
Try July 2014, not June 2014. If you were a lawyer, you wouldn't be making these silly mistakes. |
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I have to admit that I would've had to concocted a lie as to why I didn't blow my brains out if satoshis were indeed moved. Something along the lines... Some may ask why I didn't blow my brains out after satoshis were moved, and the answer is that I just didn’t know what happened, didn’t want to cause panic to my fellow Bitcoiners, and were unsure exactly how to blow my brains out. At one time I had a open communication with the Secret Blowing Brains Out Society on an unrelated matter, but I think we all know what happened with them – so they were no longer an entity I could resort to for this. Recently I attempted to contact its Miami Chapter, but they instead directed me to the IC4Lights website. I’ve not heard anything from them, probably because it's a Sunday. |
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