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You assume Pirate is smart.
You assume Pirate had a plan from the beginning.
You assume Pirate planed a fake identity out there.
You assume a lot of things.
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Instead of worrying about how to go after people like pirate, how about worrying about how stupid people are to fall for such a thing in the first place?
If you give your money to someone you never met, who won't even tell you how he is investing it, but claims unrealistic returns, than frankly, you deserve to lose your money.
+1 This post pretty much sums up the solution to the whole pirate drama. Not sure how you get around the "give your money to someone you never met" part though in the 99% of internet transactions where BTC is actually useful? If you can trust a web vendor to sell you a TV in BTC, you should be able to trust a banker (pirate) who has a network of other bankers (goat, giga, patrick, hashking, etc) using their services, not to mention the tons of representative "assets" on the main BTC exchange GLBSE. The pro-pirate posts on the forums outnumbered the con posts 10 to 1, and the cons were always ripped apart. This was not simply "give your money to someone you never met" in the general sense. Everyone trusted pirate because the long-time high post count "bankers" here that should have been "in the know" did. I don't think you can call the general population stupid on this one. I think that designation should be reserved for the pros that should have known better. Many of which will come out ahead, despite the default. You really can't see the difference? Someone is running a scam selling TV which don't exist, how much can he get away with $100, maybe $500 before someone reports him? So the level of trust should be $100 to $500. If you can trust Mr. TV with $500 you can trust him to deliver the TV. If you can't you should use escrow. However this is an entire whole different level of scam. You (and a hundreds? thousand? of other suckers) sent someone $5M in return for nothing but the promise of that he would return >$5M in the future. Don't you think the level of due diligence and verification should be a "little bit" higher when dealing with that kind of money? Do it again and I guarantee you it will end equally bad. Smart people don't hand other anonymous people millions of dollars with no verification and expect good things to happenAlso calling Pirate a "banker" is just about the stupidest thing I have heard today. What bank charter is he operating under? Oh yeah none. He isn't a banker. He is a 35 year old scumbag who had his house foreclosed, doesn't pay his bills, and had a half dozen lawsuits file against him in his short adult life. I mean lets be at least slightly objective here. You (and others collectively) gave a semi-annoymous person $5M in irreversible and very difficult to trace currency based on absolutely nothing other than his "word" he would repay it. Period. To say the investors suckers shouldn't be called stupid is just pure denial. The bolded sentence above is STUPID. STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID. There is no possible scenario where the above bolded sentence is anything but ASININELY STUPID. Not many people will ruined their rep for $100 scam, a far larger number are willing to do so $5M esecially when the marks hand it to them on a silver plater with a note that says "rob me, I'm stupid". Sorry for the harsh reality lesson but your line of thinking is just going to enable "Pirate 2.0" and we will have to hear another round of whining about how it wasn't stupid. |
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Interesting.
Looks like Mr. Shavers was having money issues.
It is labor day which is a bank holdiay. That must be the reason. I am sure the big payments are coming tomorrow. |
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Sure, I understand that people fall for them, and there is a gray zone between commonplace returns and what-sort-of-idiot-do-you-take-me-for returns where I can see myself falling for such a scam as well. What baffles me is people who still believe that BTCST wasn't a ponzi. Some of them even appear to have accepted that they will never see a single satoshi, yet they come up with alternative explanations of what could have gone wrong. These are usually accompanied by the statement that no-one can prove that it was a ponzi. Now, I am not asking for proof that it wasn't a ponzi. I am just asking for evidence. Any single scrap of evidence, however circumstantial. Is there any reason to believe that it was not a ponzi? Is there a single aspect of the scheme or of Pirate's behaviour which is atypical for a ponzi? Or is all of this wishful thinking (even from people who were allegedly not invested in BTCST)?  You assume people operate like computers and process inputs, use logic and always reach valid conclusions. People pour their hopes, dreams, reputation, and emotions into scams and that is hard to "unwind". There were victims of Madoffs who YEARS after he was arrested believed it was all some misunderstanding or clerical issue. Some thought it was some govt conspiracy to take Madoff down and their funds were simply collateral damage. All kinds of fantastical (and highly implausible) conspiracy theories. There are people still TODAY asking where is the money. Even when explained that the incoming money was paying out prior investors for decades (and a nice cut skimmed off the top by Madoff) they hold out hope that the money still "exists". While they can comprehend that Madoff was a theif/scam artist they still cling to the paper totals and can't accept that there is not some hidden bank account somewhere with all the money. As to your direct question. A bunch of reasons: 1) Some as simply in denial. If the believe it wasn't a ponzi they will get repaid and have the last laugh 2) Some accept they will never get the money but wont admit it is a ponzi because they will look stupid. So as long as they "demand proof it is a ponzi" well then they can win some kind of stalemate on the level of "nobody will ever really knows if it was a ponzi or not". 3) Some are criminally complicit. They knew it was a ponzi and encouraged others so they could profit off it. They will NEVER admit it was a ponzi. Hell if Pirate said it was a ponzi they would still admit they didn't know and come up with fantastical stories on how it *could* have been a non-ponzi. 4) Some simply want to be right. The ponzi vs ponzi "forum war" was divisive. Some people just want/need to be right even when they ended up on the losing side. You will never have 100% of people admit something even when it is obviously true. Hell there are people who won't accept that the Holocaust ever happened. There are mass graves, stories told by millions of survivors, documents, news reports, the actual concentration camps still existing and some people STILL (and NEVER will) believe it happened. There will be far less direct and physical evidence of Pirate's crimes. |
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I think most have conceded, but some are still holding out hope for the 9th and that something magical will happen. What is special about Sept 9th? Also keep in mind some of the ones saying they don't think it's a ponzi have to say that, since they took other peoples money to invest in it. Big ol can of legal worms there.
This is probably true. They will go to their graves publicly stating what they know is false. Even after the money is long gone they will claim to to believe it was a solid investment (albeit high risk which everyone knew) and it just didn't work out. |
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C-3. We will fill any ask placed at 1 bitcoin or less within a reasonable time frame. A tip for the future. "reasonable time frame" are weasel word and have no place in a contract. As the thread shows it means one thing to the issuer and completely different thing for the investor. The entire item could be removed from the contract without it changing the terms of the contract. Something like would be explicit and there would be guessing on the maximum amount of time necessary to buy back shares. C-3. We will fill any ask placed at 1 bitcoin or less within 14 days. |
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Either Mt gox or trade hill , I heard security is better @ TradeHill, I'm not sure though. To get full potential outta MtGox you will have to get verif. They req a scan of a bill and an matching ID.
Can you direct me to the signup page for Tradehill I can't seem to find it? |
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Interest payment by itself is meaningless. If you lend 100 BTC, get 20 BTC in interest and then the debtor defaults paying back 50%, 50 BTC you are looking at a 30 BTC net loss not a 20 BTC gain.
If we assume the scheme was just a ponzi then there was no profit. At best it was breakeven but likely some was wasted/stolen/spent by Pirate thus collectively investors have a net loss. Individually some investors may have a gain but others have a loss and net-net the IRS would be looking at a net reduction in revenue not a net gain.
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if all the coins are tracked and your bitcoin account is linked to your ip address....wouldnt it be easy to find the scammer or where the coins? im sorry if this is a stupid question or if its been answered before....just curious how you could possibly scam when your prints are all over it?
Your bitcoin address isn't linked to your IP address. |
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... and does not declare bankruptcy. Bankruptcy doesn't allow you to discharge the debts of a criminal enterprise. I mean if it did imagine how ineffective the law would be. Madoffs bank accounts, assets, home, personal property (down to the pants in his closet) were sold by liquidators. His wife was left with nothing except assets which weren't communal property and considered protected assets (pension, 401K, etc). The courts even overturned the homestead protection in bankruptcy protection provisions and sold his house at auctions after agreeing with the lawyers for the victims that it the entire house and everything in it should be seen as the proceeds of a criminal enterprise. I also suspect that the BST lenders are not the only creditors here. For example I would not be surprised if the IRS also has a substantial claim here over withholding taxes for interest payments to non US persons.
That would assume creditors actually got more than their principal back. If they got just their principal back there would be no gain. I doubt many creditors would be upset if they "only" got 100% of principal PLUS all interest (minus a 30% withholding by the IRS). I mean honestly at this point that would be a like getting a unicorn which shits gold coins. |
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Everything is recoverable. It all depends on how far you want to take it.
A stone does not have an unlimited amount of blood to be squeezed out of it. True but a stone may have property, stocks, bonds, pensions, property insurance, life insurance. The stone may know of other stone's (parent, family, friends, colleges) who have assets, stock bonds, pensions, life insurance, etc. Like I said it all depends on how far you are willing to take it. |
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How much do private investigators cost anyway ?
Pretty damn cheap, compared to the amount of debt that Pirate is withholding on. But how much of that debt is recoverable? Everything is recoverable. It all depends on how far you want to take it. |
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How would the network know an address hasn't been generated before?
I take my offline computer, generate a keypair and print it out on a piece of paper. How would the network "know" that address has been generated.
As far as "not been used before" that wouldn't be very useful check. A new address by default hasn't been used before so you could never send coins to a new address.
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I would put the odds of that story being legit at slightly less than Pirate's "investors" getting paid in full.
And what odds would you give that among all the scammed there is someone with enough motive and means to do s.t real? Significantly higher but it won't be the imaginary Russian Mafia Taxicab driver in the fan fic of the OP. |
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Thank you for the clarification. Sounds reasonable since play from US is in violation of your terms.
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ah, thank you two for the help! I was always under the impression that if coins were sent to a completely non-existent address, it would still leave the wallet, but later return to the sender's address.
There is no such thing as "non-existent" address. There are valid addresses and invalid addresses. If you send it to a valid address it is gone. If you try to send it to an invalid address the client/nodes/protocol/miners won't let you. |
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I would put the odds of that story being legit at slightly less than Pirate's "investors" getting paid in full.
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the 3 situations are exactly the same.
If you send coins to an INCORRECT but VALID address they are gone forever.
Bitcoin addresses have a 32 bit checksum so the odds of creating a typo which is INCORRECT but VALID is about one in 4 billion.
Still it could happen. If you are copying and pasting the odds are essentially zero (that you could drop or add an extra digit and still produce a valid address with the same checksum).
The much more common problem is doing something stupid:
For example thinking you are sending coins to yourself (i.e. your address) but copying the last outgoing address and sending a boatload of coins to someone you sent coins to before.
Obviously the network can't protect you from that.
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