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1  Alternate cryptocurrencies / Altcoin Discussion / Re: POLKADOT - "The backbone of decentralized internet or the so called Web 3.0" on: October 23, 2020, 02:10:08 PM
No.
2  Economy / Computer hardware / Re: [ANN] Blockchain Innovation Announces the Release of the BitTeller ATM on: July 12, 2016, 08:54:53 PM
Why would [we] I help people get a license that isn't needed for everyone?

Our base offering provides for a machine which can be used in several places with no licensing whatsoever *Do not construe this as legal advice and ask a competent attorney before acting* Our Texas attorneys advised us that an Individual or Business who is selling their own coins does not require MSB licensing.    This is how our system was modeled.   The ATM's can (again pending your attorneys verdict) be setup at stores, bars, shops, kiosks around Texas as well as other locations in the US without licensing concerns.  

This may be why you are so confused.   Bitcoin ATM's designed for ease of ownership and operation as well as affordable and portable bitcoin ATM's have not been around for a long time.  

Great questions though, keep them coming.

Interesting, I'd assume that you got that response recently? I built a Bitcoin ATM a couple years ago, and it was only explicitly legal to operate in two or three states at the time. Not trying to threadcrap, just honestly interested in how the laws have changed. Two years ago, demo models weren't allowed to be powered on in New York, couldn't be operated in 28 or so states at the time, and was a gray area in the rest minus a couple. If your findings have shown more favorable legal responses, that would be an interesting indicator of judicial awareness of Bitcoin.

Either way, by watching the video, I know the hardware in it, approximate production costs, software to some extent, etc. There shouldn't be any problems with security/counterfeit bills or anything of that nature, and the price is pretty decent.

Thanks Salty!  Glad to hear our pricing is on point.  It was difficult to find a good price point and yes the acceptance rate and counterfeit detection was a big part of choosing components and is a big part of the units cost.   

On the regulation front it is partially new regulations and clarifications by states and mostly the way these ATM's operate when in standalone mode. 

The Texas example comes from the premise that an individual can sell cryptocurrencies which they own without the burden of financial regulation (obviously to certain extents and limits).   In standalone mode our machines DO NOT purchase coins from an exchange which allows them to operate as an automated way for companies and individuals to sell coins which they own complying with rulings in many jurisdictions (I only have received legal advice regarding Texas).   

Of course the distributed management and wallet control systems we offer as extended services can purchase through exchanges and control a lot of coin loading unloading functions.  This service is just not needed or included in the base units making them ideal for individuals and small companies who get the OK from their OWN attorneys to operate these in approved jurisdictions.

Most of our current inquiries and most of our pre-release inquiries are for bulk sales and international sales as just like you said most ATM's are not legal to operate in the US without licensing and in some places even with licensing you can't operate them.   This was one of the major reasons for creating the machines we did.

*Again nothing here is intended expressed or implied as legal advice.   Seek the counsel of a competent attorney in your jurisdiction. *
3  Economy / Computer hardware / Re: [ANN] Blockchain Innovation Announces the Release of the BitTeller ATM on: July 12, 2016, 06:00:32 PM
I am confused

I can see that.

are you in business with Jonah Dorman? 

I am not.

Aren't both of you guys Paycoin peeps?

I am one person not "you guys" I am also not made of marshmallows and sugar.

Are you aware that ATM's for Bitcoin have been around for a long time?

Yes.

Also, do you guys help people get the MSB license etc needed to use the machines in the USA?

Why would [we] I help people get a license that isn't needed for everyone?

Our base offering provides for a machine which can be used in several places with no licensing whatsoever *Do not construe this as legal advice and ask a competent attorney before acting* Our Texas attorneys advised us that an Individual or Business who is selling their own coins does not require MSB licensing.    This is how our system was modeled.   The ATM's can (again pending your attorneys verdict) be setup at stores, bars, shops, kiosks around Texas as well as other locations in the US without licensing concerns.   

This may be why you are so confused.   Bitcoin ATM's designed for ease of ownership and operation as well as affordable and portable bitcoin ATM's have not been around for a long time.   

Great questions though, keep them coming.
4  Economy / Computer hardware / [ANN] Blockchain Innovation Announces the Release of the BitTeller ATM on: July 11, 2016, 08:37:01 PM
The World’s Most Affordable Bitcoin ATM

Austin, Texas (July 7) – Blockchain Innovation, announced today the official release of their highly anticipated Bitcoin ATM, the BitTeller. With the growing popularity of cryptocurrency; developing and producing the BitTeller was a no brainier for blockchain Innovation. The BitTeller is a small but powerful Crypto­ATM system designed to provide a safe and simple way to buy Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The BitTeller is portable and easy to move to different locations, but also provides multiple methods for securing it permanently.

At a time when consumers and business owners are reluctant to remove the banking institution from the process, the BitTeller ATM is being released to the cryptocurrency industry.

How does the BitTeller work? The ATM owner loads the BitTeller’s wallet to a desired amount. They can then put the BitTeller in their place of business, home, or meeting hall. It is then ready for friends, customers, or anyone to purchase coins with cash. At the end of the day, the owners can remove the bills and reload the system as needed. A notification system is also available to alert the owner via email for issues such as:
low balance, system errors, and daily status reports BitTeller updates its’ data every two minutes from multiple exchanges to make sure pricing remains accurate. BitTeller also allows ATM owners to customize their pricing by adjusting how much they earn with each purchase.

“After months of development, prototypes, and testing, we are proud to introduce the BitTeller ATM to the cryptocurrency industry” said Blockchain Innovation CEO, Jonah Dorman. “We strived to design an ATM that is affordable to even the smallest businesses or individual. I believe we have achieved that, and delivered a system that both users and owners will find simple to use, and most importantly, safe.”

About Blockchain Innovation: Blockchain Innovation is a leader in large mining operations, coin development, hardware sales and more for Bitcoin, Litecoin, and other alt­coins. In business since 2015, Blockchain Innovation comprises of individuals with many years of experience in all kinds of development roles across multiple industries. To visit and learn more please visit https://bitteller.io





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgAHaiUryBw
5  Economy / Service Discussion / Re: GAW / Josh Garza discussion Paycoin XPY CPIG BTCLend xpyerr.ALWAYS MAKE MONEY :) on: June 21, 2015, 04:11:13 AM








6  Economy / Service Discussion / Re: GAW / Josh Garza discussion Paycoin XPY CPIG BTCLend xpyerr.ALWAYS MAKE MONEY :) on: June 21, 2015, 04:08:23 AM

How exactly do you illegally hack legally obtained and fully publicly published data?   Please 'slain?
7  Economy / Service Discussion / Re: GAW / Josh Garza discussion Paycoin XPY CPIG BTCLend xpyerr.ALWAYS MAKE MONEY :) on: June 11, 2015, 03:12:42 AM
My account was locked up due to 2FA. It is the exact 2FA key that I have setup on Authy previously, and have logged in numerous times. It suddenly stopped working recently.
Dropped a ticket to support, and the only reply I got was the automated email replying me that my ticket has been received.

userid: zenrance

You have officially been Paycoined.





Well, I assume most of us here were "paycoined". The good thing for me was that I have already mitigated my risks and wrote it off in my books.
It doesn't hurt if I try some luck to move my coins else where right?

Not me. Swing and a miss. Buy another ticket and try again.

 In the case of your current dilemma , maybe try sucking real soft and moving your head back and forth rapidly and MAYBE someone associated with the scam will allow you to access your nickels that were supposed to be $20 bills.

If you are so feeble minded that you can not figure out that this lockout is an obvious attempt to mitigate and spread out the amount of coin dumpage after coins are released from Hashtakers in a week I feel sorry for you.

I'm very tempted to agree with PR on that point.

It seems convenient that just before the mass coin/staker release Authy was replaced and after any 3 failed 2FA attempts accounts are permanently locked until manually unlocked.  That mixed with zero support contacts makes no sense for any online system.
8  Economy / Service Discussion / Re: GAW / Josh Garza discussion Paycoin XPY CPIG BTCLend xpyerr.ALWAYS MAKE MONEY :) on: June 10, 2015, 04:29:46 PM

You were supposed to wait until he built up the new profile with a bunch of friends and content before releasing it Smiley
9  Economy / Service Discussion / Re: BTC Lend Compromised - Your linked coinbase account at RISK! on: June 10, 2015, 03:12:10 PM
https://talk.paycoin.com/discussion/1393/my-experience-with-btclend-a-tale-of-loans-staking-hacks-and-headache#latest
https://archive.is/yuq4b

@CeForce Community Selected Moderator, PayCoin Talk Founder, Team Paycoin Member

My experience with BTCLend. A tale of loans, staking, hacks, and headache.

Quote
My BTC Lend LLC, www.btclend.org Experience:

The company BTC Lend LLC organized in Delaware file # 5650922
CEO Carmelo Millian
Registered MSB via FinCEN: 31000064289192 for Money transmitter and Other.
BTCLend provides Peer 2 Peer, bankless, virtual currency loans and related services. Through their web platform www.btclend.org. The company holds customer deposits, loans virtual currencies to its users, allows its users to loan virtual currencies to each other, as well as other virtual currency related services.

Loans/Registration/Payments
I had a few problems with registration, and then some issues with my documents being approved for the account and lending verification. Carmelo generally took care of them but it was sort of a pain to get my account verified to a high enough level in order to have a decent reputation to start out.

A reputation loan is a non-collateralized loan given from BTC Lend or one of its users to another of its users. Reputation loans use a scoring model or algorithm based on a user's reputation score. The score is based on things such as identification provided, previous history, and presence in the community as well as other factors.

I had my first reputation loan funded Jan 24 for 0.15 BTC. It doesn't seem to stand out as having any issues. I paid the loan back a few days later to build my reputation score. I had to link my coinbase account every time I wanted to make a transaction, and disable coinbase two factor authentication (2FA) for the transaction then enable it again or it wouldn't go through.

My second reputation loan was for for 0.95 BTC I made the First payment of 0.34754167 BTC a couple of days early, it never registered on my account then showed late and resulted in my reputation score going down.

I made the next payment this time on the day it was due. Also showed as late, resulting in losing more reputation score through no fault of my own. I had to email BTCLend CEO Carmelo Millian directly with all of the payment information and it took several emails for him to fix the issue with my account and reputation/profile.

Then I made a larger loan request for 2 BTC (~$500 USD). It was funded and again I needed to manually authorize the coinbase API, disable Coinbase 2FA, make the withdraw, re-enable 2FA. I made my payments on time etc. eventually decided that I didn't want to deal with the payment system anymore, so I paid off my loan off entirely early just to be done.

Staking
Paycoin, symbol XPY, is a virtual currency created based off of the Peercoin source code. While the original virtual currency Bitcoin is based of Proof-of-Work which requires vast computational power to generate new coins Peercoin and paycoin are based on Proof-of-Stake which requires a user to have stake or an investment in the coin in order to generate new coins. Staking is the systematic process of generating new coins. BTCLend began offering a "staking wallet" or "staking service" for Paycoin.

In the meantime as the XPY staking wallet launched I moved the bulk (at that time) of my XPY holdings to BTCLend to stake. I had very few if any issues technically speaking during that time.

As time went on and I saw ideas like LendCoin (LCN), a virtual currency with a guaranteed $1 floor value, come and go watching how BTCLend grew I became more and more uncomfortable that they were good stewards of my deposits.

On May 20 I submitted a ticket requesting that my XPY be unlocked and that my account be deleted. I looked for any TOS I could find and the one I found had no mention of unlocking the staked XPY or any mention of penalty.

After 6 days of no response I emailed BTCLend CEO Carmelo Millian directly, asking for a resolution. He then informed me that he could unlock my coins, for a 20% penalty.

I still can't afford to take a 300 XPY hit, so I decided I'll just deal with it until July when they unlock anyways.

Little did I know the Coinbase API was still actually active on my account, somehow it managed to work perfectly in the end.

On May 29 I woke up to a couple of emails from coinbase that I wasn't exactly expecting:

"On May 29, 2015 you purchased 4.0000 BTC for $958.01 USD from *Bankname* - Bank *****last4.
Those bitcoins are now available in your My Wallet account!"

Followed Shortly By:

"You just sent 4.0000 BTC (worth $946.00 USD) to 1JYprFYWXWsJ2c3YFAztoX5WHoPwJQh6s3.
Attached message:
Funded by Transfer with ID: 556883126c32f9273100009b"

I immediately contacted Coinbase about my account being compromised. Given that I had 2FA my initial reaction was one of confusion and great concern. I then followed up with my bank to let them know that there was a purchase coming that was fraudulent as a result of my coinbase account being compromised.

As I calmed down over the next few minutes I started working through how the 2fa could have been bypassed. My phone had no new texts with Authy requests for new devices, as I looked at my Coinbase account further and checked the API access to my account there was that lone entry from BTCLend. The one that never worked to begin with, active with full access to my coinbase account.

After disabling it I then again contacted Coinbase and let them know I was fairly certain I knew how it happened (they had emailed me in the meantime asking if I knew about BTCLend). They also mentioned that since this was an API I authorized I was basically out of luck. I also know that if I initiated a fraud dispute with my bank over this I would lose my coinbase account. Not something I'm exactly keen on.

I then contacted Carmelo. And let him know that my personal bank account had been hit for $1,000 dollars. On BTCLendtalk a thread had been created https://btclendtalk.org/topic/251/coinbase-hacked where a user had mentioned himself and another person had the same 4 btc taken from their coinbase via the API.

Carmelo then posted, https://btclendtalk.org/topic/252/our-coinabse-api-was-compromised-solved, that there was a compromise and that no customer coins had been compromised. The full message regarding no customer funds compromised was later erased with no explanation given as to why. Despite that thread being active and 3 users (myself being one of the three) reporting that we in fact had coins compromised, and we were also BTCLend customers. It wasn't until he was told directly by others in a call that coins had been compromised and he needed to fix his post did he do so. In reality thousands of XPY were taken and over 25 BTC.

Carmelo then promised to pay me back, but not until the following Friday June 5th. In the meantime, My house payment was due June 1 and the payment had already been sent/authorized. My car payment was due June 1 and had already been sent/authorized.

As promised on June 5.

"You just received 4.0000 BTC (worth $899.44 USD) from an external bitcoin account."

By the time I was paid back BTC had lost value and the amount I was paid was worth almost $50 dollars less as the funds came directly out of my checking account.

So to say that this would be a financial problem would be putting it lightly. I had to borrow 4 BTC from a very generous friend and initiate a sell immediately on my coinbase account (after I finally got it unlocked)

***Continued in next post****

Quote
My sob story:
My wife and I live on a fairly tight budget. I'm a stay at home dad who got full-on garza'd (An alleged international con-man accused of defrauded 1,000's of virtual currencies investors of tens of millions of dollars). We live generally on the edge and the first of the month is always close as most of our payments hit around that time. Had I not been able to immediately borrow the money I would have had a late house payment, a late car payment and certainly a hit on my credit. The best part. June 5th is my anniversary so as if it did suck enough we almost had to cancel our weekend plans to take our son camping.

I have again asked that my coins be unlocked, and without penalty. I feel like it's the least they can do for my trouble. Generally my experience has been nothing but, at the very least a constant inconvenience. It's fairly apparent as time has gone by that BTCLend is playing fast and loose with not only security, but customer coins.

His initial response was to tell me that Coinbase had been hacked and that he was covering his customers because it was the right thing to do.

"Just so you know, The Coinbase hack was not only on BTCLend customers. We just went ahead and covered our customers because it’s the right thing to do. Good Luck."

I reached out to Coinbase using my existing ticket related to this incident as I hadn't heard anything regarding Coinbase being comprimised: Thje response from Coinbase support closed with this:

"The unauthorized transactions were created using only the API key which you affirmed was used for BTCLend. Whomever created these transactions required access to the API key, and at this time we have no indications that our customer’s API keys are vulnerable."

Carmelo has agreed and asked his developer to unlock my coins. I will be withdrawing all my holdings from BTCLend when they are available. I will be requesting my account be closed my data be deleted. He has now informed me that the coins are locked as collateral and asked if I still have an active loan. (I don't). One thing after another, after another.

I generally don't post often or anything of substance. I'm not really one to make public posts about individuals or companies, especially after getting GAW'd as hard as I have. I feel like it's important for me to share my experience as I've been a BTCLend user since nearly the beginning. I've experienced real loss as a result of BTCLend, the stress on my family alone over this last issue has been enough to make all of it not worth it. Knowing that others out there will continue to experience what I have bothers me enough to make people aware of what I've dealt with and the loss and headache I've endured.
10  Economy / Service Discussion / Re: Checkout the latest BTCLend feature available now! on: June 10, 2015, 03:12:02 PM
https://talk.paycoin.com/discussion/1393/my-experience-with-btclend-a-tale-of-loans-staking-hacks-and-headache#latest
https://archive.is/yuq4b

@CeForce Community Selected Moderator, PayCoin Talk Founder, Team Paycoin Member

My experience with BTCLend. A tale of loans, staking, hacks, and headache.

Quote
My BTC Lend LLC, www.btclend.org Experience:

The company BTC Lend LLC organized in Delaware file # 5650922
CEO Carmelo Millian
Registered MSB via FinCEN: 31000064289192 for Money transmitter and Other.
BTCLend provides Peer 2 Peer, bankless, virtual currency loans and related services. Through their web platform www.btclend.org. The company holds customer deposits, loans virtual currencies to its users, allows its users to loan virtual currencies to each other, as well as other virtual currency related services.

Loans/Registration/Payments
I had a few problems with registration, and then some issues with my documents being approved for the account and lending verification. Carmelo generally took care of them but it was sort of a pain to get my account verified to a high enough level in order to have a decent reputation to start out.

A reputation loan is a non-collateralized loan given from BTC Lend or one of its users to another of its users. Reputation loans use a scoring model or algorithm based on a user's reputation score. The score is based on things such as identification provided, previous history, and presence in the community as well as other factors.

I had my first reputation loan funded Jan 24 for 0.15 BTC. It doesn't seem to stand out as having any issues. I paid the loan back a few days later to build my reputation score. I had to link my coinbase account every time I wanted to make a transaction, and disable coinbase two factor authentication (2FA) for the transaction then enable it again or it wouldn't go through.

My second reputation loan was for for 0.95 BTC I made the First payment of 0.34754167 BTC a couple of days early, it never registered on my account then showed late and resulted in my reputation score going down.

I made the next payment this time on the day it was due. Also showed as late, resulting in losing more reputation score through no fault of my own. I had to email BTCLend CEO Carmelo Millian directly with all of the payment information and it took several emails for him to fix the issue with my account and reputation/profile.

Then I made a larger loan request for 2 BTC (~$500 USD). It was funded and again I needed to manually authorize the coinbase API, disable Coinbase 2FA, make the withdraw, re-enable 2FA. I made my payments on time etc. eventually decided that I didn't want to deal with the payment system anymore, so I paid off my loan off entirely early just to be done.

Staking
Paycoin, symbol XPY, is a virtual currency created based off of the Peercoin source code. While the original virtual currency Bitcoin is based of Proof-of-Work which requires vast computational power to generate new coins Peercoin and paycoin are based on Proof-of-Stake which requires a user to have stake or an investment in the coin in order to generate new coins. Staking is the systematic process of generating new coins. BTCLend began offering a "staking wallet" or "staking service" for Paycoin.

In the meantime as the XPY staking wallet launched I moved the bulk (at that time) of my XPY holdings to BTCLend to stake. I had very few if any issues technically speaking during that time.

As time went on and I saw ideas like LendCoin (LCN), a virtual currency with a guaranteed $1 floor value, come and go watching how BTCLend grew I became more and more uncomfortable that they were good stewards of my deposits.

On May 20 I submitted a ticket requesting that my XPY be unlocked and that my account be deleted. I looked for any TOS I could find and the one I found had no mention of unlocking the staked XPY or any mention of penalty.

After 6 days of no response I emailed BTCLend CEO Carmelo Millian directly, asking for a resolution. He then informed me that he could unlock my coins, for a 20% penalty.

I still can't afford to take a 300 XPY hit, so I decided I'll just deal with it until July when they unlock anyways.

Little did I know the Coinbase API was still actually active on my account, somehow it managed to work perfectly in the end.

On May 29 I woke up to a couple of emails from coinbase that I wasn't exactly expecting:

"On May 29, 2015 you purchased 4.0000 BTC for $958.01 USD from *Bankname* - Bank *****last4.
Those bitcoins are now available in your My Wallet account!"

Followed Shortly By:

"You just sent 4.0000 BTC (worth $946.00 USD) to 1JYprFYWXWsJ2c3YFAztoX5WHoPwJQh6s3.
Attached message:
Funded by Transfer with ID: 556883126c32f9273100009b"

I immediately contacted Coinbase about my account being compromised. Given that I had 2FA my initial reaction was one of confusion and great concern. I then followed up with my bank to let them know that there was a purchase coming that was fraudulent as a result of my coinbase account being compromised.

As I calmed down over the next few minutes I started working through how the 2fa could have been bypassed. My phone had no new texts with Authy requests for new devices, as I looked at my Coinbase account further and checked the API access to my account there was that lone entry from BTCLend. The one that never worked to begin with, active with full access to my coinbase account.

After disabling it I then again contacted Coinbase and let them know I was fairly certain I knew how it happened (they had emailed me in the meantime asking if I knew about BTCLend). They also mentioned that since this was an API I authorized I was basically out of luck. I also know that if I initiated a fraud dispute with my bank over this I would lose my coinbase account. Not something I'm exactly keen on.

I then contacted Carmelo. And let him know that my personal bank account had been hit for $1,000 dollars. On BTCLendtalk a thread had been created https://btclendtalk.org/topic/251/coinbase-hacked where a user had mentioned himself and another person had the same 4 btc taken from their coinbase via the API.

Carmelo then posted, https://btclendtalk.org/topic/252/our-coinabse-api-was-compromised-solved, that there was a compromise and that no customer coins had been compromised. The full message regarding no customer funds compromised was later erased with no explanation given as to why. Despite that thread being active and 3 users (myself being one of the three) reporting that we in fact had coins compromised, and we were also BTCLend customers. It wasn't until he was told directly by others in a call that coins had been compromised and he needed to fix his post did he do so. In reality thousands of XPY were taken and over 25 BTC.

Carmelo then promised to pay me back, but not until the following Friday June 5th. In the meantime, My house payment was due June 1 and the payment had already been sent/authorized. My car payment was due June 1 and had already been sent/authorized.

As promised on June 5.

"You just received 4.0000 BTC (worth $899.44 USD) from an external bitcoin account."

By the time I was paid back BTC had lost value and the amount I was paid was worth almost $50 dollars less as the funds came directly out of my checking account.

So to say that this would be a financial problem would be putting it lightly. I had to borrow 4 BTC from a very generous friend and initiate a sell immediately on my coinbase account (after I finally got it unlocked)

***Continued in next post****

Quote
My sob story:
My wife and I live on a fairly tight budget. I'm a stay at home dad who got full-on garza'd (An alleged international con-man accused of defrauded 1,000's of virtual currencies investors of tens of millions of dollars). We live generally on the edge and the first of the month is always close as most of our payments hit around that time. Had I not been able to immediately borrow the money I would have had a late house payment, a late car payment and certainly a hit on my credit. The best part. June 5th is my anniversary so as if it did suck enough we almost had to cancel our weekend plans to take our son camping.

I have again asked that my coins be unlocked, and without penalty. I feel like it's the least they can do for my trouble. Generally my experience has been nothing but, at the very least a constant inconvenience. It's fairly apparent as time has gone by that BTCLend is playing fast and loose with not only security, but customer coins.

His initial response was to tell me that Coinbase had been hacked and that he was covering his customers because it was the right thing to do.

"Just so you know, The Coinbase hack was not only on BTCLend customers. We just went ahead and covered our customers because it’s the right thing to do. Good Luck."

I reached out to Coinbase using my existing ticket related to this incident as I hadn't heard anything regarding Coinbase being comprimised: Thje response from Coinbase support closed with this:

"The unauthorized transactions were created using only the API key which you affirmed was used for BTCLend. Whomever created these transactions required access to the API key, and at this time we have no indications that our customer’s API keys are vulnerable."

Carmelo has agreed and asked his developer to unlock my coins. I will be withdrawing all my holdings from BTCLend when they are available. I will be requesting my account be closed my data be deleted. He has now informed me that the coins are locked as collateral and asked if I still have an active loan. (I don't). One thing after another, after another.

I generally don't post often or anything of substance. I'm not really one to make public posts about individuals or companies, especially after getting GAW'd as hard as I have. I feel like it's important for me to share my experience as I've been a BTCLend user since nearly the beginning. I've experienced real loss as a result of BTCLend, the stress on my family alone over this last issue has been enough to make all of it not worth it. Knowing that others out there will continue to experience what I have bothers me enough to make people aware of what I've dealt with and the loss and headache I've endured.
11  Bitcoin / Project Development / Re: MiningSweden on BTCLend.org! on: June 10, 2015, 03:11:55 PM
https://talk.paycoin.com/discussion/1393/my-experience-with-btclend-a-tale-of-loans-staking-hacks-and-headache#latest
https://archive.is/yuq4b

@CeForce Community Selected Moderator, PayCoin Talk Founder, Team Paycoin Member

My experience with BTCLend. A tale of loans, staking, hacks, and headache.

Quote
My BTC Lend LLC, www.btclend.org Experience:

The company BTC Lend LLC organized in Delaware file # 5650922
CEO Carmelo Millian
Registered MSB via FinCEN: 31000064289192 for Money transmitter and Other.
BTCLend provides Peer 2 Peer, bankless, virtual currency loans and related services. Through their web platform www.btclend.org. The company holds customer deposits, loans virtual currencies to its users, allows its users to loan virtual currencies to each other, as well as other virtual currency related services.

Loans/Registration/Payments
I had a few problems with registration, and then some issues with my documents being approved for the account and lending verification. Carmelo generally took care of them but it was sort of a pain to get my account verified to a high enough level in order to have a decent reputation to start out.

A reputation loan is a non-collateralized loan given from BTC Lend or one of its users to another of its users. Reputation loans use a scoring model or algorithm based on a user's reputation score. The score is based on things such as identification provided, previous history, and presence in the community as well as other factors.

I had my first reputation loan funded Jan 24 for 0.15 BTC. It doesn't seem to stand out as having any issues. I paid the loan back a few days later to build my reputation score. I had to link my coinbase account every time I wanted to make a transaction, and disable coinbase two factor authentication (2FA) for the transaction then enable it again or it wouldn't go through.

My second reputation loan was for for 0.95 BTC I made the First payment of 0.34754167 BTC a couple of days early, it never registered on my account then showed late and resulted in my reputation score going down.

I made the next payment this time on the day it was due. Also showed as late, resulting in losing more reputation score through no fault of my own. I had to email BTCLend CEO Carmelo Millian directly with all of the payment information and it took several emails for him to fix the issue with my account and reputation/profile.

Then I made a larger loan request for 2 BTC (~$500 USD). It was funded and again I needed to manually authorize the coinbase API, disable Coinbase 2FA, make the withdraw, re-enable 2FA. I made my payments on time etc. eventually decided that I didn't want to deal with the payment system anymore, so I paid off my loan off entirely early just to be done.

Staking
Paycoin, symbol XPY, is a virtual currency created based off of the Peercoin source code. While the original virtual currency Bitcoin is based of Proof-of-Work which requires vast computational power to generate new coins Peercoin and paycoin are based on Proof-of-Stake which requires a user to have stake or an investment in the coin in order to generate new coins. Staking is the systematic process of generating new coins. BTCLend began offering a "staking wallet" or "staking service" for Paycoin.

In the meantime as the XPY staking wallet launched I moved the bulk (at that time) of my XPY holdings to BTCLend to stake. I had very few if any issues technically speaking during that time.

As time went on and I saw ideas like LendCoin (LCN), a virtual currency with a guaranteed $1 floor value, come and go watching how BTCLend grew I became more and more uncomfortable that they were good stewards of my deposits.

On May 20 I submitted a ticket requesting that my XPY be unlocked and that my account be deleted. I looked for any TOS I could find and the one I found had no mention of unlocking the staked XPY or any mention of penalty.

After 6 days of no response I emailed BTCLend CEO Carmelo Millian directly, asking for a resolution. He then informed me that he could unlock my coins, for a 20% penalty.

I still can't afford to take a 300 XPY hit, so I decided I'll just deal with it until July when they unlock anyways.

Little did I know the Coinbase API was still actually active on my account, somehow it managed to work perfectly in the end.

On May 29 I woke up to a couple of emails from coinbase that I wasn't exactly expecting:

"On May 29, 2015 you purchased 4.0000 BTC for $958.01 USD from *Bankname* - Bank *****last4.
Those bitcoins are now available in your My Wallet account!"

Followed Shortly By:

"You just sent 4.0000 BTC (worth $946.00 USD) to 1JYprFYWXWsJ2c3YFAztoX5WHoPwJQh6s3.
Attached message:
Funded by Transfer with ID: 556883126c32f9273100009b"

I immediately contacted Coinbase about my account being compromised. Given that I had 2FA my initial reaction was one of confusion and great concern. I then followed up with my bank to let them know that there was a purchase coming that was fraudulent as a result of my coinbase account being compromised.

As I calmed down over the next few minutes I started working through how the 2fa could have been bypassed. My phone had no new texts with Authy requests for new devices, as I looked at my Coinbase account further and checked the API access to my account there was that lone entry from BTCLend. The one that never worked to begin with, active with full access to my coinbase account.

After disabling it I then again contacted Coinbase and let them know I was fairly certain I knew how it happened (they had emailed me in the meantime asking if I knew about BTCLend). They also mentioned that since this was an API I authorized I was basically out of luck. I also know that if I initiated a fraud dispute with my bank over this I would lose my coinbase account. Not something I'm exactly keen on.

I then contacted Carmelo. And let him know that my personal bank account had been hit for $1,000 dollars. On BTCLendtalk a thread had been created https://btclendtalk.org/topic/251/coinbase-hacked where a user had mentioned himself and another person had the same 4 btc taken from their coinbase via the API.

Carmelo then posted, https://btclendtalk.org/topic/252/our-coinabse-api-was-compromised-solved, that there was a compromise and that no customer coins had been compromised. The full message regarding no customer funds compromised was later erased with no explanation given as to why. Despite that thread being active and 3 users (myself being one of the three) reporting that we in fact had coins compromised, and we were also BTCLend customers. It wasn't until he was told directly by others in a call that coins had been compromised and he needed to fix his post did he do so. In reality thousands of XPY were taken and over 25 BTC.

Carmelo then promised to pay me back, but not until the following Friday June 5th. In the meantime, My house payment was due June 1 and the payment had already been sent/authorized. My car payment was due June 1 and had already been sent/authorized.

As promised on June 5.

"You just received 4.0000 BTC (worth $899.44 USD) from an external bitcoin account."

By the time I was paid back BTC had lost value and the amount I was paid was worth almost $50 dollars less as the funds came directly out of my checking account.

So to say that this would be a financial problem would be putting it lightly. I had to borrow 4 BTC from a very generous friend and initiate a sell immediately on my coinbase account (after I finally got it unlocked)

***Continued in next post****

Quote
My sob story:
My wife and I live on a fairly tight budget. I'm a stay at home dad who got full-on garza'd (An alleged international con-man accused of defrauded 1,000's of virtual currencies investors of tens of millions of dollars). We live generally on the edge and the first of the month is always close as most of our payments hit around that time. Had I not been able to immediately borrow the money I would have had a late house payment, a late car payment and certainly a hit on my credit. The best part. June 5th is my anniversary so as if it did suck enough we almost had to cancel our weekend plans to take our son camping.

I have again asked that my coins be unlocked, and without penalty. I feel like it's the least they can do for my trouble. Generally my experience has been nothing but, at the very least a constant inconvenience. It's fairly apparent as time has gone by that BTCLend is playing fast and loose with not only security, but customer coins.

His initial response was to tell me that Coinbase had been hacked and that he was covering his customers because it was the right thing to do.

"Just so you know, The Coinbase hack was not only on BTCLend customers. We just went ahead and covered our customers because it’s the right thing to do. Good Luck."

I reached out to Coinbase using my existing ticket related to this incident as I hadn't heard anything regarding Coinbase being comprimised: Thje response from Coinbase support closed with this:

"The unauthorized transactions were created using only the API key which you affirmed was used for BTCLend. Whomever created these transactions required access to the API key, and at this time we have no indications that our customer’s API keys are vulnerable."

Carmelo has agreed and asked his developer to unlock my coins. I will be withdrawing all my holdings from BTCLend when they are available. I will be requesting my account be closed my data be deleted. He has now informed me that the coins are locked as collateral and asked if I still have an active loan. (I don't). One thing after another, after another.

I generally don't post often or anything of substance. I'm not really one to make public posts about individuals or companies, especially after getting GAW'd as hard as I have. I feel like it's important for me to share my experience as I've been a BTCLend user since nearly the beginning. I've experienced real loss as a result of BTCLend, the stress on my family alone over this last issue has been enough to make all of it not worth it. Knowing that others out there will continue to experience what I have bothers me enough to make people aware of what I've dealt with and the loss and headache I've endured.
12  Alternate cryptocurrencies / Service Discussion (Altcoins) / Re: BTCLend is offering to pay back your loans. on: June 10, 2015, 03:11:48 PM
https://talk.paycoin.com/discussion/1393/my-experience-with-btclend-a-tale-of-loans-staking-hacks-and-headache#latest
https://archive.is/yuq4b

@CeForce Community Selected Moderator, PayCoin Talk Founder, Team Paycoin Member

My experience with BTCLend. A tale of loans, staking, hacks, and headache.

Quote
My BTC Lend LLC, www.btclend.org Experience:

The company BTC Lend LLC organized in Delaware file # 5650922
CEO Carmelo Millian
Registered MSB via FinCEN: 31000064289192 for Money transmitter and Other.
BTCLend provides Peer 2 Peer, bankless, virtual currency loans and related services. Through their web platform www.btclend.org. The company holds customer deposits, loans virtual currencies to its users, allows its users to loan virtual currencies to each other, as well as other virtual currency related services.

Loans/Registration/Payments
I had a few problems with registration, and then some issues with my documents being approved for the account and lending verification. Carmelo generally took care of them but it was sort of a pain to get my account verified to a high enough level in order to have a decent reputation to start out.

A reputation loan is a non-collateralized loan given from BTC Lend or one of its users to another of its users. Reputation loans use a scoring model or algorithm based on a user's reputation score. The score is based on things such as identification provided, previous history, and presence in the community as well as other factors.

I had my first reputation loan funded Jan 24 for 0.15 BTC. It doesn't seem to stand out as having any issues. I paid the loan back a few days later to build my reputation score. I had to link my coinbase account every time I wanted to make a transaction, and disable coinbase two factor authentication (2FA) for the transaction then enable it again or it wouldn't go through.

My second reputation loan was for for 0.95 BTC I made the First payment of 0.34754167 BTC a couple of days early, it never registered on my account then showed late and resulted in my reputation score going down.

I made the next payment this time on the day it was due. Also showed as late, resulting in losing more reputation score through no fault of my own. I had to email BTCLend CEO Carmelo Millian directly with all of the payment information and it took several emails for him to fix the issue with my account and reputation/profile.

Then I made a larger loan request for 2 BTC (~$500 USD). It was funded and again I needed to manually authorize the coinbase API, disable Coinbase 2FA, make the withdraw, re-enable 2FA. I made my payments on time etc. eventually decided that I didn't want to deal with the payment system anymore, so I paid off my loan off entirely early just to be done.

Staking
Paycoin, symbol XPY, is a virtual currency created based off of the Peercoin source code. While the original virtual currency Bitcoin is based of Proof-of-Work which requires vast computational power to generate new coins Peercoin and paycoin are based on Proof-of-Stake which requires a user to have stake or an investment in the coin in order to generate new coins. Staking is the systematic process of generating new coins. BTCLend began offering a "staking wallet" or "staking service" for Paycoin.

In the meantime as the XPY staking wallet launched I moved the bulk (at that time) of my XPY holdings to BTCLend to stake. I had very few if any issues technically speaking during that time.

As time went on and I saw ideas like LendCoin (LCN), a virtual currency with a guaranteed $1 floor value, come and go watching how BTCLend grew I became more and more uncomfortable that they were good stewards of my deposits.

On May 20 I submitted a ticket requesting that my XPY be unlocked and that my account be deleted. I looked for any TOS I could find and the one I found had no mention of unlocking the staked XPY or any mention of penalty.

After 6 days of no response I emailed BTCLend CEO Carmelo Millian directly, asking for a resolution. He then informed me that he could unlock my coins, for a 20% penalty.

I still can't afford to take a 300 XPY hit, so I decided I'll just deal with it until July when they unlock anyways.

Little did I know the Coinbase API was still actually active on my account, somehow it managed to work perfectly in the end.

On May 29 I woke up to a couple of emails from coinbase that I wasn't exactly expecting:

"On May 29, 2015 you purchased 4.0000 BTC for $958.01 USD from *Bankname* - Bank *****last4.
Those bitcoins are now available in your My Wallet account!"

Followed Shortly By:

"You just sent 4.0000 BTC (worth $946.00 USD) to 1JYprFYWXWsJ2c3YFAztoX5WHoPwJQh6s3.
Attached message:
Funded by Transfer with ID: 556883126c32f9273100009b"

I immediately contacted Coinbase about my account being compromised. Given that I had 2FA my initial reaction was one of confusion and great concern. I then followed up with my bank to let them know that there was a purchase coming that was fraudulent as a result of my coinbase account being compromised.

As I calmed down over the next few minutes I started working through how the 2fa could have been bypassed. My phone had no new texts with Authy requests for new devices, as I looked at my Coinbase account further and checked the API access to my account there was that lone entry from BTCLend. The one that never worked to begin with, active with full access to my coinbase account.

After disabling it I then again contacted Coinbase and let them know I was fairly certain I knew how it happened (they had emailed me in the meantime asking if I knew about BTCLend). They also mentioned that since this was an API I authorized I was basically out of luck. I also know that if I initiated a fraud dispute with my bank over this I would lose my coinbase account. Not something I'm exactly keen on.

I then contacted Carmelo. And let him know that my personal bank account had been hit for $1,000 dollars. On BTCLendtalk a thread had been created https://btclendtalk.org/topic/251/coinbase-hacked where a user had mentioned himself and another person had the same 4 btc taken from their coinbase via the API.

Carmelo then posted, https://btclendtalk.org/topic/252/our-coinabse-api-was-compromised-solved, that there was a compromise and that no customer coins had been compromised. The full message regarding no customer funds compromised was later erased with no explanation given as to why. Despite that thread being active and 3 users (myself being one of the three) reporting that we in fact had coins compromised, and we were also BTCLend customers. It wasn't until he was told directly by others in a call that coins had been compromised and he needed to fix his post did he do so. In reality thousands of XPY were taken and over 25 BTC.

Carmelo then promised to pay me back, but not until the following Friday June 5th. In the meantime, My house payment was due June 1 and the payment had already been sent/authorized. My car payment was due June 1 and had already been sent/authorized.

As promised on June 5.

"You just received 4.0000 BTC (worth $899.44 USD) from an external bitcoin account."

By the time I was paid back BTC had lost value and the amount I was paid was worth almost $50 dollars less as the funds came directly out of my checking account.

So to say that this would be a financial problem would be putting it lightly. I had to borrow 4 BTC from a very generous friend and initiate a sell immediately on my coinbase account (after I finally got it unlocked)

***Continued in next post****

Quote
My sob story:
My wife and I live on a fairly tight budget. I'm a stay at home dad who got full-on garza'd (An alleged international con-man accused of defrauded 1,000's of virtual currencies investors of tens of millions of dollars). We live generally on the edge and the first of the month is always close as most of our payments hit around that time. Had I not been able to immediately borrow the money I would have had a late house payment, a late car payment and certainly a hit on my credit. The best part. June 5th is my anniversary so as if it did suck enough we almost had to cancel our weekend plans to take our son camping.

I have again asked that my coins be unlocked, and without penalty. I feel like it's the least they can do for my trouble. Generally my experience has been nothing but, at the very least a constant inconvenience. It's fairly apparent as time has gone by that BTCLend is playing fast and loose with not only security, but customer coins.

His initial response was to tell me that Coinbase had been hacked and that he was covering his customers because it was the right thing to do.

"Just so you know, The Coinbase hack was not only on BTCLend customers. We just went ahead and covered our customers because it’s the right thing to do. Good Luck."

I reached out to Coinbase using my existing ticket related to this incident as I hadn't heard anything regarding Coinbase being comprimised: Thje response from Coinbase support closed with this:

"The unauthorized transactions were created using only the API key which you affirmed was used for BTCLend. Whomever created these transactions required access to the API key, and at this time we have no indications that our customer’s API keys are vulnerable."

Carmelo has agreed and asked his developer to unlock my coins. I will be withdrawing all my holdings from BTCLend when they are available. I will be requesting my account be closed my data be deleted. He has now informed me that the coins are locked as collateral and asked if I still have an active loan. (I don't). One thing after another, after another.

I generally don't post often or anything of substance. I'm not really one to make public posts about individuals or companies, especially after getting GAW'd as hard as I have. I feel like it's important for me to share my experience as I've been a BTCLend user since nearly the beginning. I've experienced real loss as a result of BTCLend, the stress on my family alone over this last issue has been enough to make all of it not worth it. Knowing that others out there will continue to experience what I have bothers me enough to make people aware of what I've dealt with and the loss and headache I've endured.
13  Economy / Service Discussion / Re: BTC Lend LLC, btclend.com btclendtalk.org on: June 10, 2015, 03:11:31 PM
https://talk.paycoin.com/discussion/1393/my-experience-with-btclend-a-tale-of-loans-staking-hacks-and-headache#latest
https://archive.is/yuq4b

@CeForce Community Selected Moderator, PayCoin Talk Founder, Team Paycoin Member

My experience with BTCLend. A tale of loans, staking, hacks, and headache.

Quote
My BTC Lend LLC, www.btclend.org Experience:

The company BTC Lend LLC organized in Delaware file # 5650922
CEO Carmelo Millian
Registered MSB via FinCEN: 31000064289192 for Money transmitter and Other.
BTCLend provides Peer 2 Peer, bankless, virtual currency loans and related services. Through their web platform www.btclend.org. The company holds customer deposits, loans virtual currencies to its users, allows its users to loan virtual currencies to each other, as well as other virtual currency related services.

Loans/Registration/Payments
I had a few problems with registration, and then some issues with my documents being approved for the account and lending verification. Carmelo generally took care of them but it was sort of a pain to get my account verified to a high enough level in order to have a decent reputation to start out.

A reputation loan is a non-collateralized loan given from BTC Lend or one of its users to another of its users. Reputation loans use a scoring model or algorithm based on a user's reputation score. The score is based on things such as identification provided, previous history, and presence in the community as well as other factors.

I had my first reputation loan funded Jan 24 for 0.15 BTC. It doesn't seem to stand out as having any issues. I paid the loan back a few days later to build my reputation score. I had to link my coinbase account every time I wanted to make a transaction, and disable coinbase two factor authentication (2FA) for the transaction then enable it again or it wouldn't go through.

My second reputation loan was for for 0.95 BTC I made the First payment of 0.34754167 BTC a couple of days early, it never registered on my account then showed late and resulted in my reputation score going down.

I made the next payment this time on the day it was due. Also showed as late, resulting in losing more reputation score through no fault of my own. I had to email BTCLend CEO Carmelo Millian directly with all of the payment information and it took several emails for him to fix the issue with my account and reputation/profile.

Then I made a larger loan request for 2 BTC (~$500 USD). It was funded and again I needed to manually authorize the coinbase API, disable Coinbase 2FA, make the withdraw, re-enable 2FA. I made my payments on time etc. eventually decided that I didn't want to deal with the payment system anymore, so I paid off my loan off entirely early just to be done.

Staking
Paycoin, symbol XPY, is a virtual currency created based off of the Peercoin source code. While the original virtual currency Bitcoin is based of Proof-of-Work which requires vast computational power to generate new coins Peercoin and paycoin are based on Proof-of-Stake which requires a user to have stake or an investment in the coin in order to generate new coins. Staking is the systematic process of generating new coins. BTCLend began offering a "staking wallet" or "staking service" for Paycoin.

In the meantime as the XPY staking wallet launched I moved the bulk (at that time) of my XPY holdings to BTCLend to stake. I had very few if any issues technically speaking during that time.

As time went on and I saw ideas like LendCoin (LCN), a virtual currency with a guaranteed $1 floor value, come and go watching how BTCLend grew I became more and more uncomfortable that they were good stewards of my deposits.

On May 20 I submitted a ticket requesting that my XPY be unlocked and that my account be deleted. I looked for any TOS I could find and the one I found had no mention of unlocking the staked XPY or any mention of penalty.

After 6 days of no response I emailed BTCLend CEO Carmelo Millian directly, asking for a resolution. He then informed me that he could unlock my coins, for a 20% penalty.

I still can't afford to take a 300 XPY hit, so I decided I'll just deal with it until July when they unlock anyways.

Little did I know the Coinbase API was still actually active on my account, somehow it managed to work perfectly in the end.

On May 29 I woke up to a couple of emails from coinbase that I wasn't exactly expecting:

"On May 29, 2015 you purchased 4.0000 BTC for $958.01 USD from *Bankname* - Bank *****last4.
Those bitcoins are now available in your My Wallet account!"

Followed Shortly By:

"You just sent 4.0000 BTC (worth $946.00 USD) to 1JYprFYWXWsJ2c3YFAztoX5WHoPwJQh6s3.
Attached message:
Funded by Transfer with ID: 556883126c32f9273100009b"

I immediately contacted Coinbase about my account being compromised. Given that I had 2FA my initial reaction was one of confusion and great concern. I then followed up with my bank to let them know that there was a purchase coming that was fraudulent as a result of my coinbase account being compromised.

As I calmed down over the next few minutes I started working through how the 2fa could have been bypassed. My phone had no new texts with Authy requests for new devices, as I looked at my Coinbase account further and checked the API access to my account there was that lone entry from BTCLend. The one that never worked to begin with, active with full access to my coinbase account.

After disabling it I then again contacted Coinbase and let them know I was fairly certain I knew how it happened (they had emailed me in the meantime asking if I knew about BTCLend). They also mentioned that since this was an API I authorized I was basically out of luck. I also know that if I initiated a fraud dispute with my bank over this I would lose my coinbase account. Not something I'm exactly keen on.

I then contacted Carmelo. And let him know that my personal bank account had been hit for $1,000 dollars. On BTCLendtalk a thread had been created https://btclendtalk.org/topic/251/coinbase-hacked where a user had mentioned himself and another person had the same 4 btc taken from their coinbase via the API.

Carmelo then posted, https://btclendtalk.org/topic/252/our-coinabse-api-was-compromised-solved, that there was a compromise and that no customer coins had been compromised. The full message regarding no customer funds compromised was later erased with no explanation given as to why. Despite that thread being active and 3 users (myself being one of the three) reporting that we in fact had coins compromised, and we were also BTCLend customers. It wasn't until he was told directly by others in a call that coins had been compromised and he needed to fix his post did he do so. In reality thousands of XPY were taken and over 25 BTC.

Carmelo then promised to pay me back, but not until the following Friday June 5th. In the meantime, My house payment was due June 1 and the payment had already been sent/authorized. My car payment was due June 1 and had already been sent/authorized.

As promised on June 5.

"You just received 4.0000 BTC (worth $899.44 USD) from an external bitcoin account."

By the time I was paid back BTC had lost value and the amount I was paid was worth almost $50 dollars less as the funds came directly out of my checking account.

So to say that this would be a financial problem would be putting it lightly. I had to borrow 4 BTC from a very generous friend and initiate a sell immediately on my coinbase account (after I finally got it unlocked)

***Continued in next post****

Quote
My sob story:
My wife and I live on a fairly tight budget. I'm a stay at home dad who got full-on garza'd (An alleged international con-man accused of defrauded 1,000's of virtual currencies investors of tens of millions of dollars). We live generally on the edge and the first of the month is always close as most of our payments hit around that time. Had I not been able to immediately borrow the money I would have had a late house payment, a late car payment and certainly a hit on my credit. The best part. June 5th is my anniversary so as if it did suck enough we almost had to cancel our weekend plans to take our son camping.

I have again asked that my coins be unlocked, and without penalty. I feel like it's the least they can do for my trouble. Generally my experience has been nothing but, at the very least a constant inconvenience. It's fairly apparent as time has gone by that BTCLend is playing fast and loose with not only security, but customer coins.

His initial response was to tell me that Coinbase had been hacked and that he was covering his customers because it was the right thing to do.

"Just so you know, The Coinbase hack was not only on BTCLend customers. We just went ahead and covered our customers because it’s the right thing to do. Good Luck."

I reached out to Coinbase using my existing ticket related to this incident as I hadn't heard anything regarding Coinbase being comprimised: Thje response from Coinbase support closed with this:

"The unauthorized transactions were created using only the API key which you affirmed was used for BTCLend. Whomever created these transactions required access to the API key, and at this time we have no indications that our customer’s API keys are vulnerable."

Carmelo has agreed and asked his developer to unlock my coins. I will be withdrawing all my holdings from BTCLend when they are available. I will be requesting my account be closed my data be deleted. He has now informed me that the coins are locked as collateral and asked if I still have an active loan. (I don't). One thing after another, after another.

I generally don't post often or anything of substance. I'm not really one to make public posts about individuals or companies, especially after getting GAW'd as hard as I have. I feel like it's important for me to share my experience as I've been a BTCLend user since nearly the beginning. I've experienced real loss as a result of BTCLend, the stress on my family alone over this last issue has been enough to make all of it not worth it. Knowing that others out there will continue to experience what I have bothers me enough to make people aware of what I've dealt with and the loss and headache I've endured.
14  Economy / Service Discussion / Re: GAW / Josh Garza discussion Paycoin XPY CPIG BTCLend xpyerr.ALWAYS MAKE MONEY :) on: June 10, 2015, 03:09:46 PM
TL;DR; Version Carmelo was lying. Customer coins and accounts were compromised.  Carmelo was unable to pay users back.


Quote
On May 29 I woke up to a couple of emails from coinbase that I wasn't exactly expecting:

"On May 29, 2015 you purchased 4.0000 BTC for $958.01 USD from *Bankname* - Bank *****last4.
Those bitcoins are now available in your My Wallet account!"

Followed Shortly By:

"You just sent 4.0000 BTC (worth $946.00 USD) to 1JYprFYWXWsJ2c3YFAztoX5WHoPwJQh6s3.
Attached message:
Funded by Transfer with ID: 556883126c32f9273100009b"

Quote
I then contacted Carmelo. And let him know that my personal bank account had been hit for $1,000 dollars. On BTCLendtalk a thread had been created https://btclendtalk.org/topic/251/coinbase-hacked where a user had mentioned himself and another person had the same 4 btc taken from their coinbase via the API.

Quote
Carmelo then promised to pay me back, but not until the following Friday June 5th. In the meantime, My house payment was due June 1 and the payment had already been sent/authorized. My car payment was due June 1 and had already been sent/authorized.

Quote
His initial response was to tell me that Coinbase had been hacked and that he was covering his customers because it was the right thing to do.

"Just so you know, The Coinbase hack was not only on BTCLend customers. We just went ahead and covered our customers because it’s the right thing to do. Good Luck."

I reached out to Coinbase using my existing ticket related to this incident as I hadn't heard anything regarding Coinbase being comprimised: Thje response from Coinbase support closed with this:

"The unauthorized transactions were created using only the API key which you affirmed was used for BTCLend. Whomever created these transactions required access to the API key, and at this time we have no indications that our customer’s API keys are vulnerable."
15  Economy / Service Discussion / Re: GAW / Josh Garza discussion Paycoin XPY CPIG BTCLend xpyerr.ALWAYS MAKE MONEY :) on: June 10, 2015, 03:06:18 PM
https://talk.paycoin.com/discussion/1393/my-experience-with-btclend-a-tale-of-loans-staking-hacks-and-headache#latest
https://archive.is/yuq4b

@CeForce Community Selected Moderator, PayCoin Talk Founder, Team Paycoin Member

My experience with BTCLend. A tale of loans, staking, hacks, and headache.

Quote
My BTC Lend LLC, www.btclend.org Experience:

The company BTC Lend LLC organized in Delaware file # 5650922
CEO Carmelo Millian
Registered MSB via FinCEN: 31000064289192 for Money transmitter and Other.
BTCLend provides Peer 2 Peer, bankless, virtual currency loans and related services. Through their web platform www.btclend.org. The company holds customer deposits, loans virtual currencies to its users, allows its users to loan virtual currencies to each other, as well as other virtual currency related services.

Loans/Registration/Payments
I had a few problems with registration, and then some issues with my documents being approved for the account and lending verification. Carmelo generally took care of them but it was sort of a pain to get my account verified to a high enough level in order to have a decent reputation to start out.

A reputation loan is a non-collateralized loan given from BTC Lend or one of its users to another of its users. Reputation loans use a scoring model or algorithm based on a user's reputation score. The score is based on things such as identification provided, previous history, and presence in the community as well as other factors.

I had my first reputation loan funded Jan 24 for 0.15 BTC. It doesn't seem to stand out as having any issues. I paid the loan back a few days later to build my reputation score. I had to link my coinbase account every time I wanted to make a transaction, and disable coinbase two factor authentication (2FA) for the transaction then enable it again or it wouldn't go through.

My second reputation loan was for for 0.95 BTC I made the First payment of 0.34754167 BTC a couple of days early, it never registered on my account then showed late and resulted in my reputation score going down.

I made the next payment this time on the day it was due. Also showed as late, resulting in losing more reputation score through no fault of my own. I had to email BTCLend CEO Carmelo Millian directly with all of the payment information and it took several emails for him to fix the issue with my account and reputation/profile.

Then I made a larger loan request for 2 BTC (~$500 USD). It was funded and again I needed to manually authorize the coinbase API, disable Coinbase 2FA, make the withdraw, re-enable 2FA. I made my payments on time etc. eventually decided that I didn't want to deal with the payment system anymore, so I paid off my loan off entirely early just to be done.

Staking
Paycoin, symbol XPY, is a virtual currency created based off of the Peercoin source code. While the original virtual currency Bitcoin is based of Proof-of-Work which requires vast computational power to generate new coins Peercoin and paycoin are based on Proof-of-Stake which requires a user to have stake or an investment in the coin in order to generate new coins. Staking is the systematic process of generating new coins. BTCLend began offering a "staking wallet" or "staking service" for Paycoin.

In the meantime as the XPY staking wallet launched I moved the bulk (at that time) of my XPY holdings to BTCLend to stake. I had very few if any issues technically speaking during that time.

As time went on and I saw ideas like LendCoin (LCN), a virtual currency with a guaranteed $1 floor value, come and go watching how BTCLend grew I became more and more uncomfortable that they were good stewards of my deposits.

On May 20 I submitted a ticket requesting that my XPY be unlocked and that my account be deleted. I looked for any TOS I could find and the one I found had no mention of unlocking the staked XPY or any mention of penalty.

After 6 days of no response I emailed BTCLend CEO Carmelo Millian directly, asking for a resolution. He then informed me that he could unlock my coins, for a 20% penalty.

I still can't afford to take a 300 XPY hit, so I decided I'll just deal with it until July when they unlock anyways.

Little did I know the Coinbase API was still actually active on my account, somehow it managed to work perfectly in the end.

On May 29 I woke up to a couple of emails from coinbase that I wasn't exactly expecting:

"On May 29, 2015 you purchased 4.0000 BTC for $958.01 USD from *Bankname* - Bank *****last4.
Those bitcoins are now available in your My Wallet account!"

Followed Shortly By:

"You just sent 4.0000 BTC (worth $946.00 USD) to 1JYprFYWXWsJ2c3YFAztoX5WHoPwJQh6s3.
Attached message:
Funded by Transfer with ID: 556883126c32f9273100009b"

I immediately contacted Coinbase about my account being compromised. Given that I had 2FA my initial reaction was one of confusion and great concern. I then followed up with my bank to let them know that there was a purchase coming that was fraudulent as a result of my coinbase account being compromised.

As I calmed down over the next few minutes I started working through how the 2fa could have been bypassed. My phone had no new texts with Authy requests for new devices, as I looked at my Coinbase account further and checked the API access to my account there was that lone entry from BTCLend. The one that never worked to begin with, active with full access to my coinbase account.

After disabling it I then again contacted Coinbase and let them know I was fairly certain I knew how it happened (they had emailed me in the meantime asking if I knew about BTCLend). They also mentioned that since this was an API I authorized I was basically out of luck. I also know that if I initiated a fraud dispute with my bank over this I would lose my coinbase account. Not something I'm exactly keen on.

I then contacted Carmelo. And let him know that my personal bank account had been hit for $1,000 dollars. On BTCLendtalk a thread had been created https://btclendtalk.org/topic/251/coinbase-hacked where a user had mentioned himself and another person had the same 4 btc taken from their coinbase via the API.

Carmelo then posted, https://btclendtalk.org/topic/252/our-coinabse-api-was-compromised-solved, that there was a compromise and that no customer coins had been compromised. The full message regarding no customer funds compromised was later erased with no explanation given as to why. Despite that thread being active and 3 users (myself being one of the three) reporting that we in fact had coins compromised, and we were also BTCLend customers. It wasn't until he was told directly by others in a call that coins had been compromised and he needed to fix his post did he do so. In reality thousands of XPY were taken and over 25 BTC.

Carmelo then promised to pay me back, but not until the following Friday June 5th. In the meantime, My house payment was due June 1 and the payment had already been sent/authorized. My car payment was due June 1 and had already been sent/authorized.

As promised on June 5.

"You just received 4.0000 BTC (worth $899.44 USD) from an external bitcoin account."

By the time I was paid back BTC had lost value and the amount I was paid was worth almost $50 dollars less as the funds came directly out of my checking account.

So to say that this would be a financial problem would be putting it lightly. I had to borrow 4 BTC from a very generous friend and initiate a sell immediately on my coinbase account (after I finally got it unlocked)

***Continued in next post****

Quote
My sob story:
My wife and I live on a fairly tight budget. I'm a stay at home dad who got full-on garza'd (An alleged international con-man accused of defrauded 1,000's of virtual currencies investors of tens of millions of dollars). We live generally on the edge and the first of the month is always close as most of our payments hit around that time. Had I not been able to immediately borrow the money I would have had a late house payment, a late car payment and certainly a hit on my credit. The best part. June 5th is my anniversary so as if it did suck enough we almost had to cancel our weekend plans to take our son camping.

I have again asked that my coins be unlocked, and without penalty. I feel like it's the least they can do for my trouble. Generally my experience has been nothing but, at the very least a constant inconvenience. It's fairly apparent as time has gone by that BTCLend is playing fast and loose with not only security, but customer coins.

His initial response was to tell me that Coinbase had been hacked and that he was covering his customers because it was the right thing to do.

"Just so you know, The Coinbase hack was not only on BTCLend customers. We just went ahead and covered our customers because it’s the right thing to do. Good Luck."

I reached out to Coinbase using my existing ticket related to this incident as I hadn't heard anything regarding Coinbase being comprimised: Thje response from Coinbase support closed with this:

"The unauthorized transactions were created using only the API key which you affirmed was used for BTCLend. Whomever created these transactions required access to the API key, and at this time we have no indications that our customer’s API keys are vulnerable."

Carmelo has agreed and asked his developer to unlock my coins. I will be withdrawing all my holdings from BTCLend when they are available. I will be requesting my account be closed my data be deleted. He has now informed me that the coins are locked as collateral and asked if I still have an active loan. (I don't). One thing after another, after another.

I generally don't post often or anything of substance. I'm not really one to make public posts about individuals or companies, especially after getting GAW'd as hard as I have. I feel like it's important for me to share my experience as I've been a BTCLend user since nearly the beginning. I've experienced real loss as a result of BTCLend, the stress on my family alone over this last issue has been enough to make all of it not worth it. Knowing that others out there will continue to experience what I have bothers me enough to make people aware of what I've dealt with and the loss and headache I've endured.
16  Economy / Service Announcements / Re: [ANN] LeaseRig.net Rent & Hire Scrypt(Jane/Nfactor)/SHA3/SHA256/X11 HashPower! on: June 10, 2015, 12:59:58 PM
To the powers that be: Litecoin and doge coin provider wallets are not working. I had two orders recently that completed but the coins never made it to my leaserig wallet. Can someone please take a look.

Yep.

I'll take a look.

Thank you kind Sir.

Should be working now.

We may be taking the system offline in the coming months.
17  Economy / Service Discussion / Re: GAW / Josh Garza discussion Paycoin XPY CPIG BTCLend xpyerr.ALWAYS MAKE MONEY :) on: June 10, 2015, 03:46:40 AM
Hello

The phone that i had Google Auth on has died a sad and painful death. I have setup CG Auth on my replacement phone, if i could please have the 2fa disabled for my account "enLighteN85" or direct to whom i need to contact. Thanks

That has nothing to do with account unlocking and therefore there is nothing I can do for you.

Wait, so why has this become a support thread for getting your Zencloud accounts unlocked?

Wouldn't it be worse to direct them to this thread, bewbs and all?

Because everywhere i tried to get help/support paycoin related directed me to this thread and stated that they were not allowed to help on said site.

I have spamed the wrong code into the 2fa request, and got the account locked, are you able to assist now?


I have nothing to do with PayCoin, never owned ZenCloud, Hashlets, XPY nor have I been a part of Hashtalk or and other PayCoin forum so your barking up the wrong tree.

Make a thread or something, this is getting quite repetitive.

People should email mk@aifx.net.
18  Economy / Service Discussion / Re: GAW / Josh Garza discussion Paycoin XPY CPIG BTCLend xpyerr.ALWAYS MAKE MONEY :) on: June 10, 2015, 12:47:32 AM
Hello

The phone that i had Google Auth on has died a sad and painful death. I have setup CG Auth on my replacement phone, if i could please have the 2fa disabled for my account "enLighteN85" or direct to whom i need to contact. Thanks

That has nothing to do with account unlocking and therefore there is nothing I can do for you.
19  Economy / Service Discussion / Re: GAW / Josh Garza discussion Paycoin XPY CPIG BTCLend xpyerr.ALWAYS MAKE MONEY :) on: June 10, 2015, 12:20:05 AM
Sorry for obnoxious support request but we have nowhere else to turn to. I need my zencloud 2fa unlocked as well.
User: nolander
Thanks

Your account isn't locked.

Who is xmk3 and who put him in charge? I thought Jonah was hired to liquidate everything.

xmk3 is Mathew Eden I believe.. he's the tech dude we saw in the early XPY hangouts meetings (the famous hangout video about lowering the stake rate of PC).  CTI (Chief Technology Officer) of BCI (BlockChain Innovation Inc.) the company mandated to phase out ZenCloud.  I don't believe Maviator is part of the company.  Don't you remember Josh saying Mathew this, Mathew that...

I'm going off memory, you could be right..  I'm sure if someone can track down that contract between GAW and BCI it will all make sense.

I believe Maviator was only granted access to unlock accounts, if he was behind the phasing out process he would have a lot more access than he has.


All these so called "contracts" between these inexperienced self-promoting kids hiding behind their GoDaddy web sites and online Delaware registered shell companies are not worth the bandwidth it takes to generate the status PDF's. Likewise, all these wannabe industry "insiders" with their cooked up company titles are criminals directly or by association in my opinion and should be exiled from any/all things crypto for life.

It is no secrete I place this Jonah guy in the same category and have done so since he sat there and smiled/laughed as Garza would trash talked me and others who spoke the TRUTH last fall during a few of their little video chats. I *almost* find it funny, but a little taxing on my patience, to see some of these guys here providing what some may call support or "trying" to contribute something of value to the discussion when in reality they should be with Garza behind bars.

At any rate... back to work...

Scott-

Tell us how you really feel Scott Smiley

I agree, this BCI company is just making peoples life miserable by locking up their accounts and they (BCI) know it full well... Go and ask on BCT for your account to be unlocked... Really?! Have they ever heard of emails?!  Probably not, it wasn't in the contract...  Makes me really want to do business with them in their future endeavors.... Think not!

I get a ton of emails about unlocking as well. 

I've been asking what the point of locking accounts permanently for 2FA failures is as it seems quite ridiculous.


I agree, considering 2FA token is valid for 20 seconds (as far as I know).. or they could increase the account locking threshold to 50 or something if all they want is prevent brute force attacks, I doubt anyone would get through in 50 attempts on a 7 digit code...

You're talking about Homero

Well, that xmk3 guy (or whatever his nickname is) is the one in charge of the phase out and probably the one that did the transition from Authy to non authy based 2FA, I don't remember reading about account locking issues before that change was made, it's likely just a constant or a single line of code to comment out.

I haven't had a ZC account for months so I'm not affected but I can still see that whoever is in charge agreed to phase out the "platform" and is just acting like an ass even though he got Prime Controllers as part of the deal...  (if they aren't worth a dime today that's his problem, not people stuck with Hashtalkers wanting to dump their daily proceeds before it crashes down to 1 satoshi)

The explanation given was that Authy was unpaid so google auth was installed.  Although in the same explanation it was stated that they (the devs) had been working on google auth for three weeks and I guess just decided not to roll it out?

I've been asking what the point of locking accounts permanently for 2FA failures is as it seems quite ridiculous.


I agree, considering 2FA token is valid for 20 seconds (as far as I know).. or they could increase the account locking threshold to 50 or something if all they want is prevent brute force attacks, I doubt anyone would get through in 50 attempts on a 7 digit code...

Agreed.   At a minimum the accounts should just unlock every 24 hours so that this manual unlocking crap can stop.  Permanently locking accounts is just cruel.
20  Economy / Service Discussion / Re: GAW / Josh Garza discussion Paycoin XPY CPIG BTCLend xpyerr.ALWAYS MAKE MONEY :) on: June 09, 2015, 06:00:53 PM
https://talk.paycoin.com/discussion/1391/2-primes-accident-now-fixed#latest
https://archive.is/hM8Jx

@sciborg Administrator, Community Selected Moderator, PayCoin Talk Founder, Team Paycoin Member

2 primes Accident Now Fixed
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