WTF. I just paid you 1 BTC for this.

$4.1m goes missing as Chinese bitcoin trading platform GBL vanishes

By Kadhim Shubber | Published on November 11, 2013 at 17:15 GMT | Companies, Exchanges, News

Bitcoin is surging in China, but the explosion in digital currency trading has been accompanied by possible fraud and theft.

GBL, a Chinese bitcoin trading platform that claimed to be based in Hong Kong, recently shut down – an event that might not be worthy of note had ¥25m ($4.1m) worth of users’ money not disappeared with it.

The company appears to have launched in May 2013, with its domain btc-glb.com registered on 9th May and a post later that month by Bitcoin Talk forum user zhaoxianpeng promoting the site.

Suspicions

Commenters were instantly suspicious, noting that the site’s server was based in Beijing despite the site’s claim to being based in Hong Kong.

They also pointed out that GBL hadn’t provided straightforward contact information on their site and that the platform used a patchwork of information lifted from other websites.

Those weren’t the only warning signs. According to WantChinaTimes.com, which quotes a report from Chinese newspaper Southern Weekly, GBL registered as a company with the Hong Kong authorities on 10th June but never received a license for financial services.

Despite these concerns, it seems GBL was able to attract 1,000 mainland investors, according to a report from Hong Kong-based newspaper The Standard.

The forum thread now has a large red warning notice from a moderator at the top that reads: “Be careful scam.”

By September, GBL began issuing stock to its users, and in early October it was capping the amount of money users could cash out. Those actions could have been to maximize the amount of money it held.

Without a trace

Soon after, on 26th October, GBL shut down and vanished without a trace.

The address listed on its website proved to be a fake – “the office listed on its website […] turned out to be a false address,” reports The Standard – and the Hong Kong police have now been involved.

Bitcoin’s history is littered with these kinds of stories, which appear to show behaviour that is not entirely above board.

This list gives some sense of the number of times bitcoiners have been persuaded to part with their money, only to find that, whether by malice or by incompetence, they couldn’t get it back.

The theft of over a million dollars worth of bitcoin from Australian wallet service Inputs.io is probably the most recent infamous case.

Inputs.io may have been a case of incompetence, with some questioning whether the service did enough to secure its users bitcoins.

Malice

With GBL, the evidence points towards malice but the warning signs were there. For 1,000 investors, though, the excitement of getting on the bitcoin gravy train seems to have suppressed their better judgement.

Just over a week ago, BTC China, the first trading platform to trade bitcoins for Chinese yuan, shot past Mt. Gox to momentarily become the world’s number one bitcoin exchange and, on the ground, businesses are beginning to awaken to the digital currency’s potential, with a bar in Beijing leading the field by becoming the first in China to accept bitcoin.

In the land of the “Great Firewall”, the success of bitcoin, the currency of the Internet, is obviously attracting a great deal of attention.

Like elsewhere, it seems it is also attracting sharks ready to take your money if you’re not careful. Watch out.



http://www.coindesk.com/4-1m-goes-missing-chinese-bitcoin-trading-platform-gbl-vanishes/


Additional info:


The company appears to have launched in May 2013, with its domain btc-glb.com registered on May 9, and a post later that month by Bitcoin Talk forum user zhaoxianpeng promoting the site.

http://bitcoinsinsider.com/4-1m-goes-missing-as-chinese-bitcoin-trading-platform-gbl-vanishes_b1640

Not a good joke.

You know feds just took down SR right?

Bitcoin needs to get away from that negative imagery.

How does this compare to JonDoBrowser?

https://anonymous-proxy-servers.net/

I know JonDoBrowser deals with the problem of "fingerprinting" browsers.

See http://ip-check.info/?lang=en for an example of Browser fingerprinting.

No.

A court recently decided Bitcoin is legal currrency, so theft of it IS treated as a crime in the USA.



As far as state laws are concerned because of the 'internet' nature of Bitcoin, it probably becomes the turf of the FBI.

I agree.

Something needs to happen to rock this boat.

No one is selling because they think we have ways to go; not many people buying because of the high price and fear of a correction.

Gold Rush on Discovery.

Most are mired in guesses. I want to focus purely on technical analysis.

To be clear, more than tea cup handle assumptions.


 

I know there are some pro stock traders on here, let's hear it

Three accounts.


Sell all in number one when it hits $500

Sell all in number two when it hits $1,000

Never sell all in account number three

No, no, and no.

Watching alot of Jim Kramer,Mad Money lately on CNBC and always like to hear the reassurance of the technical analyst.

Anyone one here versed in doing tech analysis of stocks? I would be interested to know what you think the trend is right now, and where you think the next buy in point is.

Now vod has changed it to:



AndrewWilliams 0: -0 / +0(0)   2013-11-13   0.00000000      
I do not trust this person.





Listen. I have never done business with you.

Unless you are a psychic mind reader you do not have the ability to ascertain if I am trustworthy.

In fact, my trade history shows that I am infact a trustworthy person.

If you don't trust me, don't trade with me. Posting something like that in neg feedback is nonsense.

Yes, I asked just_me to do so because you gave him unwarranted neg feedback.
But, you took care of it and removed it. Kudos for that.



Disrespect?
If you want to talk about disrespect, you can start with you bashing Christianity repeatedly on this forum. You often trolled me in threads having nothing to do with you.

Any mud slung at you has been in return for your oppression against me or others. Sorry to burst your bubble, but I do not sit idly by when someone attacks me.



The ONLY neg trust I have showing for anyone is lucullus.
He got it for giving me TWO neg feedbacks for saying I am a scammer and con artist, both unfounded. He seemed to be following your lead to be honest, as I've never had any interaction with him or done business with him.


If someone give you a neg feedback which is false or unwarranted, you absolutely should give that person a neg feedback back. Period.


Bullying? Really? That seams to be the perfect term for what you have been doing on here.

The point is I said I was willing to do a cease fire with you, yet you continue to antagonize. Move forward.

Trust is not a whitelist for who YOU trust and don't trust, especially when it's not based on trading.

It seems you forget we are talking about modern times.

As in today. Wake up.

Kouye gave an honest person neg feedback for no reason.  

likl3sfuhjh does not deserve neg feedback.

Please fix this Kouye, the guy has a good trade history and has done nothing dishonest.

What is this? So you took down the two neg feedbacks you put on my trust, only to put a new one up?

I said I would close the thread when it's resolved.

Take it down and be done with it already. Enough drama. Seriously this is getting ridiculous.



Vod 0: -0 / +1(1)   2013-11-12   0.00000000   
Reference   
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=329358.0
This guy is a troll and UNTRUSTWORTHY. Likes to accuse random users of things he cannot prove, and abuses the trust system.

C++

Thank yourself. I saw you trolling my Vod abuse thread, and thought I would return the favor

Oh, and your unwarranted negative feedback on me didn't help matters either.





BTW, likl3sfuhjh has a great trade history, stop trolling him.

You are behaving like a rabid racoon at this point. Biting everyone you can get your filthy claws on. You're a menace.

No problem. I'll let you know as I find new services like this. Someone mentioned a joint project by Silent Circle and Lavabit, but it will take a few months at least for it to be developed, they are still in the fund raising stage. It does look very promising.

Google is a mess and I refuse to use any of their services including search.
It's leaked out for years that they save absolutely everything about every user including emails and search history, and never delete it.
When I saw Google start prompting for a phone number to be linked to my Google account, I said thats it, no more. It's obvious they want to be able to track every single person in a big brother fashion.

If you saw some of the people working at Google, you would get some real hibby jibbies!