It is shocking, shocking that an outsized return from an investment with zero transparency is related to major illegal operations. Who would have thought?
Where is your evidence? You state it like it is a truth. It shocks me how prone people I would have thought better of are to slander. I don’t have anything against speculation and discussion, but saying someone is a criminal or (knowingly) connected to criminals is a serious accusation you better be able to back up. So let me ask you, where is your evidence for GPUMAX and/or Bitcoin Savings & Trust being related to "major illegal operations"?I'm sure I'm not the only one who is withholding revealing and damaging information out of respect to all the members of this forum, especially Pirateat40. You think we all rely on google? Woof, woof.
Put up or shut up. Speak up now, slanderers. Go and prove him wrong. Or have the decency to apologize if you cannot. |
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I'm sure I'm not the only one who is withholding revealing and damaging information out of respect to all the members of this forum, especially Pirateat40. You think we all rely on google? Woof, woof.
Put up or shut up. |
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4 million page views (note, these are not unique IPs) a month? A few hundreds of likes per each post? I’ve seen it, and I still think it is insignificant. As if Farmville players would be able to operate anything Bitcoin atm anyway. Not sure what your hyping is about, maybe it’s because today is the Facebook IPO.  |
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No, this is not huge. Not even really newsworthy.
Site is not affiliated with Farmville and it is ranked 66k on Alexa. For comparison, MtGox with its few tens of thousands of users is ranked 35k, and bitcointalk is 25k.
No idea about the 360k FB likes, maybe these are just bots?
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tl;dr - privately held gold is multiples greater than the amount of official gold holdings, and it is where the real power behind the global financial system sits. Gold is artificially (mis)priced in fiat terms, and will be revalued much higher.
Cool story, but will this happen in our lifetimes?  It seems to me that the intent of the fancy "IT IS ALL MANIPULATED! MARKET IS RIGGED!" stories is about getting people to hold the metal bag when they have no other option than the paper price (where can I sell gold for higher? I would like to take that opportunity up, please), so their wealth is being drained. |
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hazek, I’m not even going to argue with you since you are completely detached from the public and display no empathy.
I think the same sentiment is conveyed by certain characters in Atlas Shrugged  "I won't argue with you, you have no care for the public good and only care for yourself." Aaaah, Ayn Rand! Libertard and Asperger galore! What next, Bioshock? In the end, I did argue though. You are in marketing Erik, you know exactly that describing Bitcoin as "non-democratic" is a shitty strategy and that democratic is a positive attribute. I’m sure you are also aware that people can smell it when you want to push some weird agenda on them, which I think is one of the main reasons Bitcoin is perceived as a scam. edit: See, I knew you were reasonable. |
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I have watched your videos and I like them. If you do not intend to advertise it as "non-democratic", I don’t care. Everyone can describe it as he wants. I bet you the democratic label is going to stick with Bitcoin as time passes, though, whether we want it or not. edit: Just because I think the transaction count is a completely meaningless and manipulatable metric, Technomage? |
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Actually, I forgot two important things commonly associated with "democratic": Free speech and human rights.
Opposing democracy implies Bitcoin is against all these things, that’s why I think it is a bad marketing strategy.
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hazek, I’m not even going to argue with you since you are completely detached from the public and display no empathy. All you want to do is nitpick because you perceive democracy as BAD BAD BAD.  Is this some new kind of libertarian political correctness? Well, too bad most people approve of democracy. They will feel alienated if you describe Bitcoin as NOT democratic. If you want to just stagnate with this current circlejerk, I guess that’s okay though. What I and many other people think democratic describes is fairness, openness/transparency, equal rights, equal vote etc. I can guarantee you that advertising Bitcoin as non-democratic is one of the worst marketing strategies ever. |
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hazek, this applies to Bitcoin: 2. pertaining to or characterized by the principle of political or social equality for all: democratic treatment. 2. Of or for the people in general; popular: a democratic movement; democratic art forms. As always, the libertards and aspergers in here are working hard to alienate the public from Bitcoin by making it a fringe movement. This IS what people think democratic is (and also what I think it is), and if you are too stubborn to deal with it, then leave it be. |
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Woah Maged, I don’t want to be on record having explicitely said it is not a ponzi. Put me in the unknown camp that leans towards not ponzi. I pretty much share the opinion Patrick and Joel just expressed in the last two posts.
I would never recommend anyone to invest with him since even if it is not a ponzi, it might be risky, or invest in anything for that matter, not even Bitcoins.
Everyone should make his own bets, and my personal bet right now remains the same, though it might change as I continue evaluating things.
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It really sucks there is no way to short Apple and the metals with Bitcoins. We need this, and we need it now. |
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Nagle, you're back!
My Goodness! Nagle, what is the Bitcoin endgame?! It didn’t go to 0 like you promised. |
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Since Intersango now has to clean up the whole mess (costs in terms of money, time, reputation) and has to rebuild the entire platform anyway, and all that for probably just a few shares, it would have likely been a much wiser choice to just build a competitor that is actually 100% owned by you and let Bitcoinica collapse like it was destined to. But who am I to judge. Maybe the mystery investor pays well.  |
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Intersango was a free exchange for over half a year meaning we operated at a big loss.
So you guys chose to take over a bucket shop which is constantly at the risk of getting into massive BTC denominated debt (while BTC rallies way up), blinded by greed upon the profits the few shares the mystery investor gave you would promise and now had your reputation tarnished. You made the mistake of operating for free just to commit another one to correct it.  While it is true that the identity of the investor did not have to be shared, I believe the fact that ownership changed in November SHOULD have been announced. Unless there was an announcement I am aware of, zhoutong deceived us for half a year into believing he solely owned the company. In November, an investor approached me to acquire Bitcoinica. Due to regulatory concerns, I agreed to the deal and signed the agreement. Bitcoinica was sold for a good price. However, since the investor is unable to arrange for a replacement team, I continued to become the sole operator until Team Intersango took over two weeks ago. The investor let me keep all profits until late January, the official handover time. After handover, he continued to offer generous salary and performance bonus every month. The investor demands his identity to be protected so I won't share more information on this.
This does not sound like Intersango hold most of the shares. I fully disagree with guruvan’s sentiment, in my view at the very least genjix (Amir Taaki) and phantomcircuit (Patrick Strateman) are some of the most trustworthy people around here. I would distrust this ominous investor if I was you. I would also distrust zhoutong for selling the financial business he created in 4 days (a wonder it did not go kaboom earlier) and not disclosing the CHANGE of ownership for half a year. It could have been easily stated without violating the investor’s privacy. |
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IIRC, they have been asked point blank if they have an ownership stake, and have answered this in the affirmative.
I will stand down if corrected, but I believe I've seen this here and on IRC.
It was me who asked genjix in #bitcoin on Freenode about this, iirc, so I confirm. We have new (old) information on this, though: In November, an investor approached me to acquire Bitcoinica. Due to regulatory concerns, I agreed to the deal and signed the agreement. Bitcoinica was sold for a good price. However, since the investor is unable to arrange for a replacement team, I continued to become the sole operator until Team Intersango took over two weeks ago. The investor let me keep all profits until late January, the official handover time. After handover, he continued to offer generous salary and performance bonus every month. The investor demands his identity to be protected so I won't share more information on this.
This does not sound like Intersango hold most of the shares. I fully disagree with guruvan’s sentiment, in my view at the very least genjix (Amir Taaki) and phantomcircuit (Patrick Strateman) are some of the most trustworthy people around here. I would distrust this ominous investor if I was you. I would also distrust zhoutong for selling the financial business he created in 4 days (a wonder it did not go kaboom earlier) and not disclosing the CHANGE of ownership for half a year. It could have been easily stated without violating the investor’s privacy. |
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Well bitcoinica is down anyway, so they will take everyones bitcoins, sell them, and then rebuy at a lower price run for the hills.
You think? My opinion is that the Intersango guys will make everyone whole once again, but Bitcoinica will probably die. |
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we are lucky IF they reimburse...
they are registered and i had all my balance is USD not bitcoins the law is on my side MyBitcoin was a registered company (LLC) too. Pretty useless if you ask me. I do believe the Intersango people will make everything whole again though. |
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I will just borrow the words from someone else: "It is mathematically impossible to get high leverage to work in a thin market."
Until we have a much larger market, high leverage is absolutely nonsensical and will always lead to huge failures.
This breach (and potential failure of Bitcoinica) had absolutely nothing to do with leverage or margin trading. It was a policy and network security issue and it could have happened to an un-careful Faucet. Bitcoinica's broad customer base is testament to the fact that there is a huge pent-up demand for that type of service. I agree there is tons of demand for leveraged trading. Just telling you that were it not the hacks, it would be the fact that they give out x10 leverage to anonymous accounts which can be created en masse. Any such service providing big leverage without proper risk management (which is really hard with a small market like Bitcoin) is doomed to fail and get into Bitcoin debt potentially as high as all deposits, possibly with the price skyrocketing. Endorsing Bitcoinica is like endorsing MyBitcoin. That is my stance. |
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