Just one word: Namecoin
+1 Whether it's corrupt tables, NSA op, or anonymous script kiddie, the solution is the same. Namecoin peeps, get your DNS servers and websites running please!! We're counting on you when for when the shit hits the routing table. Actually Namecoin does not solve this problem at all. An incompetent DNS host that chooses to spend its resources on celebrity endorsements rather than server redundancy can fail for the exact same reason even if the root servers were based on Namecoin. |
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So what did Vlad do that is wrong? Matt indicated he had cut including ownership of BitTalk. Guess that was yet another lie made by Matt. If Vlad uses his defaulted obligations as leverage to boost him from the company before he does anymore damage I don't see a problem with it. Honestly I am not sure what the problem is? Matt hasn't repaid the debt because he feels nobody is in a posistion to collect. Vlad believes he is in a posistion to collect. Selling debt to "stronger hands" happens all the time, everyday, all around the world. Vlad likely wants Matt far far away from the company he is a part owner. Can you honestly blame him? Matt has already done significant damage and if it comes out later that Matt still owns a significant stake that will be another blow to the company. Obviously depsite his "apology" Matt is looking to play hardball and Vlad see his debt as a method to gain leverage. It is called "big boy business". Also Goat posting PM publicly?  They are called PRIVATE Messages for a reason. Nobody is saying it is criminal but it is downright scummy. Your actions indicate you don't care if a conversation is private you are just going to violate that privacy when you feel like it. Kinda sends a message that nobody should ever do business with you and nobody should ever tell you anything in confidence.TL/DR: "snitches get stitches" j/k This misses a very critical legal point. Does BitTalk and Vlad have right of offset on Matt's debt? If I were in Vlad's position I would be getting legal advice pronto. Seriously. Otherwise Matt could potentially bankrupt BitTalk over this. Maybe I'm just a noob at this, but HOW? IANAL I am going use Pirateat40 as an example since unlike this case it is fairly straightforward to establish the amount of the damages in court. In Matt's case the first question that comes to mind on the other hand is: Would a court consider a scammer tag on bitcointalk.org liquidated damages in the event of a default? So it is actually a lot worse for Vlad and BitTalk. So let us say I purchase some Pirateat40 debt at say 5 bitcents on the BTC. I spend another 5 bitcents per BTC on debt collection efforts, get Pirateat40 to settle for say 15 bitcents on the BTC without forcing him into bankruptcy for a cool 100% profit. Sounds great? Not really. Let us say the other Pirateat40 creditors force Pirateat40 into bankruptcy shortly thereafter, and his bankruptcy estate cannot pay them 15 bitcents on the BTC. The bankruptcy estate can then sue me for the 15 bitcents per BTC pre-bankruptcy settlement. |
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So what did Vlad do that is wrong? Matt indicated he had cut including ownership of BitTalk. Guess that was yet another lie made by Matt. If Vlad uses his defaulted obligations as leverage to boost him from the company before he does anymore damage I don't see a problem with it. Honestly I am not sure what the problem is? Matt hasn't repaid the debt because he feels nobody is in a posistion to collect. Vlad believes he is in a posistion to collect. Selling debt to "stronger hands" happens all the time, everyday, all around the world. Vlad likely wants Matt far far away from the company he is a part owner. Can you honestly blame him? Matt has already done significant damage and if it comes out later that Matt still owns a significant stake that will be another blow to the company. Obviously depsite his "apology" Matt is looking to play hardball and Vlad see his debt as a method to gain leverage. It is called "big boy business". Also Goat posting PM publicly? They are called PRIVATE Messages for a reason. Nobody is saying it is criminal but it is downright scummy. Your actions indicate you don't care if a conversation is private you are just going to violate that privacy when you feel like it. Kinda sends a message that nobody should ever do business with you and nobody should ever tell you anything in confidence.TL/DR: "snitches get stitches" j/k This misses a very critical legal point. Does BitTalk and Vlad have right of offset on Matt's debt? If I were in Vlad's position I would be getting legal advice pronto. Seriously. Otherwise Matt could potentially bankrupt BitTalk over this. |
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Am I the only one that's slightly annoyed about the picture of Danica Patrick, racing star, being depicted on everything that has to do with GoDaddy? I am not just slightly annoyed. This is precisely the reason I avoid companies like Godaddy as a customer. I am a customer with them because I need certain services, and no matter if they supported God, Tom Hanks, Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga, Bieber or whoever, it would not make a difference for me.
It makes a hugh difference to me. Celebrity endorsements are very expensive. The money has to come from somewhere either higher prices or poor service or both. In this case it looks like both. There are many far better alternatives for domain registration and DNS hosting. So I'm thinking, is people really this stupid? They see some good looking lady associated with a company, and they go all drooling over each other to become a customer, or they would say: "Yeah, I'm a customer of Godaddy, same hosting company as Danica Patrick uses. Yes a lot of people are very stupid. That is why companies like Godaddy spend billions of USD a year on celebrity endorsements and lavish marketing campaigns. In this case one can choose between redundant DNS and better uptime or a celebrity endorsement. The redundant DNS does not cost more, in fact in some cases it may actually cost less. It just means that your site stays up. I always wondered why famous people often 'prostitutes' themself in TV-commercials, often they're promoting outright fraudulent products as well (not that I say GoDaddy is a fraud). I guess many people think that the words coming from the mouth of a celeb holds higher value ? Beats me!
For the money. For many sports celebrities this is their major source of income. I do not blame the celebrities for earning a living, I just choose not to pay them by purchasing overpriced and / or substandard products or services. |
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*mumbles something and goes back to drinking.
... or pouring sugar into the rocket engines in order to cause the rocket to explode. The question remains: Does he have any sugar left? |
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+1 One of the reasons I am taking a very close look at the Samsung Galaxy s3 is because Apple is suing to get this phone taken of the market. |
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our site works if you just add this entry to your local hosts file
50.57.69.6 bitpay.com
Bitpay.com went back up for me before GoDaddy.com. I suspect this is because you added another DNS provider as backup. Well done. True but one can have redundancy across multiple DNS providers to deal with this. By the way it appears that Bitpay has just added http://www.buddyns.com to get DNS redundancy. That is why their site is now up. It does not require a fortune to get up time 9's. One can make very significant improvements in uptime at very little cost just by saying no to the marketing BS that companies like GoDaddy spew out. Edit: Also GoDaddy is still down. Fortunately for BitPay they had registered BitPay.com through another registrar MONIKER and it appears this allowed them to add the additional DNS servers through another DNS provider. So kudos to BitPay for not putting all their eggs in one basket. |
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True but one can have redundancy across multiple DNS providers to deal with this. By the way it appears that Bitpay has just added http://www.buddyns.com to get DNS redundancy. That is why their site is now up. It does not require a fortune to get up time 9's. One can make very significant improvements in uptime at very little cost just by saying no to the marketing BS that companies like GoDaddy spew out. Edit: Also GoDaddy is still down. Fortunately for BitPay they had registered BitPay.com through another registrar MONIKER and it appears this allowed them to add the additional DNS servers through another DNS provider. So kudos to BitPay for not putting all their eggs in one basket. |
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Actually it does not need to cost a lot of money to have proper redundant DNS for a small business. In fact it can be done in many cases for under 100 USD a year. I have been hosting my own websites for over 12 years and following some basic rules saved my business 9 years ago when Featureprice went down back in 2002/2003. Rule #1 Never host your DNS or website with the same company that is your domain registrar or with one of their affiliates or resellers. Rule #2 Always know who your domain registrar is. This is critical when purchasing through a reseller or affiliate Rule #3 Always ensure the domain is registered in your own or your own companies name. Yes that means avoiding private registration services. Rule #4 Always ensure all the whois information is up to date and you have complete control over all the associated email addresses in the domain registration. It is best if these email addresses are under domains you own and control. It goes without saying keep your registration up to date. Rule #5 Choose your domain registrar wisely and avoid companies that are constantly embroiled in controversy. GoDaddy is easily among the worst given their support of SOPA and their former CEO involvement with hunting elephants in Africa. Also be aware of political sensitivities if they apply to your site. A US based registrar is not a good idea for your Cuba travel site for example, similarly a registrar based in China is a poor choice for a site about the Falung Gong. Now hosting DNS in a redundant manner is very affordable. There are companies like EasyDNS https://web.easydns.com/ ZoneEdit http://www.zoneedit.com/ that have been around for years and can do this at very affordable rates. One can also easily host one's own DNS on a server or combine one's own DNS hosting with a DNS hosting service for more redundancy. |
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people who deposit their bitcoins in a fractional reserve institution will lose their bitcoins at some point. it is inevitable as bank runs on fractional reserve entities are not a question of if but are a question of when.
It depends on how those institutions are designed. If they are designed with contractual withdraw limits/time frames and are open about their fractional reserve, paying interest on deposits, and allowing public audits via the block chain, I see no reason why they can't exist. Yes it can work but it needs that banking attitudes of the prudent banks of the 19th century when the gold standard was used rather than what we seen in banking today, where banks with reckless banking practices are bailed out by the central banks printing more fiat money. |
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Yes this is very true; however most of what Bitcoin replaces in the fiat world is not cash (M0) but funds in bank accounts, credit on credit cards, funds on deposit with Paypal or a similar service, money market funds etc. M1, M2 or higher.
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does anyone have a log from what has been said by pirate on #btcst last night?
I was there, and he provided no information other than stating that he was not involved in zeek rewards. Does anyone still believe his shit?  Some of us do pay attention to this, and by the way I do not have a single satoshi invested directly or indirectly with pirateat40. Something tells me however that we have not yet seen the end of this pirateat40 and his manipulations or attempted manipulations of the Bitcoin market. |
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I know someone who wanted to put up something worth investing in on GLBSE...I've never looked into it closely. (I believe they are still in the process of doing so.) Could you briefly touch on the obvious reasons?
Legal and taxation. Any company (and no I don't mean someone calling a bunch of rigs a mining "company") only exists because the state says it does. So Tangible Cryptography LLC is only a legal distinct entity from its owners because the Commonwealth of Virginia says that it is. Doing things contrary to the Articles of Organization and the laws of Virginia governing Limited Liability Companies jeapordizes that standing. There are rules on LLC and S-Corp which limit who can be an owner and the process that ownership is established. For example in an LLC an owner (member) can't simply sell ownership to an outsider. It requires a vote of existing members to include the new investors as a member and then a transfer of ownership between existing members. An S-Corp in the US can't have foreigners as shareholders. Neither entity can legally offer public securities or solicit investment (other than to qualified investors). The taxation is even more of an issue. The "entity" (LLC, corp, partnership, etc) is legally obligated to report the profits of its owners. How do you do that when you don't even know who owns your company?There are other legal issues but those two are a deal killer. So either you don't form a corporation or other legal entity and simply put a bunch of assets in a "company" online or you willfully break the law and likely suffer massive consequences when the law catches up to you. For many entities which deal in the "fiat world". Non-compliance with the law and taxation is simply impossible. Tangible Cryptography LLC cashflow (not profits but cashflow) is on the order of ~$10M for this year. If we continue to grow it could be closer to ~$15M. Do you think the IRS hasn't already been notified by our banks. We are almost guaranteed to be audited the second our company files its tax return. Our books have to be air tight. Having quasi-illegal owners on some unregulated anonymous exchange is pretty much a guarantee the LLC would be dissolved as fraudulent and the known owners charged with tax evasion and other crimes. This is very true. The reality here is that it makes no real difference whether one is dealing in CAD, USD, EUR etc or in BTC!. The legal and tax obligations are still there. Another huge issue here for example when the issuer of a security does not only know who the holders of the security are but does not even know in which country the beneficial owner(s) reside. This opens all sorts of issues not only with withholding taxes but also with trade sanction laws. Pirateat40 is the perfect example. How much in interest payments did Pirateat40 for example send to Cuba from the United States? Does he even know? |
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Perhaps the people that are most concerned with Matthew's intentions to follow through with his bet should now take the time to provide proof that they have their side of the bet's funds ready and waiting to be paid out, in case Matthew actually wins ?
Anyone who is upset can obviously prove that they have lived up to their end of the agreement with either proof from a 3rd party Escrow service or deposit, or a coin address that contains the amount that they are personally responsible for, as their wager ?
~DonShrents
They are as likely to understand what you are saying as they are to even realize who is posting said rationalization... so umm, where's your ol' partner, Trendon at? Are you familiar with the inner workings of BTCS&T? do explain.. every thing. ol' partner? I think it's just a pseudonym he used its an anagram of Trendon Sh That's a good point. One thread said that Shrents is the owner of pirateat40.com AND btcst.com On GNU/Linux this is as simple as: Open a terminal and or |
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My suggestion: Sell your ebooks without DRM.
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...
From a Legal standpoint, Bitcoin has a far greater chance as a commodity than a currency.
... and pay GST/HST or VAT on Bitcoin. No way! |
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Virtex has not been hacked.
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Interest payment by itself is meaningless. If you lend 100 BTC, get 20 BTC in interest and then the debtor defaults paying back 50%, 50 BTC you are looking at a 30 BTC net loss not a 20 BTC gain.
If we assume the scheme was just a ponzi then there was no profit. At best it was breakeven but likely some was wasted/stolen/spent by Pirate thus collectively investors have a net loss. Individually some investors may have a gain but others have a loss and net-net the IRS would be looking at a net reduction in revenue not a net gain.
Yes but there were investors who got more that their initial capital out. In other cases even if they subsequently re invested their interest after it was paid out to them this does not eliminate the requirement to withhold by pirateat40. It would be then up to the non US investors to file a return with the IRS and reclaim the withheld tax for example by claiming a loss due to a ponzi fraud. This is a huge tax mess in the case of the non US investors. |
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... and does not declare bankruptcy. Bankruptcy doesn't allow you to discharge the debts of a criminal enterprise. I mean if it did imagine how ineffective the law would be. Madoffs bank accounts, assets, home, personal property (down to the pants in his closet) were sold by liquidators. His wife was left with nothing except assets which weren't communal property and considered protected assets (pension, 401K, etc). The courts even overturned the homestead protection in bankruptcy protection provisions and sold his house at auctions after agreeing with the lawyers for the victims that it the entire house and everything in it should be seen as the proceeds of a criminal enterprise. This is very true. I would expect many of the creditors to fight a bankruptcy discharge on those grounds. I also suspect that the BST lenders are not the only creditors here. For example I would not be surprised if the IRS also has a substantial claim here over withholding taxes for interest payments to non US persons.
That would assume creditors actually got more than their principal back. If they got just their principal back there would be no gain. I doubt many creditors would be upset if they "only" got 100% of principal PLUS all interest (minus a 30% withholding by the IRS). I mean honestly at this point that would be a like getting a unicorn which shits gold coins. Yes but what about the interest payments that were made between the start of BST in November of 2011 and August 2012 when the default occurred? This is where the tax liability very likely lies and it can be very substantial. |
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