2012-08-13 slashdot.org - Hacked BitCoin Exchange Sued By Customers

[julz]

Hacked BitCoin Exchange Sued By Customers

2012-08-13

http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/08/13/236252/hacked-bitcoin-exchange-sued-by-customers

...
"Bitcoinica, an exchange for the BitCoin virtual currency, is being sued by former customers, after it was hacked. Thieves stole around $180,000 worth of BitCoins in two attacks. The site is now closed, and customers are suing to get their money back."
...

[repentance]

Yet another article based on the same inaccurate Verge report.  Doesn't anyone actually research their stories these days?  Even the BBC didn't bother to fact check the ArsTechnica or Verge report before they picked up the story.

[dree12]

Yet another article based on the same inaccurate Verge report.  Doesn't anyone actually research their stories these days?  Even the BBC didn't bother to fact check the ArsTechnica or Verge report before they picked up the story.

Bitcoinica is legally an exchange because the lawsuit defined it as such.

[Peter Todd]

Yet another article based on the same inaccurate Verge report.  Doesn't anyone actually research their stories these days?  Even the BBC didn't bother to fact check the ArsTechnica or Verge report before they picked up the story.

Bitcoinica is legally an exchange because the lawsuit defined it as such.

Unfortunately filing a lawsuit saying you want money back from a bucket shop you were gambling at tends not to go all that well...

[rjk]

Yet another article based on the same inaccurate Verge report.  Doesn't anyone actually research their stories these days?  Even the BBC didn't bother to fact check the ArsTechnica or Verge report before they picked up the story.

Bitcoinica is legally an exchange because the lawsuit defined it as such.

Unfortunately filing a lawsuit saying you want money back from a bucket shop you were gambling at tends not to go all that well...

Bitcoinica offered straight exchange services in addition to interest on deposits and margin trading.

[Peter Todd]

Yet another article based on the same inaccurate Verge report.  Doesn't anyone actually research their stories these days?  Even the BBC didn't bother to fact check the ArsTechnica or Verge report before they picked up the story.

Bitcoinica is legally an exchange because the lawsuit defined it as such.

Unfortunately filing a lawsuit saying you want money back from a bucket shop you were gambling at tends not to go all that well...

Bitcoinica offered straight exchange services in addition to interest on deposits and margin trading.

They did? I remember that while you could buy or sell US dollars there, you couldn't actually use Bitcoinica to actually transfer those US dollars. Or did they change that after they were bought?

[rjk]

Bitcoinica offered straight exchange services in addition to interest on deposits and margin trading.

They did? I remember that while you could buy or sell US dollars there, you couldn't actually use Bitcoinica to actually transfer those US dollars. Or did they change that after they were bought?

Yes, you could deposit USD with a wire transfer and withdraw as BTC after using the "exchange" tab at the top of the page. I'm not sure if the "old version" of the released source code would have that part in it though.

[Peter Todd]

Bitcoinica offered straight exchange services in addition to interest on deposits and margin trading.

They did? I remember that while you could buy or sell US dollars there, you couldn't actually use Bitcoinica to actually transfer those US dollars. Or did they change that after they were bought?

Yes, you could deposit USD with a wire transfer and withdraw as BTC after using the "exchange" tab at the top of the page. I'm not sure if the "old version" of the released source code would have that part in it though.

But you couldn't deposit BTC and withdraw USD? That is different than a pure bucket shop, but that doesn't sound that different... After all, the real issue with the bucket shop is that the actual trades, especially on margin, aren't actually going out to the market individually so the owners have an incentive to manipulate the market. Equally, the owners are in deep trouble if the market shifts suddenly. Only a genuine full exchange is going to prevent that.

Similarly, how could they possibly be truly offering margin credit without obtaining enough identifiable information on the investors to mitigate the credit risk and go after in-debt accounts?

[rjk]

I'm not sure whether they allowed outgoing fiat transfers, but I'm pretty sure you could withdraw mtgox usd codes. It's been a while, as you can tell.

[repentance]

Yet another article based on the same inaccurate Verge report.  Doesn't anyone actually research their stories these days?  Even the BBC didn't bother to fact check the ArsTechnica or Verge report before they picked up the story.

Bitcoinica is legally an exchange because the lawsuit defined it as such.

That wasn't one of the inaccuracies to which I was referring.  Even if it was, anyone can claim anything in a law suit (it claims Intersango is of unknown form which is utter bullshit - the Company House records have been linked here).  Whether or not Bitcoinica was actually operating as an exchange is something which will be determined by the court if it is relevant to the case.  While Zhou always claimed that users traded contracts for difference and not Bitcoins, that claim would be unlikely to withstand close scrutiny but I'm not sure that issue is even relevant to an action for contractual breach.

Sooner or later there's bound to be some kind of legal determination about the nature of Bitcoin exchanges.  MtGox is seeking licensing as a money service business in the US and if they're successful it's likely that other exchanges will regarded as such in the US.  Other jurisdictions may classify them differently.  PayPal is classified in different ways in different jurisdictions and the restrictions placed on its operations vary from one jurisdiction to the next.

[labestiol]

Similarly, how could they possibly be truly offering margin credit without obtaining enough identifiable information on the investors to mitigate the credit risk and go after in-debt accounts?

They were not allowing in-debt accounts, your positions were liquidated when your account reached zero.
And they were asking for identification, but i guess only for AML policies.

[Peter Todd]

Similarly, how could they possibly be truly offering margin credit without obtaining enough identifiable information on the investors to mitigate the credit risk and go after in-debt accounts?

They were not allowing in-debt accounts, your positions were liquidated when your account reached zero.
And they were asking for identification, but i guess only for AML policies.

But that's my point: bucket shops don't let their customers go ini debt, nor do they issue margin calls, because they want them to get wiped out.

[labestiol]

Similarly, how could they possibly be truly offering margin credit without obtaining enough identifiable information on the investors to mitigate the credit risk and go after in-debt accounts?

They were not allowing in-debt accounts, your positions were liquidated when your account reached zero.
And they were asking for identification, but i guess only for AML policies.

But that's my point: bucket shops don't let their customers go ini debt, nor do they issue margin calls, because they want them to get wiped out.

I might be wrong, but to me a bucket shop is a place where you can do (margin) trading, but which has no link to a real market (ie they are only betting against their customers)

Sure some trading platforms are allowing to go in debt, but there is always a limit to it. And if the line is crossed, your positions will be liquidated.
So the only difference is the amount of debt allowed (in the case of bitcoinica it was zero).

btw, bitcoinica was issuing margin calls.

[Peter Todd]

I might be wrong, but to me a bucket shop is a place where you can do (margin) trading, but which has no link to a real market (ie they are only betting against their customers)

Sure some trading platforms are allowing to go in debt, but there is always a limit to it. And if the line is crossed, your positions will be liquidated.
So the only difference is the amount of debt allowed (in the case of bitcoinica it was zero).

btw, bitcoinica was issuing margin calls.

Interesting, sounds like they cleaned up their act. I remember looking a it around February or so, and I remember seeing no way to get fiat in or out of the system, as well as everyone's suspicions that trade volume on mtgox just didn't account for bitcoinicas volume, even with combining orders.

Funny thing is, after seeing that they supported google auth codes, security was the one thing about them that didn't bother me...

[lonelyminer (Peter Šurda)]

Interesting, sounds like they cleaned up their act. I remember looking a it around February or so, and I remember seeing no way to get fiat in or out of the system, as well as everyone's suspicions that trade volume on mtgox just didn't account for bitcoinicas volume, even with combining orders.

I might be wrong here, but if I remember correctly you could deposit/withdraw USD-denominated Mt. Gox codes since the beginning, and later BitInstant was integrated too. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2973313 which has posts dated beginning of September 2011 people talking about USD-denominated Gox codes on Bitcoinica.