I'm giving 100% ROI away to anyone who thinks pirate is a fraud

[TheKoziTwo]

I'm glad the government doesn't run bitcoin, otherwise this Matthew Wright douchebag would be president.

+1000

[bg002h]

The only lesson you taught the community was that you are not a reliable business partner.

No, I'm pretty sure if anyone is learning a lesson right now, it's the loud mouths who were attacking Pirate investors for being "ignorant". I guess they too are getting a dose of their own medicine!

Now I get it. Brilliant.

[elux]

I will make a statement regarding this matter on behalf of Bitcoin Magazine and it's publisher Bittalk Media Ltd.

However, please do allow me some time to consult all the affected stakeholders. It might take a few days.

Public draft of a letter of concern to the Board of BitTalk Media Inc.:

***DRAFT WARNING***

Code:

Dear Vladimir,

By this time you are indubitably aware of the damage damage caused
toward BitTalk Media Ltd, Bitcoin Magazine in particular, stemming from 
the recent public actions of chief editor Matthew N. Wright, and the liability represented thereby. 

I hereby request that the board of BitTalk Media Ltd. immediately remove Matthew N. Wright from any position he might have
with with BitTalk Media Ltd, Bitcoin Magazine, and affiliated organizations, and that this action is made public as soon as possible. 

This in the interest of minimizing the loss of business, advertising revenue and otherwise irrecoverable damage to the image of the business, caused by lack of timely, appropriate action on part of the board of BitTalk Media.

I also propose that you take the appropriate steps to seek legal recourse for restoring the material or immaterial damages inflicted
upon BitTalk Media Inc. and Bitcoin Magazine resulting from the 79000 BTC fraud perpetrated by Matthew N. Wright while acting as 
chief editor, as he in no small part relied on the reputation owing from this position to enable the fraud.

Best regards,
-elux,

[List of signatories.]

***DRAFT WARNING***

EDIT: Posted to a new thread here; https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=107609.0

[thebaron]

You know, I gotta say, I really tried to read the OP as if it were someone trying to weasel their way out with a technicality. And it doesn't come across that way at all. Sorry, gonna have to say that Matt owes those BTC addresses some BTC.

[Gyrsur]

You know, I gotta say, I really tried to read the OP as if it were someone trying to weasel their way out with a technicality. And it doesn't come across that way at all. Sorry, gonna have to say that Matt owes those BTC addresses some BTC.

Topic is "I'm giving 100% ROI away to anyone who thinks pirate is a fraud". It is cheating at least!

[ldrgn]

Promissory Estoppel - don't know if it's been brought up in this thread yet but it's the phrase you need to know.

[hannesnaude]

[1l1l11ll1l]

Promissory Estoppel - don't know if it's been brought up in this thread yet but it's the phrase you need to know.

promissory estoppel n. when a person makes a false statement to another and the listener relies on what was told to him/her in good faith and to his/her disadvantage. In order to see that justice is done a court will treat the statement as a promise, and in a trial the judge will preclude the maker of the statement from denying it. Thus, the legal inability of the person who made the false statement to deny it makes it an enforceable promise called "promissory estoppel," or an "equitable estoppel." Example: Bernie Blowhard tells Arthur Artist that Blowhard has a contract to make a movie and wants Artist to paint the background scenery in return for a percentage of the profits. Artist paints, and Blowhard then admits he needed the scenery to try to get a movie deal which fell through and there are no profits to share. Artist sues and the judge finds that Blowhard cannot deny a contract with Artist and gives Artist judgment for the value of his work. (See: estoppel)

[md2k7]

Incredible how quickly one can ruin his good reputation in this forum. On the one hand, I see a parallel here to pirate's actions ("I would have wasted my perfect OTC ratings"), and this makes you think about the issue of how much credibility and trustworthiness an online identity can possibly achieve (which probably was part of Matthew's plan). On the other hand, pirate ran BS&T for personal profit, so his initial ratings weren't wasted after all.

Why Matthew thought education of the masses was worth the amount of defamation and trolling that is up and coming after *this*, I can't really grasp.

Congratulations!

Lots of fun and trolling to the others
-md2k7

[Bjork]

The only lesson you taught the community was that you are not a reliable business partner.

No, I'm pretty sure if anyone is learning a lesson right now, it's the loud mouths who were attacking Pirate investors for being "ignorant". I guess they too are getting a dose of their own medicine!

No, I'd be willing to bet (hah) that most of the people who got scammed where pirate investors looking to hedge.

[tvbcof]

In defense of Mathew:

All but the most retarded here assumed near zero chance the Pirate would legitimately pay up.  That includes Mathew.  So there was no way that Mathew was going to make any money on this and equally importantly, his 'victims' were not going to lose anything (unless they were such dolts that they planned on him paying and took out a second mortgage on their home or whatever.)

Ergo, his game although silly and mostly (but not totally) pointless does not approach the magnitude of the more typical scams and was not effected for the purpose of transferring money from other people's pocket to his own.

He also gave us a funny list of forum users who were chumped whenever we need a chuckle.  And the list has some surprising names on it.  So I guess some people lost a little bit of their dignity, but I still argue that it's much worse to lose actual money as well.

[drakahn]

"scammed" ... or "Owed a debt that will be chased"?

[conspirosphere.tk]

In defense of Mathew:
All but the most retarded here assumed near zero chance the Pirate would legitimately pay up.  That includes Mathew.

No, Matthew was quite serious the first days, until he upped the stakes and it became an obvious joke. In any case we are not here to joke about money.

[Bjork]

In defense of Mathew:

All but the most retarded here assumed near zero chance the Pirate would legitimately pay up.  That includes Mathew.  So there was no way that Mathew was going to make any money on this and equally importantly, his 'victims' were not going to lose anything (unless they were such dolts that they planned on him paying and took out a second mortgage on their home or whatever.)

Ergo, his game although silly and mostly (but not totally) pointless does not approach the magnitude of the more typical scams and was not effected for the purpose of transferring money from other people's pocket to his own.

He also gave us a funny list of forum users who were chumped whenever we need a chuckle.  And the list has some surprising names on it.  So I guess some people lost a little bit of their dignity, but I still argue that it's much worse to lose actual money as well.

Some people may have bought bad pirate debt etc to hedge against matt.  This was a serious scam ad should not be played down.  I did not bet with Matt, btw.

[tvbcof]

In defense of Mathew:
All but the most retarded here assumed near zero chance the Pirate would legitimately pay up.  That includes Mathew.

No, Matthew was quite serious the first days, until he upped the stakes and it became an obvious joke. In any case we are not here to joke about money.

No one but Matthew knows what his motivations where at what points in time.

As for why we are here, we each have our own motivations.  I, for instance, am perfectly happy to joke about damn near anything and money is a particularly rich hunting ground when it comes to seeking entertainment value.

[conspirosphere.tk]

Then he should have posted his "bet" in the "fun and jokes" section of the forum

[tvbcof]

In defense of Mathew:

All but the most retarded here assumed near zero chance the Pirate would legitimately pay up.  That includes Mathew.  So there was no way that Mathew was going to make any money on this and equally importantly, his 'victims' were not going to lose anything (unless they were such dolts that they planned on him paying and took out a second mortgage on their home or whatever.)

Ergo, his game although silly and mostly (but not totally) pointless does not approach the magnitude of the more typical scams and was not effected for the purpose of transferring money from other people's pocket to his own.

He also gave us a funny list of forum users who were chumped whenever we need a chuckle.  And the list has some surprising names on it.  So I guess some people lost a little bit of their dignity, but I still argue that it's much worse to lose actual money as well.

Some people may have bought bad pirate debt etc to hedge against matt.  This was a serious scam ad should not be played down.  I did not bet with Matt, btw.

I don't think that anyone could be _that_ dense and would actually put their own money on such a chain of unlikely outcomes.  But I could be wrong.  Anyone want to step up and claim this mode of harm?

[P4man]

I don't think that anyone could be _that_ dense and would actually put their own money on such a chain of unlikely outcomes. 

Ahm.. thats pretty much what the Pirate Ponzi cheerleading Team bet somewhere between 100 and 500K BTC on.

[Bjork]

In defense of Mathew:

All but the most retarded here assumed near zero chance the Pirate would legitimately pay up.  That includes Mathew.  So there was no way that Mathew was going to make any money on this and equally importantly, his 'victims' were not going to lose anything (unless they were such dolts that they planned on him paying and took out a second mortgage on their home or whatever.)

Ergo, his game although silly and mostly (but not totally) pointless does not approach the magnitude of the more typical scams and was not effected for the purpose of transferring money from other people's pocket to his own.

He also gave us a funny list of forum users who were chumped whenever we need a chuckle.  And the list has some surprising names on it.  So I guess some people lost a little bit of their dignity, but I still argue that it's much worse to lose actual money as well.

Some people may have bought bad pirate debt etc to hedge against matt.  This was a serious scam ad should not be played down.  I did not bet with Matt, btw.

I don't think that anyone could be _that_ dense and would actually put their own money on such a chain of unlikely outcomes.  But I could be wrong.  Anyone want to step up and claim this mode of harm?

How is it a "chain of unlikely outcomes"??

If pirate pays, you lose the bet with Matt but pirate paid back your (discounted) "bad debt" so no loss

If pirate doesn't pay, you win the Matt bet.  There is no additional risk to this hedging, the only risk is that Matt renigs on his bet.


Granted, this shows how ridiculous Matt's bet was in the first place, if he really thought pirate would pay he would have just bought bad pirate debt.  Thus why I wouldn't bet without escrow.

[ab8989]

One important point to consider is what happened at the moment when MNW started to take new bets over the initial 10kBTC.
If I remember correctly that happened AFTER pirate first quite clearly announced he is having trouble paying.

I believe MNW was running an honest bet for 10kBTC until that moment and when it become clear that he cannot win the bet fair and square, he went insane and thought about this silly scam and started taking bets in excess of the 10k as a joke to himself knowing he would not be honouring the bet.

The important thing to consider is that I believe if pirate would not have announced his troubles and if pirate would have paid out, the bet would have remained capped to the original 10kBTC and MNW would have got 10k of real BTCs and he would had been harrassing everyone entered the bet to pay up real BTCs to MNW.

The real nature of the bet was really either 10kBTC for MNW if he wins or nothing to others if they win.