Pirate accomplices

[Frankie]

No you don't because that is complete and pure hyperbole.  Not a single person has calimed they will engage in vigilantism and even if they did that would be what 1 (or a handful) out of tens of thousands. 

I've actually reported several over the last few days and the forum mods seem to be cleaning them up pretty quick. 

Yeah. No one asked this noob (who has been a "Pirate is a Ponzi and you guys are shills" kinda guy from day one), but I find the threats here disturbing, especially the threats against true innocents.

[1714881798]

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[imsaguy]

I agree that anyone expecting extra consideration from an uninsured pass through is mainly in denial or trying to pass the buck. But I think it's about time for people who said they "knew what pirate was doing" to step up and either say "nah I was just fronting for pirate" or reveal the information they claimed to possess.

I don't think this is unreasonable.  Even if pirate spun a plausible line of bullshit about his business model, I'm interested in hearing why people were willing to trust him with large amounts of money without investigating his prior business background, references, etc.  Anyone can claim anything on the internet.  What did pirate say which convinced people that he, personally - as opposed to his business model - was both trustworthy and competent?  What evidence did people ask for of his competence and worthiness of trust?  

A plausible business model is no guarantee that someone isn't just going to run off with your funds, so I don't think that can be the only reason the "institutional" investors placed their funds with pirate (or at least I hope it's not, because it would be hopelessly naive not to research the person behind the offer).

Here's a post I made a bit ago:

Investing in stocks or shares is one thing. A startup company is telling you "give me money so our business may succeed and we'll all earn good money". You make the decision to invest or not invest based on your judgment whether the expected returns on the investment is positive in the light of the viability of the business model, the state of the market, etc.

And now for a reasonable answer:

When I started loaning coins to pirate, it was much smaller, with only a handful of people. He never promised this would continue forever.  Over time, its grown but pirate's not done anything contrary to what he originally said and given me any real cause to not trust him.  Now, there's a bunch of people coming into this late in the game, claiming to have insight that others just can't see because they're "idiots".

Even if it was gambling, that's my right and often times, venture capital is gambling, even with the best of knowledge.  To call me an idiot because I partake is well within your right, but it doesn't make you correct.

and to further expand..

When I first joined #bitcoin-otc, I did a crapton of trading.  I did a bunch of moneypaks to btc and back.  Basically, playing market maker for whomever needed to move.  Pirate joined around the same time as me, a few days earlier if I'm not mistaken.  He was doing much the same thing.  As a result, it was inevitable for us to end up trading.  At various times, we each would come up with some big fish (or so it seemed at the time) and would help each other out with sourcing coins or finding coins good homes.  All of these trades were always online, with random people that would join #bitcoin-otc.  Eventually, pirate had some 'IRL' customers and it seemed they were larger than your typical moneypak transactions.  Eventually, I got into mining rather than trading because of a few bad moneypaks that someone screwed me with.  It seemed safer and less time intensive.  Meanwhile, pirate seemed to be branching out his trading and there were times where he needed to borrow coins.  When trading, you'd try to line up the incoming with the outgoing to minimize exchange risk and maximize profit, but then sometimes things go weird with one side or whatever and a person would end up needing to borrow.  It happened to me at times in the past so I didn't think anything of it to loan out.  Time went on, the lending became more regular and one thing leads to another and we end up here.  Pirate never really told me what he was doing but I felt I had a good grasp of what was going on.  The dip in and out of two transactions could make 10% pretty easy (5% on both sides, sometimes much more than that) so 7% actually seemed fair.

[RoloTonyBrownTown]

No you don't because that is complete and pure hyperbole.  Not a single person has calimed they will engage in vigilantism and even if they did that would be what 1 (or a handful) out of tens of thousands.  

I've actually reported several over the last few days and the forum mods seem to be cleaning them up pretty quick.  

LOL, RolloPollyBrownShit guy put up a bounty on me today. Mods deleted it.

Yep, because you're generally a gigantic douche.

(for those thinking I put a hit out on him or something, it was just for a swift kick in the nuts.  Something he thoroughly deserves, but clearly not a serious offer.   Still, I'd love to see it ).

[MrTeal]

I agree that anyone expecting extra consideration from an uninsured pass through is mainly in denial or trying to pass the buck. But I think it's about time for people who said they "knew what pirate was doing" to step up and either say "nah I was just fronting for pirate" or reveal the information they claimed to possess.

I don't think this is unreasonable.  Even if pirate spun a plausible line of bullshit about his business model, I'm interested in hearing why people were willing to trust him with large amounts of money without investigating his prior business background, references, etc.  Anyone can claim anything on the internet.  What did pirate say which convinced people that he, personally - as opposed to his business model - was both trustworthy and competent?  What evidence did people ask for of his competence and worthiness of trust? 

A plausible business model is no guarantee that someone isn't just going to run off with your funds, so I don't think that can be the only reason the "institutional" investors placed their funds with pirate (or at least I hope it's not, because it would be hopelessly naive not to research the person behind the offer).

Here's a post I made a bit ago:

Investing in stocks or shares is one thing. A startup company is telling you "give me money so our business may succeed and we'll all earn good money". You make the decision to invest or not invest based on your judgment whether the expected returns on the investment is positive in the light of the viability of the business model, the state of the market, etc.

And now for a reasonable answer:

When I started loaning coins to pirate, it was much smaller, with only a handful of people. He never promised this would continue forever.  Over time, its grown but pirate's not done anything contrary to what he originally said and given me any real cause to not trust him.  Now, there's a bunch of people coming into this late in the game, claiming to have insight that others just can't see because they're "idiots".

Even if it was gambling, that's my right and often times, venture capital is gambling, even with the best of knowledge.  To call me an idiot because I partake is well within your right, but it doesn't make you correct.

and to further expand..

When I first joined #bitcoin-otc, I did a crapton of trading.  I did a bunch of moneypaks to btc and back.  Basically, playing market maker for whomever needed to move.  Pirate joined around the same time as me, a few days earlier if I'm not mistaken.  He was doing much the same thing.  As a result, it was inevitable for us to end up trading.  At various times, we each would come up with some big fish (or so it seemed at the time) and would help each other out with sourcing coins or finding coins good homes.  All of these trades were always online, with random people that would join #bitcoin-otc.  Eventually, pirate had some 'IRL' customers and it seemed they were larger than your typical moneypak transactions.  Eventually, I got into mining rather than trading because of a few bad moneypaks that someone screwed me with.  It seemed safer and less time intensive.  Meanwhile, pirate seemed to be branching out his trading and there were times where he needed to borrow coins.  When trading, you'd tried to line up the incoming with the outgoing to minimize exchange risk and maximize profit, but then sometimes things go weird with one side or whatever and a person would end up needing to borrow.  It happened to me at times in the past so I didn't think anything of it to loan out.  Time went on, the lending became more regular and one thing leads to another and we end up here.  Pirate never really told me what he was doing but I felt I had a good grasp of what was going on.  The dip in and out of two transactions could make 10% pretty easy (5% on both sides, sometimes much more than that) so 7% actually seemed fair.

This is about the best written and reasoned post in support of Pirate not being a ponzi that I've seen here.

[Coinoisseur]

There are many types of fraud, the ponzi fraud is paying out returns from new investors money. The business can start out completely above board but the moment it begins recruiting new investors so that it can take that money to pay promised returns to current investors, it becomes a ponzi scheme.

If someone takes investment money and provides it as an unsecured loan to a friend or associate knowing the associate will "invest" it in a manner to benefit the lender, that is not a ponzi but it is fraud.

If someone takes investment money claiming it is for Business A but uses the funds for Business B and C, that is not a ponzi but it is fraud.

I would love to hear this brilliant business model that I'm too closed minded or dumb to spot that allows Pirateat40 to not cutoff interest accrual upon closing. If it's high interest loans not done in a fraudulent manner how can the returns have been so consistent and how can he be so confident of repayment that he doesn't put a stop on compounding interest? Please oh wise claimants, enlighten us. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

[MrTeal]

When I first joined #bitcoin-otc, I did a crapton of trading.  I did a bunch of moneypaks to btc and back.  Basically, playing market maker for whomever needed to move.  Pirate joined around the same time as me, a few days earlier if I'm not mistaken.  He was doing much the same thing.  As a result, it was inevitable for us to end up trading.  At various times, we each would come up with some big fish (or so it seemed at the time) and would help each other out with sourcing coins or finding coins good homes.  All of these trades were always online, with random people that would join #bitcoin-otc.  Eventually, pirate had some 'IRL' customers and it seemed they were larger than your typical moneypak transactions.  Eventually, I got into mining rather than trading because of a few bad moneypaks that someone screwed me with.  It seemed safer and less time intensive.  Meanwhile, pirate seemed to be branching out his trading and there were times where he needed to borrow coins.  When trading, you'd try to line up the incoming with the outgoing to minimize exchange risk and maximize profit, but then sometimes things go weird with one side or whatever and a person would end up needing to borrow.  It happened to me at times in the past so I didn't think anything of it to loan out.  Time went on, the lending became more regular and one thing leads to another and we end up here.  Pirate never really told me what he was doing but I felt I had a good grasp of what was going on.  The dip in and out of two transactions could make 10% pretty easy (5% on both sides, sometimes much more than that) so 7% actually seemed fair.

There is a small bit more, but pretty much my understanding.

Also, you can see how hard it would be to unwind this.

If this was the primary source of Pirate's income, wouldn't it imply that at 10% fee per trade he is doing 350k in trading per week? That's almost 2/3rds of MtGox's volume.

[imsaguy]

When I first joined #bitcoin-otc, I did a crapton of trading.  I did a bunch of moneypaks to btc and back.  Basically, playing market maker for whomever needed to move.  Pirate joined around the same time as me, a few days earlier if I'm not mistaken.  He was doing much the same thing.  As a result, it was inevitable for us to end up trading.  At various times, we each would come up with some big fish (or so it seemed at the time) and would help each other out with sourcing coins or finding coins good homes.  All of these trades were always online, with random people that would join #bitcoin-otc.  Eventually, pirate had some 'IRL' customers and it seemed they were larger than your typical moneypak transactions.  Eventually, I got into mining rather than trading because of a few bad moneypaks that someone screwed me with.  It seemed safer and less time intensive.  Meanwhile, pirate seemed to be branching out his trading and there were times where he needed to borrow coins.  When trading, you'd try to line up the incoming with the outgoing to minimize exchange risk and maximize profit, but then sometimes things go weird with one side or whatever and a person would end up needing to borrow.  It happened to me at times in the past so I didn't think anything of it to loan out.  Time went on, the lending became more regular and one thing leads to another and we end up here.  Pirate never really told me what he was doing but I felt I had a good grasp of what was going on.  The dip in and out of two transactions could make 10% pretty easy (5% on both sides, sometimes much more than that) so 7% actually seemed fair.

There is a small bit more, but pretty much my understanding.

Also, you can see how hard it would be to unwind this.

If this was the primary source of Pirate's income, wouldn't it imply that at 10% fee per trade he is doing 350k in trading per week? That's almost 2/3rds of MtGox's volume.

I never sourced my coins on gox.  When he and I traded, afaik, neither did he.  We knew large miners, etc that had coins and were looking to sell.

[dust]

When I first joined #bitcoin-otc, I did a crapton of trading.  I did a bunch of moneypaks to btc and back.  Basically, playing market maker for whomever needed to move.  Pirate joined around the same time as me, a few days earlier if I'm not mistaken.  He was doing much the same thing.  As a result, it was inevitable for us to end up trading.  At various times, we each would come up with some big fish (or so it seemed at the time) and would help each other out with sourcing coins or finding coins good homes.  All of these trades were always online, with random people that would join #bitcoin-otc.  Eventually, pirate had some 'IRL' customers and it seemed they were larger than your typical moneypak transactions.  Eventually, I got into mining rather than trading because of a few bad moneypaks that someone screwed me with.  It seemed safer and less time intensive.  Meanwhile, pirate seemed to be branching out his trading and there were times where he needed to borrow coins.  When trading, you'd try to line up the incoming with the outgoing to minimize exchange risk and maximize profit, but then sometimes things go weird with one side or whatever and a person would end up needing to borrow.  It happened to me at times in the past so I didn't think anything of it to loan out.  Time went on, the lending became more regular and one thing leads to another and we end up here.  Pirate never really told me what he was doing but I felt I had a good grasp of what was going on.  The dip in and out of two transactions could make 10% pretty easy (5% on both sides, sometimes much more than that) so 7% actually seemed fair.

There is a small bit more, but pretty much my understanding.

Also, you can see how hard it would be to unwind this.

Any reasonable businessman would not continually borrow capital at 7% interest per week.  Reinvesting profits in his own business would be much more profitable in the long run than relying on larger and larger loans.

[Bitcoin Oz]

The terms of the PPTs were very clear. The vigilante sentiment that has been floating around lately is just sickening (even considering the hyperbole).

Yeah it is crazyness. p4man even made money from something he called a scam. Will p4man will give back his coins? I bet he wont, but I bet he keeps crying about others losing. What a joke...

They mob can't go after Pirate and wont go after Theymos so they are trying to go after the PPTs. Now why would they do that? Are they just bored? Did they fail to read a contract or know how GLBSE works?

I would be very happy to meet anyone in court who thinks that I did wrong in this legally as long as the loser paid court costs.

Theymos asked for a favor and I did it. He wanted people to set up an uninsured PPT on GLBSE (a company he part owns). He did this while assuming it was a Ponzi. Will GLBSE give back all the fees from the PPT volume? I doubt it...

People should only gamble money they can afford to lose. People should have better things to do than judge other adults doing what they want with their money on the internet. I know p4man is feeling guilty cuz he won but he is not really being helpful by making silly attacks to cover up that guilt.

You guys should really bring your pitch forks to the satashi dice thread so you can gamble and troll more.

Enjoy

When the shit hits the fan the last place you want to be is standing in front of it. Thats just the way shitstorms work  

I really dont think lawyers are what the pirate brigade need to worry about if pirate was doing what I think he was doing. Anyone with half a brain would have avoided the whole situation not put themselves in the firing line when the inevitable happens. I dont know who made the worse decisions here, the people who thought they could get out before it collapsed or the people who setup pasthroughs knowing they would be left holding the bag if  pirate runs off to the caymen islands and sits on the beach sipping pina coladas.

tl;dr Are you really surprised that shit rolls downhill ?

I thought I was dealing with adult men here. Monkeys like P4man made money from a "known ponzi" then tosses their own shit around to cover up guilt.

He is not bad for profiting from the ponzi but it is the PPT who are evil, yeah... 

BTW I will be at a huge loss if pirate wont pay. P4man you going to give me back your winnings? Lol...

 If you can imagine all the investors standing on an island it looks like pirateat40 standing at the wheel of the pirate ship and the PPT operators are swabbing the decks. Now the PPT operators are claiming they were never on the pirate ship when their are pictures of them  sailing the high seas with the captain

[Bitcoin Oz]

When I first joined #bitcoin-otc, I did a crapton of trading.  I did a bunch of moneypaks to btc and back.  Basically, playing market maker for whomever needed to move.  Pirate joined around the same time as me, a few days earlier if I'm not mistaken.  He was doing much the same thing.  As a result, it was inevitable for us to end up trading.  At various times, we each would come up with some big fish (or so it seemed at the time) and would help each other out with sourcing coins or finding coins good homes.  All of these trades were always online, with random people that would join #bitcoin-otc.  Eventually, pirate had some 'IRL' customers and it seemed they were larger than your typical moneypak transactions.  Eventually, I got into mining rather than trading because of a few bad moneypaks that someone screwed me with.  It seemed safer and less time intensive.  Meanwhile, pirate seemed to be branching out his trading and there were times where he needed to borrow coins.  When trading, you'd try to line up the incoming with the outgoing to minimize exchange risk and maximize profit, but then sometimes things go weird with one side or whatever and a person would end up needing to borrow.  It happened to me at times in the past so I didn't think anything of it to loan out.  Time went on, the lending became more regular and one thing leads to another and we end up here.  Pirate never really told me what he was doing but I felt I had a good grasp of what was going on.  The dip in and out of two transactions could make 10% pretty easy (5% on both sides, sometimes much more than that) so 7% actually seemed fair.

There is a small bit more, but pretty much my understanding.

Also, you can see how hard it would be to unwind this.

If this was the primary source of Pirate's income, wouldn't it imply that at 10% fee per trade he is doing 350k in trading per week? That's almost 2/3rds of MtGox's volume.

I never sourced my coins on gox.  When he and I traded, afaik, neither did he.  We knew large miners, etc that had coins and were looking to sell.

It explains why gigavps went to vegas 

[MrTeal]

If Pirate is doing 300k worth of trades in and out of BTC per week, every week, why is it taking him so long to get back into BTC? Even if for some reason he was sitting on $5M is USD and 0BTC, you would expect after a week he should be able to have at least half that back.

There's no reasonable excuse to not start paying back lenders after 10 days.

[imsaguy]

If you can imagine all the investors standing on an island it looks like pirateat40 standing at the wheel of the pirate ship and the PPT operators are swabbing the decks. Now the PPT operators are claiming they were never on the pirate ship when their are pictures of them  sailing the high seas with the captain

I have not ever met Pirate IRL.  I was supposed to meet him in Vegas, but ended up sick while out there and leaving without meeting anyone but the few people I had met earlier in the week to exchange coins with.  Those parties did confirm the trades, either here or in #bitcoin-otc. 

[DeathAndTaxes]

Anyone who thinks the sell OTC trades at 10% markup was a plausible investment strategy is dumber than a box of fraking hammers.

One:
No rich idiots exist that buy products 10% over price.  Period.  Certainly not a continual supply of downright retards with deep pockets so you can unload 500K BTC a week every week into perpetuity.  I mean scope people.  We are talking about 5% of all Bitcoins ever mined (and given idle, cold, and lost accounts probably closer to 10% of all coins in active circulations).  Doing that once would be hard to believe, doing it every single week for months and months.  Are you stupid, or did you just fail elementary math?

Two:
So he can make 10% gross profit assumming he can perfectly utilize his capital.  He gives away 7% and then pays another half percent in trading & banking fees.  So he is left with 2.5%.  He does all the work, takes all the risk, dealing with clients, moving massive amounts of funds in irreversible transactions and gets the tiniest cut.  Worse if he has a slow week he is operating at a loss because his interest costs are fixed.  How dumb did you think Pirate is?  If you thought he was that stupid why would you have him handle your money?

Three:
Nobody thought it strange he never capped deposits?
Nobody thought it strange he never paid down the principal?
Nobody throght it strainge his funding requirements never changed?

Nope there just was this imaginary pool of 500K BTC worth of rich idiots.  Every week.  Not occasional but every friggin weak, forever.  These rich people just happened to only be know by Pirate and likewise never knew anyone else.  They also were totally incapable of using email or their web browser to locate other sources at less than 10% bloody markup?

Honestly anyone who thought this was the master investing plan is even more stupid then the ones who just didn't have any idea.  The fact that you guys thought this was such a great idea that you needed to keep it a secret is just sad.  Had you explained this theory I would have gladly debunked it weeks ago given our company brokers bitcoin deals we might know a little about it.

It is honestly the stupdiest explanation for the cashflow I have heard.  Hell the SR mixer idea while totally impossible is less stupid. Sorry for the rant but Christ people.   Seriously if you thought that please for the love of God hire a broker and never manage your own money ever again because I don't want to have to support you when you are 60 and on welfare due to you "investing skillz".

[ydenys]

Okay, LoupGaroux’s posts are interesting to read and the amount of cheesy quotes is indeed overwhelming, but really? Aren’t we all been here before? Even if it actually was the whole $5m stolen, the perpetrator/s will never be romantically punished by the ‘masses’ (you’ll in fact buy conference tickets from them in a few weeks) and surely there’ll be enough ‘investors’ born to fill up all the inconvenient gaps. These types of ‘incidents’ are bound to scale up together with the project and are indeed a result (maybe the very point) of a ‘free market’ experiment. The life lesson cannot be taught by any amount of typing/talking/screaming, as all parents should know. Sometimes it is beneficial to let kids break their heads a bit. I’d like to hope, however, that the pirate40 would not become an annoying evil hero figurine or an avatar of half of new users on these forums.

[imsaguy]

You all are dumber than a box of fraking hammers.

One:
No rich idiots exist that buy 10% over price.  Period.  Certainly not enough to move 500K BTC a week every week into perpetuity.

You're already missing it.

[DeathAndTaxes]

One:
No rich idiots exist that buy 10% over price.  Period.  Certainly not enough to move 500K BTC a week every week into perpetuity.

I disagree.  Look at the spread that coinabul charges.  It is closer to 20%.

Um that is why coinabul isn't moving $5M in gold a week.  Hell they probably aren't moving $5M in gold this year.

[imsaguy]

One:
No rich idiots exist that buy 10% over price.  Period.  Certainly not enough to move 500K BTC a week every week into perpetuity.

I disagree.  Look at the spread that coinabul charges.  It is closer to 20%.

Um that is why coinabul isn't moving $5M in gold a week.  Hell they probably aren't moving $5M in gold this year.

Poor execution.  Does the owner even leave mommy's basement?

[MrTeal]

If Pirate is doing 300k worth of trades in and out of BTC per week, every week, why is it taking him so long to get back into BTC? Even if for some reason he was sitting on $5M is USD and 0BTC, you would expect after a week he should be able to have at least half that back.

There's no reasonable excuse to not start paying back lenders after 10 days.

Yes there is.  His customers do not want to sell at a loss.  His customers need to sell back the coins so he can clear them of ownership claims so he can give them back to us.

If his customers can't fund even a fraction of the funds needed, why not reach out to other sources? Bitinstant is likely sitting on a pile of BTC, and since if he isn't in the negative already he should have enough USD to buy the BTC he needs, they could probably supply at least a sizable chunk that he could begin paying out the 7% accounts with to stop the bleeding.

[DeathAndTaxes]

You all are dumber than a box of fraking hammers.

One:
No rich idiots exist that buy 10% over price.  Period.  Certainly not enough to move 500K BTC a week every week into perpetuity.

You're already missing it.

No the only thing that is missing is your money.  It is gone because you are even stupider (if that was the theory you invested your funds on) than the ones who were just clueless.  Most of them were just gambling.  If you thought that theory made sense then please find a broker.  Please please because with investing "skills" like that you are going to need a good one.

[imsaguy]

You all are dumber than a box of fraking hammers.

One:
No rich idiots exist that buy 10% over price.  Period.  Certainly not enough to move 500K BTC a week every week into perpetuity.

You're already missing it.

No the only thing that is missing is your money.  It is gone because you are even stupider (if that was the theory you invested your funds on) than the ones who were just clueless.  Most of them were just gambling.  If you thought that theory made sense then please find a broker.  Please please because with investing "skills" like that you are going to need a good one.

You aren't adding anything to this conversation but personal attacks.  To the ignore you go.