bitfloor needs your help!

[DannyHamilton]

I'll use bold next time, so as not to further confuse you.   

use bold with caution, or have you not read the entire thread?

I suspect that the issue people had with 1nject0r had more to do with what he was saying and how he was saying it than the fact that he was using bold on every single word (though he may still have been asked to limit the bold to things that needed emphasis if people didn't mind the rest of it).

[blakdawg]

I will attempt to recover my USD balance, and if the judge wants to pay me a fraction of my USD balance but also compensate me a fraction of my BTC balance, I suppose I would take that deal.

Well, that's the thing about court, it's not really a "deal" that you take or don't take - the judge does what s/he does, and if you can explain why it was legally incorrect you can ask an appellate court to change the ruling. If your exposure is a few thousand USD or less, there's really no economic sense in fighting, it will cost more to fight than it would to just take your losses and move on.

[repentance]

Agreed - I'm not saying it's a good idea (frankly I don't have enough facts to have an opinion about that) but mentioning it as a possibility. To me, this seems like it's headed for bankruptcy, unless all of the creditors are so small that individually it's just not worth filing suit. My hunch is that there are going to be a couple of people with balances in the tens of thousands of dollars (or equivalent in BTC) who will go ahead and file (similar to Cartmell v. Bitcoinica) because they'd rather spend a few thousand more getting something filed and use that as leverage to settle and/or to use the civil discovery process to figure out what's going on . . . and from the company's point of view, it probably makes more sense to spend their cash on bankruptcy attorneys rather than fight lawsuits, only to end up in bankruptcy after losing the lawsuits. The bankruptcy action will create an automatic stay on other matters, so regular civil suits will be frozen while the bankruptcy is resolved.

Historically what has happened is that the larger creditors and/or other service operators have sought to buy out the venture in trouble - Cartmell et all offered to do this with Bitcoinica.  World Bitcoin Exchange and Bitcoinica did not accept the offers which would have paid out all customers and left the operators with no remaining liability but it doesn't mean that Roman won't consider and accept any such offers.

[whitslack]

I will attempt to recover my USD balance, and if the judge wants to pay me a fraction of my USD balance but also compensate me a fraction of my BTC balance, I suppose I would take that deal.

Well, that's the thing about court, it's not really a "deal" that you take or don't take - the judge does what s/he does, and if you can explain why it was legally incorrect you can ask an appellate court to change the ruling. If your exposure is a few thousand USD or less, there's really no economic sense in fighting, it will cost more to fight than it would to just take your losses and move on.

By "take that deal," I meant I would accept that payment and not reject it on moral grounds. My only choices would be to accept whatever the judge wants to pay out to me or to reject it. I can always refuse to take money. If the court decides I should be paid out in USD more than my USD balance at Bitfloor, I might try to refuse or return the part of the settlement that is above and beyond my USD balance, on the basis that I will not knowingly accept stolen property (and any USD settlement beyond my USD balance would necessarily have been stolen from other users who had predominantly USD balances at Bitfloor).

[unclemantis]

@unclemantis... You should probably read the rest of the thread

Why? Should there be reason to panic?

[blakdawg]

If the court decides I should be paid out in USD more than my USD balance at Bitfloor, I might try to refuse or return the part of the settlement that is above and beyond my USD balance, on the basis that I will not knowingly accept stolen property (and any USD settlement beyond my USD balance would necessarily have been stolen from other users who had predominantly USD balances at Bitfloor).

My bet is that everyone with funds at Bitfloor will end up with a pro rata share of the total "deposits", with BTC valued at today or yesterday's average USD exchange rate. And court fees, attorney fees, accountant fees, trustee's fees, and all of the rest come out first.

So a pretty good outcome would probably look like 25% of your total deposits (assuming, overall, that half of the value deposited was BTC (which is now gone) and half was USD, and half of what's left gets spent on the friction of litigation), and you'll probably get it in 12-18 months.

This is why we can't have nice things.

[ErebusBat]

@unclemantis... You should probably read the rest of the thread

Why? Should there be reason to panic?

Yes, it looks like bit floor as we knew it is gone

[unclemantis]

I have put the website back online for users who have USD to request a withdrawal via ACH. If you choose to leave your USD funds in the account they will be available for trading once it resumes. I hope to resume trading later in the week.

If you had outstanding orders they have all been cancelled.

Once trading resumes, I hope to be able to start repaying BTC losses using the proceeds from fees. More information about this will be provided later.

Can you give us a scheduled date and time so that we can be ready out of the gates?

[DannyHamilton]

I have put the website back online for users who have USD to request a withdrawal via ACH. . .Once trading resumes, I hope to be able to start repaying BTC losses using the proceeds from fees. More information about this will be provided later.

Can you give us a scheduled date and time so that we can be ready out of the gates?

See here:

Please note that I have taken the website offline. I am consulting legal council about the current situation . . .

[whitslack]

Yes, it looks like bit floor as we knew it is gone

How sad it is that Bitfloor will be forced out of business and no one will be made whole, when Mr. Shtylman has already indicated that he would like to reopen trading and use the collected fees to repay everyone. It could take years to repay the losses, but eventual repayment of everything everyone is owed would be better than shutting it all down. This is an example of how our legal system is horribly broken. Roman wants to work to make it 100% right in the long-term, but the court wants the short-term compromise at the expense of making the long-term restitution impossible.

[unclemantis]

I have put the website back online for users who have USD to request a withdrawal via ACH. . .Once trading resumes, I hope to be able to start repaying BTC losses using the proceeds from fees. More information about this will be provided later.

Can you give us a scheduled date and time so that we can be ready out of the gates?

See here:

Please note that I have taken the website offline. I am consulting legal council about the current situation . . .

OH MY GOD!

I have a lot of money tied up in a BID.

[DannyHamilton]

Yes, it looks like bit floor as we knew it is gone

How sad it is that Bitfloor will be forced out of business and no one will be made whole, when Mr. Shtylman has already indicated that he would like to reopen trading and use the collected fees to repay everyone. It could take years to repay the losses, but eventual repayment of everything everyone is owed would be better than shutting it all down. This is an example of how our legal system is horribly broken. Roman wants to work to make it 100% right in the long-term, but the court wants the short-term compromise at the expense of making the long-term restitution impossible.

This isn't the fault of the court system.  If everyone involved wanted the same, the courts would likely be happy to allow it to proceed as you've described.

The issue is that there may be more people who want their BTC or USD returned now.  This means that the courts have to step in and dice it all up to satisfy the demands of the debtors.

[unclemantis]

I am pretty sure my order did not go through. Just ACH me the amount that I deposited the other day.

Thank you.

[DannyHamilton]

. . . I hope to be able to start repaying BTC losses using the proceeds from fees. More information about this will be provided later.

Can you give us a scheduled date and time so that we can be ready out of the gates?

See here:

Please note that I have taken the website offline. I am consulting legal council about the current situation . . .

OH MY GOD!

Such are the risks of engaging in transactions with an uninsured, unregulated, un-audited business

[whitslack]

Following from my previous post, here's an interesting idea. Roman Shtylman, please read this and consider...

What if Bitfloor went public on the GLBSE and distributed 100% ownership of the company to the users who lost BTC in the heist, proportionally according to their lost BTC balances. For example, issue ~24,000,000 shares (one share for each 0.001 BTC that was stolen), and distribute the shares proportionately to the users whose BTC was stolen. Then Bitfloor would pay 100% of its operating profits (revenues minus operating expenses) proportionately to its shareholders. The new shareholders could either sit on their newly granted shares, sell them to recoup whatever money they could get, or buy more shares from others who are unloading theirs.

[DannyHamilton]

I am pretty sure my order did not go through. Just ACH me the amount that I deposited the other day.

Thank you.

Unlikely to occur unless/until BitFloor's legal counsel advises them to proceed.  There is a possibility that this will go to courts to determine what BitFloor's liabilities are and how much (if anything) you will get.

[HDSolar]

Following from my previous post, here's an interesting idea. Roman Shtylman, please read this and consider...

What if Bitfloor went public on the GLBSE and distributed 100% ownership of the company to the users who lost BTC in the heist, proportionally according to their lost BTC balances. For example, issue ~24,000,000 shares (one share for each 0.001 BTC that was stolen), and distribute the shares proportionately to the users whose BTC was stolen. Then Bitfloor would pay 100% of its operating profits (revenues minus operating expenses) proportionately to its shareholders. The new shareholders could either sit on their newly granted shares, sell them to recoup whatever money they could get, or buy more shares from others who are unloading theirs.

+1 but I would want Roman to maintain some percentage of the company because we would need someone to run the show and we would want him to stay stay motiviated to continue the process.  With no motiviation I might as well invest in the post office or the government.  

[muyuu]

Yes, it looks like bit floor as we knew it is gone

How sad it is that Bitfloor will be forced out of business and no one will be made whole, when Mr. Shtylman has already indicated that he would like to reopen trading and use the collected fees to repay everyone. It could take years to repay the losses, but eventual repayment of everything everyone is owed would be better than shutting it all down. This is an example of how our legal system is horribly broken. Roman wants to work to make it 100% right in the long-term, but the court wants the short-term compromise at the expense of making the long-term restitution impossible.

He can try two things:

- emergency partial or total buy-out for a sum big enough to cover the losses
- try an IPO in GLBSE for ~75K+, enough to repay, move out of the bloody VPS and hire at least 1 partner to overlook operation, and also keep some BTC to cover possible accidents with the hot-wallet. Satoshidice shot at ~320K, maybe enough people believe Bitfloor is worth more then 75K+ long term with the proper operation
- try to pull a pirateat40. He's way too public to try that, I certainly wouldn't recommend.

[DannyHamilton]

Following from my previous post, here's an interesting idea. Roman Shtylman, please read this and consider...

What if Bitfloor went public on the GLBSE and distributed 100% ownership of the company to the users who lost BTC in the heist, proportionally according to their lost BTC balances. For example, issue ~24,000,000 shares (one share for each 0.001 BTC that was stolen), and distribute the shares proportionately to the users whose BTC was stolen. Then Bitfloor would pay 100% of its operating profits (revenues minus operating expenses) proportionately to its shareholders. The new shareholders could either sit on their newly granted shares, sell them to recoup whatever money they could get, or buy more shares from others who are unloading theirs.

Nice idea, but what if someone who had a lot of BTC on deposit with BitFloor believes that they have a better chance in the courts than they do selling of shares of BitFloor?  How do you convince everybody to go along with your plan?

[whitslack]

Following from my previous post, here's an interesting idea. Roman Shtylman, please read this and consider...

What if Bitfloor went public on the GLBSE and distributed 100% ownership of the company to the users who lost BTC in the heist, proportionally according to their lost BTC balances. For example, issue ~24,000,000 shares (one share for each 0.001 BTC that was stolen), and distribute the shares proportionately to the users whose BTC was stolen. Then Bitfloor would pay 100% of its operating profits (revenues minus operating expenses) proportionately to its shareholders. The new shareholders could either sit on their newly granted shares, sell them to recoup whatever money they could get, or buy more shares from others who are unloading theirs.

+1 but I would want Roman to maintain some percentage of the company because we would need someone to run the show and we would want him to stay stay motiviated to continue the process.  With no motiviation I might as well invest in the post office or the government.

He would be able to purchase shares in Bitfloor on the GLBSE. If he doesn't want to, and if he doesn't want to continue operating Bitfloor, the shareholders could oust him from the company and vote in a new CEO.