PSA: cypherdoc is a paid shill, liar and probably epic scammer: HashFast affair

[cypherdoc]

Who in their right mind would put Dr. Balle on a crypto currency panel given his obvious lack of ethics and morals in judging someone without any evidence, proof, or a verdict?

https://www.digitalcurrencycouncil.com/uncategorized/bitcoin-south-2014-new-zealands-first-cryptocurrency-conference/

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[iCEBREAKER]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_facie

If you think it applies here, that term does not mean what you think it means.

HF's high-powered lawyer similarly tried to simply declare victory and award herself Frap.doc's coins.

It didn't work; in fact her borderline-frivolous claim was literally laughed out of court with an abundance of mirth and 'LeBron' wisecracks.

Judge Montali basically said 'Yawn, wake me up when you have some real evidence.'

[tvbcof]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_facie

If you think it applies here, that term does not mean what you think it means.

HF's high-powered lawyer similarly tried to simply declare victory and award herself Frap.doc's coins.

It didn't work; in fact her borderline-frivolous claim was literally laughed out of court with an abundance of mirth and 'LeBron' wisecracks.

Judge Montali basically said 'Yawn, wake me up when you have some real evidence.'

The 3000 BTC which were earmarked for mining gear and now sit in a wallet which is under cypherdoc's control is 'prima facie' evidence that cypherdoc made out like a bandit on this one.

Cypherdoc's shilling (and I use the word formally here since he has admitted to it) is preserved for the world to see.  That is 'prima facie' evidence that he either passes himself off as an expert when he is incompetent, or is simply a scamer.

Those are perfectly serviceable examples of 'prima facie' to me.

As we've been through before (probably on this thread if I was not to lazy to parse through it), the judge simply said that no matter how cypherdoc ended up with the loot (which is to be determined in a different venue) there is no reason to hand it over to the plaintiff at the present time.  Nothing more, nothing less, and it seems like a perfectly rational decision to me.  If I were the judge, however, I would have told cypherdoc to not lose the 3000 BTC and don't go to far away because there are others who may need to have a little talk with him.

[iCEBREAKER]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prima_facie

If you think it applies here, that term does not mean what you think it means.

HF's high-powered lawyer similarly tried to simply declare victory and award herself Frap.doc's coins.

It didn't work; in fact her borderline-frivolous claim was literally laughed out of court with an abundance of mirth and 'LeBron' wisecracks.

Judge Montali basically said 'Yawn, wake me up when you have some real evidence.'

The 3000 BTC which were earmarked for mining gear and now sit in a wallet which is under cypherdoc's control is 'prima facie' evidence that cypherdoc made out like a bandit on this one.

Cypherdoc's shilling (and I use the word formally here since he has admitted to it) is preserved for the world to see.  That is 'prima facie' evidence that he either passes himself off as an expert when he is incompetent, or is simply a scamer.

Those are perfectly serviceable examples of 'prima facie' to me.

As we've been through before (probably on this thread if I was not to lazy to parse through it), the judge simply said that no matter how cypherdoc ended up with the loot (which is to be determined in a different venue) there is no reason to hand it over to the plaintiff at the present time.  Nothing more, nothing less, and it seems like a perfectly rational decision to me.  If I were the judge, however, I would have told cypherdoc to not lose the 3000 BTC and don't go to far away because there are others who may need to have a little talk with him.

Making out like a bandit, as Dr. Frap did, is not illegal.  The key word is "like" which here means 'in the manner of but not exactly.'

He took the risk of his sales commission being denominated in BTC, and it worked out very well for him.  It could have gone the other way, if BTC had crashed back to $2 instead of ramping to $1200.  You are just hating because you are jealous.  Believe me, I understand the temptation!   

'Expert vs incompetent' is not relevant here, hence the infamous LeBron quip.  Bitcoin (esp in 2011) ASICs are far too new for recognized experts.

Frappo's job was to act as community liaison and help HF raise part of their NRE.  He did that, with full compensation disclosure right at the top of his thread, not hidden in fine print at the bottom.

Your "earmarked for mining gear" phrase is intentionally misleading.  If you had a stronger argument, you wouldn't have to resort to just making stuff up, as if HF wasn't allowed to pay for anything except ASICs (no salaries, no sales commissions, no web site, no tech support, no QA, no lawyers, no red staplers, not even coffee).

[RoadStress]

Who in their right mind would put Dr. Balle on a crypto currency panel given his obvious lack of ethics and morals in judging someone without any evidence, proof, or a verdict?

https://www.digitalcurrencycouncil.com/uncategorized/bitcoin-south-2014-new-zealands-first-cryptocurrency-conference/

How can you consider the 3000 BTC that you took from HF to not be the proof that you are asking? They paid you to pimp their sales using beautiful words even if you have 0 technical experience when it comes to what it takes to get a fully working miner from the ground up.

[tvbcof]

Cypherdoc antagonizes marcus_of_agustus who does a little research and responds with this thread.  cypherdoc loses mojo as high-powered-shill; flees trolltalk.

I think someone captured what marcus_of_agustus said the cypherdoc here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spOvMHBz69k

[SebastianJu]

...given his obvious lack of ethics and morals...

Thank you... really... i had to laugh hard when i read that.

But i don't blame you. It became obvious that you have some issue with recognizing these forms of moral behaviour.

[RoadStress]

...given his obvious lack of ethics and morals...

Thank you... really... i had to laugh hard when i read that.

But i don't blame you. It became obvious that you have some issue with recognizing these forms of moral behaviour.

Because in his sick mind it is ok to endorse a tech start-up company while having no technical background since he "looked them into their eyes" and while cashing in 3k BTC! Yes cypherdoc tell us more about the others people lack of ethics so we don't focus on you.

[ElectricMucus]

Scams all the way down.

lol, nuff said

[gmaxwell]

Another way to look at it--  is there anyone here who still would have done business with hashfast if they knew cypherdoc was going to get 10% of the purchase price, in advance of delivery, regardless if the delivery ever happened?  I don't really think so-- it certainly would have greatly upped the risk estimates. Getting some discount gear or a demo unit is one thing, but 10% for making some forum posts?  Thats alarmbell territory--  and yet cypherdoc knew this material information, and didn't share it.

Cypherdoc's contract was more reason to disbelieve the terms they were promoting that made their sales pitch so attractive in the first place:  Full refund of the Bitcoin's sent if they failed to deliver. They only works if you retain the coins... now it's possible that they could give him 10% and purchase at spot to prevent ending up with an unbacked liability, but at a minimum it would have resulted in a lot more critical questions. Doc also repeated as fact on reddit Icebreakers claim that his "job was to act as community liaison and help HF raise part of their NRE" that he knew the presale funds would be used to cover unfunded NRE, rather than the position of these costs having already been covered by outside investors. He surely didn't share _that_ fact with any of in his posts. I guess he had a few hundred thousand reasons not to, enh?

He continued his promotion without reservation while Simon happily made promises about refunds in the event of failure, even though his _job_ existed because these claims were impossible and the sales contracts were being made in bad faith.

The ludicrous 3000 BTC payment for a couple forum posts (regardless of if you think of it in terms of $350k or 10%) makes a little more sense if you consider that he was being paid to raise _investment_ rather than promote a product.  So sad for everyone else that Cypherdoc knew they wouldn't get the funds if people had a complete picture and understood the liabilities.  I guess thats more charatable than the prior leading theory that they were paying him so much in order to tunnel money out of the company.

Cypherdoc defends his unconsionable windfall here with "a contract is a contract, is it not?"-- but the customers of HF whom had far less access to information and were (AFAICT) deliberately mislead by Cypherdoc and others all had contracts which were not upheld, and under the law are some of the first in line for recovery in an insolvency. The technical details of the chineses walls drafted into documents to attempt to isolate people from their fradulent actions isn't of consequence to the people that got screwed,  no amount of contracting with me can enable Alice to help me rip-off Bob without creating liability for Alice in any sane system of law. The courts should have the thoughtfulness to see through the pretext here and recover all the available procedes from HF's bad business from all of the people involved in misleading people in the first place.

[iCEBREAKER]

Another way to look at it--  is there anyone here who still would have done business with hashfast if they knew cypherdoc was going to get 10% of the purchase price, in advance of delivery, regardless if the delivery ever happened?  I don't really think so-- it certainly would have greatly upped the risk estimates. Getting some discount gear or a demo unit is one thing, but 10% for making some forum posts?  Thats alarmbell territory--  and yet cypherdoc knew this material information, and didn't share it.

Cypherdoc's contract was more reason to disbelieve the terms they were promoting that made their sales pitch so attractive in the first place:  Full refund of the Bitcoin's sent if they failed to deliver. They only works if you retain the coins... now it's possible that they could give him 10% and purchase at spot to prevent ending up with an unbacked liability, but at a minimum it would have resulted in a lot more critical questions. Doc also repeated as fact on reddit Icebreakers claim that his "job was to act as community liaison and help HF raise part of their NRE" that he knew the presale funds would be used to cover unfunded NRE, rather than the position of these costs having already been covered by outside investors. He surely didn't share _that_ fact with any of in his posts. I guess he had a few hundred thousand reasons not to, enh?

He continued his promotion without reservation while Simon happily made promises about refunds in the event of failure, even though his _job_ existed because these claims were impossible and the sales contracts were being made in bad faith.

The ludicrous 3000 BTC payment for a couple forum posts (regardless of if you think of it in terms of $350k or 10%) makes a little more sense if you consider that he was being paid to raise _investment_ rather than promote a product.  So sad for everyone else that Cypherdoc knew they wouldn't get the funds if people had a complete picture and understood the liabilities.  I guess thats more charatable than the prior leading theory that they were paying him so much in order to tunnel money out of the company.

Cypherdoc defends his unconsionable windfall here with "a contract is a contract, is it not?"-- but the customers of HF whom had far less access to information and were (AFAICT) deliberately mislead by Cypherdoc and others all had contracts which were not upheld, and under the law are some of the first in line for recovery in an insolvency. The technical details of the chineses walls drafted into documents to attempt to isolate people from their fradulent actions isn't of consequence to the people that got screwed,  no amount of contracting with me can enable Alice to help me rip-off Bob without creating liability for Alice in any sane system of law. The courts should have the thoughtfulness to see through the pretext here and recover all the available procedes from HF's bad business from all of the people involved in misleading people in the first place.

Please note I was not originally privy to the exact wording of Frap.doc's contract (which is now public domain) but gleaned the gist of it via various context clues.

How about a beer summit, where you buy the drinks (in vino veritas) and I answer any and all questions you have about WTF happened at HF?  No pleading the 5th, no evasion or deflection, no holds barred.  Just your honest, good faith questions and my complete answers.

Despite our gloriously rancorous past head-butting, I don't want to be your (or Frap.doc's) enemy.  These days, I prefer to save my enmity for Team XT and (repeating myself) Team Fiat.

[elux]

Looks like cypherdoc siphoned 3000BTC off Hashfast while customers were pre-paying for undelivered mining equipment.
The payments were made in return for his 'shilling' on bitcointalk.org in the HashFastEndorsement thread.

Gregory Maxwell (nullc) vs #Cypherdoc on /r/bitcoin:

[–]cypherdoc2 11 points 2 days ago
You made your bed--now you get to lie in it.
Gmax does lie alot. Especially about our dealings.

[–]nullc -8 points 2 days ago*
By "our dealings" I assume you're referring to the fact that I remain torqued that you were a part of the Hashfast fradulent (see the latest ruling wrt fraud here) bitcoin miner sales,
where you received 10% of gross receipts-- over 3000 BTC-- and walked away with them while most customers (like myself!) got nothing while hashfast folded into insolvency; which is a fact which has landed you personally in court and trashed your reputation on bitcointalk.
Please, if I've gotten anything wrong there-- I'm all ears for corrections. Errors happen, but I certainly wouldn't want to spread any misinformation.

[–]cypherdoc2 10 points 1 day ago
That's all you've spread, misinformation. You coordinated the smear campaign against me on BCT and could be accused of libel.
Where's the guilty verdict Greg? just because someone is involved in a dispute doesn't make them guilty, you liar.
No one other than you is saying I "walked away". I was "paid" that money for services rendered. That's your way of twisting the story like you've twisted this block debate.
Are you always so quick to rush to judgment? Do you conduct your dev analyses this way, based on no evidence?

[–]nullc -10 points 1 day ago
Being accused doesn't make someone guilty, indeed-- but there isn't a dispute about the core facts.
Your own attorney reports that you were paid 3000 BTC and other considerations in connection with the hashfast scheme, 10% of retail price of the units.
On August 8, 2013 posting on behalf of Hashfast you promised that hashfast would "offer full refunds by the end of the year if they’re late", a statement later repeated by other agents of hashfast.
Yet there is no dispute that hashfast failed to deliver on these promises, leaving most customers with a total loss.
Prior to the litigation against you causing the disclosure of your contract and the extent of your involvement with hashfast and the resulting windfall, I believed that you were just another victim in this bad situation because you lead me to believe so (in contrast to the appearance of extensive involvement created by your public comments). Only after your court documents shows up on Bitcoin talk did I know otherwise.

[–]cypherdoc2 3 points 1 day ago*
Of course I got paid that.. I never denied that. The allegation in the docs is "we paid you too much". WTF is that? "According to the signed contract" I'd add. They are going to lose.
What do you mean they failed to give refunds? Of course they did. I tried to get you to take the same refund I took in USD after the end of the year but you ridiculously tried to get refunded in BTC, which had approximately doubled in value by that point. That is ridiculous.
You got burned because you were greedy and wanted a windfall.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bitcoinxt/comments/3jwebt/mike_hearn_on_sidechains_and_blockstream/cut8qib?context=4

Cypherdoc is guilty.

Guilty by his own admission.

Guilty of being a paid shill.

Perhaps not guilty of a crime.

But this is damning still.

[brg444]

 

[favdesu]

3000 bitcoin? Does that make him a better con man than Josh Garza?

That's a whole new level of shilling

[marcus_of_augustus]

I am not Dorian.

[HCLivess]

Crazy, man, crazy

[SebastianJu]

Are there any developments in the court case yet? I would like to know how things develop on that front. And i wonder if a judge will really see it as so unproblematic at the end.

[nwfella]

Are there any developments in the court case yet? I would like to know how things develop on that front. And i wonder if a judge will really see it as so unproblematic at the end.

Last notification that I received showed they where trying to disallow my claim in it's entirety with the following explaination "The books and records of the Debtors are not reliable.  Therefore, the Liquidating Trustee does not have sufficient evidence to determine amount, validity, and/or the nature of the claim."

Pretty shady, I'm sure they are trying to do this with everybody that was unfortunate enough to pay with bitcoin in the hopes that several of them no longer have control of their old wallets.  I'm not entirely sure I still have control of the wallet I paid from sadly.  Will be looking into it this weekend thats for sure.

[SebastianJu]

Are there any developments in the court case yet? I would like to know how things develop on that front. And i wonder if a judge will really see it as so unproblematic at the end.

Last notification that I received showed they where trying to disallow my claim in it's entirety with the following explaination "The books and records of the Debtors are not reliable.  Therefore, the Liquidating Trustee does not have sufficient evidence to determine amount, validity, and/or the nature of the claim."

Pretty shady, I'm sure they are trying to do this with everybody that was unfortunate enough to pay with bitcoin in the hopes that several of them no longer have control of their old wallets.  I'm not entirely sure I still have control of the wallet I paid from sadly.  Will be looking into it this weekend thats for sure.

Hm, sounds like another thing someone has to keep track of then. I already made the error of not backing up everything i did on exchanges, so i have no details about what went on on bitfunder regarding activemining, for example. Now they even say bitcoin transactions are no proof at all. The judge surely is no bitcoin fan.

Or will they accept signatures as proof?

[marcus_of_augustus]

http://www.coindesk.com/1-million-bitcoin-currency-commodity/

cypherdoc dragging it out through the courts ...

In HashFast Technologies LLC v Lowe, the Bankruptcy Court is being asked to determine whether the recipient of a transfer of bitcoins has to return (a) the actual bitcoins transferred or their current value (treat them as property), or (b) the value of the bitcoins on the day they were transferred (treat them as currency).

In HashFast, the debtor, Hashfast Technologies LLC, transferred to Lowe 3,000 BTC, which were worth $363,861.43 at the time. Today, they are worth approximately $1.3m. The Trustee for the debtor sued to “clawback” the transfer into the bankruptcy estate (either as an avoidable preference or fraudulent transfer), based on claims that the transfer was fraudulent or unauthorized.

Using 11 U.S.C. §550(a), the bankruptcy trustee seek to may recover the transfers for the benefit of the creditors of the bankruptcy estate.

The Trustee and Lowe, the recipient of the transfer, are arguing over the classification of the bitcoin because, if the bitcoins are a commodity, then the Trustee is entitled to the return of 3,000 BTC or the current value of $1.3m; if the bitcoins are US currency then the Trustee is only entitled to the return of $363,861.43.

... so it seems the transfer may well have been fraudulent in which case cypherdoc would be a scammer of epic proportions.