HashFast cypherdoc bankruptcy scandal : Time to clean up bitcoin

[marcus_of_augustus]

Sooooo, 'someone' got a matter that deserves wide interest and general discussion promptly moved to "Scam Accusations" side topic.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1105722.0 even though 5 legendary high-trust members felt fit to comment upon it. It is time to begin a meta discussion about how we deal with known bad actors from inside bitcointalk. Especially now we have clear knowledge of paid disinformation agents covertly running pay-per-topic-pumping schemes on these forum boards.

We cannot tolerate knowingly harboring nascent scammers and paid shills in our midst. Would the moderator who moved the above topic like to explain who contacted him/her and if he was paid to move the topic by cypherdoc to do so?

Here was the original legal document if anyone can't be bothered linking to the revelation. Judge for yourself if this scandal is worthy of general discussion?

gov.uscourts.canb.532683.1.0.pdf

Inside that document the title will be:

California Northern Bankruptcy Court Case No. 15-03011 Hashfast Technologies LLC- Adversary Proceeding Document 1

Examine p1, pg 6. And I quote:

"At the times of the Transfers, the BTC transferred to the Defendant were worth $363,861.43. Based on the value of the BTC at the time of the transfers, the Defendant received approximately $11,370 per day or $2,274 per post on the “HashFast Endorsement” thread on Bitcointalk.org. By contrast, the highest salary paid to any principal or employee of HFT and/or HF was $144,000 for the entire calendar year of 2013."

Examine p3, pg 6. And I quote:

"At the time of the Transfers, the Debtors owed substantial sums of money and/or equipment to numerous customers and/or vendors. Many of these obligations remain unpaid and constitute general unsecured claims against the Estate. As of September 30, 2013, the Debtors’ balance sheet had a negative equity balance of about $5 million."

http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/2k5w2nwul/california-northern-bankruptcy-court/hashfast-technologies-llc-adversary-proceeding/

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. So probably some kind of pass-thru, tunnel or quid pro quo arrangement to ultimately bilk HashFast customers, I mean $2,274 per post, wtf?!

Edit: okay, I got a reply from the mod who moved the original post and it seems like he legitimately thought it was a scam accusation, although I didn't intend it like that. I think it is because the court documents show defense claims of $2,274 per bitcointalk.org post seem so outrageous on the face of it that the original post may indeed look like a scam accusation, which it isn't per se.

[notbatman]

In November 2013 I raised enough cash to get a miner, all the Bitfuries were sold out everywhere and the Jupiter's had all shipped.

My choices in order were:

1. Black Arrow (they straight up stole my money)
2. HashFast
3. AMT
4. Cointerra
5. BFL

I was destined to be scammed no matter what. HashFast almost got my money.

Seeing as the scammers had 100% market capitalization I wonder were all these cocksuckers in collusion?

Fucking bastards.

EDIT:

Oh I missed AMT they were also on my list of potential manufacturers.

[marcus_of_augustus]

In November 2013 I raised enough cash to get a miner, all the Bitfuries were sold out everywhere and the Jupiter's had all shipped.

My choices in order were:

1. Black Arrow (they straight up stole my money)
2. HashFast
3. Cointerra
4. BFL

I was destined to be scammed no matter what. HashFast almost got my money.

Seeing as the scammers had 100% market capitalization I wonder were all these cocksuckers in collusion?

Fucking bastards.

Ouch, that sucks.

Quite surprising you are still around bitcoin after a negative experience like that. I really worry about the long term damage done to bitcoin reputation in the tech. community due to these failed mining schemes.

Are you involved in any other bitcoin projects/meetups, etc now or since that mining scam crap?

[gmaxwell]

2. HashFast
3. Cointerra

Cointerra actually shipped me hardware, it was a month late, under-performing and not super reliable--  it was still a MUCH better deal than Hashfast, which was just a pure money sink. I think the cointerra stuff delivered about as expected in risk return turns.

HF had much stronger promises, a full refund policy if they failed to ship-- claims of external investment to fund the operation instead of pre-order money, and a program to deliver hashrate if the miners didn't turn a profit.... and their claims were backed by community regulars who'd visited their facilities in person.  Turns out that they'd taken _massive_ payments, which themselves alone made it impossible for hashfast to deliver on their contract obligations (Can't give a full in-bitcoin refund when you've already given 10% of the Bitcoins away, not with Bitcoin prices rising).

The whole situation with crappy mining companies has done serious lasting harm to Bitcoin.  Small scale mining works _fine_, there are fundamental space/power advantages to not having large installs; and it's a fun real way to contribute to the system--- the real "economy of scale" in Bitcoin mining that actually exists is dealing with the fraud and fail laden ecosystem.   Sketchy companies have a severe commercial advantage because fantasy can always outperform reality.... and basically little incentive for parties to deliver on their word (or even close to their word) because there is basically no repercussion for breaking it.

It's going to take time, education, and effort to heal all the damage done to Bitcoin on the mining ecosystem side, but I think it can be healed...  but it's certainly a lot harder to foster integrity in the ecosystem when there remain no repercussions.  There is only so much we can do however-- prosecutions of "white collar crime" are thin; the perpetrators can throw up a smoke screen of plausible deniability and can afford to fight back.  I'm not just whining here because in this case I actually lost money-- I've made similar comments e.g. related to Zhou Tong even though I lost narry a cent there.  If we are talk about how disputes can be settled without constant (costly) recourse to state authorities (which are often helpless in the face of international disputes in any case), then we also have to live up to it; and at least take what measures we can within the community to protect each other through tools like reputation and social pressure.

[Gleb Gamow]

Where does icebreaker fit in in all this?

[jonald_fyookball]

In November 2013 I raised enough cash to get a miner, all the Bitfuries were sold out everywhere and the Jupiter's had all shipped.

My choices in order were:

1. Black Arrow (they straight up stole my money)
2. HashFast
3. Cointerra
4. BFL

I was destined to be scammed no matter what. HashFast almost got my money.

Seeing as the scammers had 100% market capitalization I wonder were all these cocksuckers in collusion?

Fucking bastards.

I was lucky to get a full refund from BFL after waiting ten months, and this occurred a few months before they got shut down by the FTC.  Personally I feel selling retail mining gear isn't a viable business model.  It's better than cloud mining because the operators must supply electricity, storage, possibly cooling, mangement, etc.  Still, if it's more than marginally profitable, why sell those machines instead of mine with them?

The winners in the mining business will have to have economies of scale on their side and source their own gear. 

[gmaxwell]

Still, if it's more than marginally profitable, why sell those machines instead of mine with them?

Because of the huge risks and dis-economies of scale (supplying cooling and power at the multiple megawatt level is severely problematic; with installs wanting 20 year contracts and other such fun stuff).  But we're getting off-topic here.

Where does icebreaker fit in in all this?

I'm not sure if he's ever identified himself or been identified;  see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=381687.msg4133974#msg4133974

[notbatman]

...

Quite surprising you are still around bitcoin after a negative experience like that. I really worry about the long term damage done to bitcoin reputation in the tech. community due to these failed mining schemes.

Are you involved in any other bitcoin projects/meetups, etc now or since that mining scam crap?

I'm also surprised but the fact is BA stole USD from me and Bitcoin is really awesome. My interaction with BA has been one of the most negative experiences in my entire life.

Bitmain hooked me up and I run p2pool, can't say I'm too involved other than that. My concern with meetups is shills/plants/scammers etc so I avoid them.

I have been contemplating an android app that uses the blockchain but I've always poo-pooed Java so I need to brush up on my Java skills a bit.

[jonald_fyookball]

Still, if it's more than marginally profitable, why sell those machines instead of mine with them?

Because of the huge risks and dis-economies of scale (supplying cooling and power at the multiple megawatt level is severely problematic; with installs wanting 20 year contracts and other such fun stuff).  

You be right about some of those things, but in that case there is the incentive to mine with customers gear on some smaller scale before it ships out.  I think BFL was accused of that.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Does anyone have information about how much actual mining by customers was done by HashFast gear? (If any.)

And were they running the old 'factory test' mining before shipping to customers boondoggle?

Still, if it's more than marginally profitable, why sell those machines instead of mine with them?

Because of the huge risks and dis-economies of scale (supplying cooling and power at the multiple megawatt level is severely problematic; with installs wanting 20 year contracts and other such fun stuff).  

You be right about some of those things, but in that case there is the incentive to mine with customers gear on some smaller scale before it ships out.  I think BFL was accused of that.

[jubalix]

I don't see how any mining offer can ever live up to the promise.

Essentially the manufacturer, if they can even make product, will always switch on the miner and mine to the point of un~profitability themselves then send you your product in almost all cases.

Even a company sends the first batch out ok, will then really make a killing on the second batch, which they can now sell at a premium and have more funds to make more product which then arrives late. Thus arbitraging out their good will from the first batch.

Only those with direct access to fab shops and economies of scale can mine at a profit.

The excuses are almost always rolled out

Design problems
Manufacture problems
Supply problems
Transport Problems

[Carlton Banks]

I don't see how any mining offer can ever live up to the promise.

Essentially the manufacturer, if they can even make product, will always switch on the miner and mine to the point of un~profitability themselves then send you your product in almost all cases.

Even a company sends the first batch out ok, will then really make a killing on the second batch, which they can now sell at a premium and have more funds to make more product which then arrives late. Thus arbitraging out their good will from the first batch.

Only those with direct access to fab shops and economies of scale can mine at a profit.

Another way to look at it would be: once 3D printing of microchips (and the initial examples will likely be literal micrometer scale process geometry), then home miners can wrest back a significant part of the market. They don't even necessarily need to be profitable; over-optimistic mining economics only begins to hit home once it's far too late to cut a reasonable proportion of losses, and it's easier to rationalise in that way when you're not risking the huge amounts of capital that large mines are. For that reason, an expanded home mining market could help reverse the centralisation trend in mining.

[marcus_of_augustus]

I don't see how any mining offer can ever live up to the promise.

Essentially the manufacturer, if they can even make product, will always switch on the miner and mine to the point of un~profitability themselves then send you your product in almost all cases.

Even a company sends the first batch out ok, will then really make a killing on the second batch, which they can now sell at a premium and have more funds to make more product which then arrives late. Thus arbitraging out their good will from the first batch.

Only those with direct access to fab shops and economies of scale can mine at a profit.

Another way to look at it would be: once 3D printing of microchips (and the initial examples will likely be literal micrometer scale process geometry), then home miners can wrest back a significant part of the market. They don't even necessarily need to be profitable; over-optimistic mining economics only begins to hit home once it's far too late to cut a reasonable proportion of losses, and it's easier to rationalise in that way when you're not risking the huge amounts of capital that large mines are. For that reason, an expanded home mining market could help reverse the centralisation trend in mining.

This is an interesting far-out there line of thinking. Any one of a number of mining developments that put distributed mining at a cost advantage over rack farms could arise as the ASIC mining chips plateau at the current state-of-the-art technological maturity for general chip manufacture. For example, the 21 inc. strategy seems to be along those lines but it is hard to tell from the scant information available. Power, bandwidth and validation time costs are at least 3 significant variables in a complex multivariable optimisation that could potentially throw up geographically-distributed, commoditised hardware networks as optimal solutions.

It is possible that the current phase of concentrated mining in specific locales is a temporary aberration bought about by the ramping-up for development of mining hardware technology to current state-of-the-art that favours manufacturer-miners or close associations between chip producers and miners. The same economic incentive demonstrated by the temptation found too great to resist by the pre-sold 'factory testing' mining, drawing hardware developers and their 'rockstar salesmen' over to the dark side. When chip cost of production/development becomes a less significant cost than power, due to it being mature in the development cycle, then tendency will be back towards commoditised hardware. BTCs being mined to pay for silicon/engineering/development should eventually revert back to BTCs being mined to pay for power, rent, sys-admin, i.e. functions/services that are widely distributed and less specialised, as it was in GPU or CPU mining eras.

[scarsbergholden]

I don't see how any mining offer can ever live up to the promise.

Essentially the manufacturer, if they can even make product, will always switch on the miner and mine to the point of un~profitability themselves then send you your product in almost all cases.

Even a company sends the first batch out ok, will then really make a killing on the second batch, which they can now sell at a premium and have more funds to make more product which then arrives late. Thus arbitraging out their good will from the first batch.

Only those with direct access to fab shops and economies of scale can mine at a profit.

Another way to look at it would be: once 3D printing of microchips (and the initial examples will likely be literal micrometer scale process geometry), then home miners can wrest back a significant part of the market. They don't even necessarily need to be profitable; over-optimistic mining economics only begins to hit home once it's far too late to cut a reasonable proportion of losses, and it's easier to rationalise in that way when you're not risking the huge amounts of capital that large mines are. For that reason, an expanded home mining market could help reverse the centralisation trend in mining.

That would be a wow factor when 3d printing at the home kit level lets users print out their own silicon microchip design they could buy from the mining developers is pretty much just assemble it your self and go.

[Carlton Banks]

Way OT, sorry I am an expert  

But I will say this: what if the first 3D printed processors that are easiest to innovate are, additionally, not silicon based? What if they even leapfrog the current substrate paradigm altogether? Carbon's a great deal more abundant and accessible to the average human than silicon is...

[Uptrenda]

I know people who have been manipulated by sock puppet accounts on this very forum who collectively create the illusion of consensus and serve to shill products. I wonder if the community could think of a way to prevent this from happening because reputation doesn't seem to be worth much if you can just buy consensus for a small quantity ... What comes to mind here is a collateral scheme where opinions on controversial business matters have to be backed up by an equivalent amount in Bitcoin which is then lost if the advocated service turns out to be faulty ... but probably for most people the inconvenience of having to do this would far out-weigh any potential benefits ...

Maybe someone much smarter than myself could think of a better way to solve this problem because it seems to be having quite a negative effect on this community.

[Kprawn]

Why not make a list of the Shill accounts and post them in public? We have the scam accusations topic, but a extension of that could be Paid Shills.

The problem would be to prove that these people are in fact receiving money to provide shill services.

I agree that it has become a major problem on the forum, and you cannot trust any positive comments on services provided here. {Accounts higher up, is being bought}

 

 

[gogxmagog]

this is very very very illuminating for all who got burned by activemining. that whole scam revolved around all sorts of "top-secret, NDA protected" dealings with hashfast that ultimately left the Activemining shareholders holding the bag and ken slaughter shrugging his shoulders and going "derp"

if one of these retards put half the energy into something aboveboard as they do into these elaborate scams, BTC would be the main world wide currency instead of this sketchy looking tool for hackers and thieves that it resembles today.

yeah, as a community we should do everything we can to eliminate these scumbags. A good place to start is the "securities" section... the front page has at least 3 new obvious scams every day. it is every white hat's duty to go there and poke holes in these shams, call them out, expose them and protect the innocent naive users who might be fooled and in turn be robbed and ultimately alienated from the BTC economy overall.

this garbage VERY bad for BTC

[marcus_of_augustus]

this is very very very illuminating for all who got burned by activemining. that whole scam revolved around all sorts of "top-secret, NDA protected" dealings with hashfast that ultimately left the Activemining shareholders holding the bag and ken slaughter shrugging his shoulders and going "derp"

if one of these retards put half the energy into something aboveboard as they do into these elaborate scams, BTC would be the main world wide currency instead of this sketchy looking tool for hackers and thieves that it resembles today.

yeah, as a community we should do everything we can to eliminate these scumbags. A good place to start is the "securities" section... the front page has at least 3 new obvious scams every day. it is every white hat's duty to go there and poke holes in these shams, call them out, expose them and protect the innocent naive users who might be fooled and in turn be robbed and ultimately alienated from the BTC economy overall.

this garbage VERY bad for BTC

Hmmm, what was Activemining? And how were they related to the HashFast scandal?

[johnyj]

The end of 2013, most risky time in bitcoin mining history, everything changed after the Chinese central bank announcement: Difficulty jumped and price crashed