Patrick Harnett - Kraken Fund

[Bitcoin Oz]

Patrick defaulted @50% on capital, breaking a few terms of his offer:

This sits in "Securities" rather than my usual lending section thread because it is a little more aggressive in approach and not as reliable.

Based on some work I have been doing I believe there is space for this particular fund and because it is a little different labelling it Kraken seems appropriate.

Basic parameters:

• Fund commences 19 August 2012.  
• Investments may be made in multiples of 100BTC.
• Withdrawals may be made in multiples of 100BTC.
• Contributed capital is backed by my personal funds.
• Returns will be paid weekly (currently planning on Fridays) - no compounding or automatic reinvestment.
• Target and maximum return 2.5% per week. (for the ponzi people, that would be 361% annually, but it's only 130% because it is non compounding.)
• Minimum weekly return 0% - any losses will be funded personally.

You will need to request a unique deposit address and supply a unique return address.  I will have a sensible limit on the number of investors because I don't want to spend my whole life doing weekly payments.
Returns obtained over and above 2.5% are taken as my fee - that's how I can afford to support the minimum return and "insure" the capital.  If I have coins sitting idle, they don't lose money, but impact on the average return.

Obviously the question is "What am I doing with the coins?"  
If I was to provide a simple answer like buying 50 BFL singles and going mining, or putting 10,000 coins into XYZ asset on GLBSE then there wouldn't be much science in that and it would ruin the market that I am looking at.
Also, I do expect people to assume funds might simply be going into BS&T and accuse me of feeding an illegal activity.  Due to the vitriol that goes with that, this will not be an open thread because there will be no point debating that.

So what am I going to use funds for?  Some will be going into my "vulture" capital business interests, some into some long-term BTC investments I have held in real-life ventures (such as an equipment manufacturer), some in BTC assets, a small amount of futures trading, some into various risk/reward adjusted investments that are available in the bitcoin world.

Edit: Currently 25 registered users.  18 currently paid.
Edit 19Aug: The largest commitment made was 1000 coins, and that was before the closure of one of the largest (and smartest) BTC operations.  In fairness, I consider a 1,000 maximum per account is appropriate making the absolute maximum size of Kraken Fund 25,000.

Kraken Fund#2 wait list (several):
HonsetBob, Rolo TonyBrown Town, BinaryMage, aghori, EskimoBob, Onichan, LoweryCBS, coinft, Mousepotato, Goelmer, CecilNiosaki, bruiser, Gigavps, "pm page 122", Electricbees, Macboy80, Brunic, Coin.Karma, Litecoin, Simonk83, DeadTerra, mb300sd, ScottJ, REF, nave, Soros Shorts, ShadowAlexey, Cobra

265.8065 BTC currently held on wallet. Forfeiting the pass-through's 10% cut on interest.

See KRAKEN SPREADSHEET

Claimed holding (note it adds up to 81%):

This fund was started it appears to scam people into paying Patrick's PPT debts.
The fact he was going to invest in pirate was not known by investors and it is also supposedly guaranteed by his personal funds.
I had a few of the passthrough shares on glbse before it shut down and I feel that people were intentionally misled as they had no way of judging the risk involved with the investment.

[stochastic]

Patrick defaulted @50% on capital, breaking a few terms of his offer:

This sits in "Securities" rather than my usual lending section thread because it is a little more aggressive in approach and not as reliable.

Based on some work I have been doing I believe there is space for this particular fund and because it is a little different labelling it Kraken seems appropriate.

Basic parameters:

• Fund commences 19 August 2012.  
• Investments may be made in multiples of 100BTC.
• Withdrawals may be made in multiples of 100BTC.
• Contributed capital is backed by my personal funds.
• Returns will be paid weekly (currently planning on Fridays) - no compounding or automatic reinvestment.
• Target and maximum return 2.5% per week. (for the ponzi people, that would be 361% annually, but it's only 130% because it is non compounding.)
• Minimum weekly return 0% - any losses will be funded personally.

You will need to request a unique deposit address and supply a unique return address.  I will have a sensible limit on the number of investors because I don't want to spend my whole life doing weekly payments.
Returns obtained over and above 2.5% are taken as my fee - that's how I can afford to support the minimum return and "insure" the capital.  If I have coins sitting idle, they don't lose money, but impact on the average return.

Obviously the question is "What am I doing with the coins?"  
If I was to provide a simple answer like buying 50 BFL singles and going mining, or putting 10,000 coins into XYZ asset on GLBSE then there wouldn't be much science in that and it would ruin the market that I am looking at.
Also, I do expect people to assume funds might simply be going into BS&T and accuse me of feeding an illegal activity.  Due to the vitriol that goes with that, this will not be an open thread because there will be no point debating that.

So what am I going to use funds for?  Some will be going into my "vulture" capital business interests, some into some long-term BTC investments I have held in real-life ventures (such as an equipment manufacturer), some in BTC assets, a small amount of futures trading, some into various risk/reward adjusted investments that are available in the bitcoin world.

Edit: Currently 25 registered users.  18 currently paid.
Edit 19Aug: The largest commitment made was 1000 coins, and that was before the closure of one of the largest (and smartest) BTC operations.  In fairness, I consider a 1,000 maximum per account is appropriate making the absolute maximum size of Kraken Fund 25,000.

Kraken Fund#2 wait list (several):
HonsetBob, Rolo TonyBrown Town, BinaryMage, aghori, EskimoBob, Onichan, LoweryCBS, coinft, Mousepotato, Goelmer, CecilNiosaki, bruiser, Gigavps, "pm page 122", Electricbees, Macboy80, Brunic, Coin.Karma, Litecoin, Simonk83, DeadTerra, mb300sd, ScottJ, REF, nave, Soros Shorts, ShadowAlexey, Cobra

265.8065 BTC currently held on wallet. Forfeiting the pass-through's 10% cut on interest.

See KRAKEN SPREADSHEET

Claimed holding (note it adds up to 81%):

This fund was started it appears to scam people into paying Patrick's PPT debts.
The fact he was going to invest in pirate was not known by investors and it is also supposedly guaranteed by his personal funds.
I had a few of the passthrough shares on glbse before it shut down and I feel that people were intentionally misled as they had no way of judging the risk involved with the investment.

Damn, you have really bad luck.  In the future could you post your investments so others do not have to worry about being contrarian to you?

I am not surprised by all of this.  If these people that are borrowing bitcoins are so credit worthy, why would they need to borrow bitcoins at such astronomic interest rates when interest rates are an all time low for USD.  It is not that hard to convert USD to bitcoin.

Scammer tags seem to be for those that are unpopular or do not support the governance of the forums and less about if they actually committed fraud.

[dust]

Paid back 50%?  Better than most scams, AAA-

Between this and MPOE-PR's accusation, it is time Patrick is tagged.

Patrick clearly broke his own terms with regards to the "guarantee". Additionally, despite advertising the fund as containing a diverse group of non-BS&T investments, he bought pirate debt (most of it from himself) at ridiculous rates with most of the coins.

His Starfish Bank is in default.

On top of this, Patrick's "credit ratings" were a detriment to the community and funneled coins into other scams.

Disclaimer: I have not lost any money to Patrick or his operations.  I initially signed up for the Kraken Fund but backed out because I did not trust Patrick's judgement regarding Pirate, making it the closest I have been to being scammed  

[Bitcoin Oz]

Patrick defaulted @50% on capital, breaking a few terms of his offer:

This sits in "Securities" rather than my usual lending section thread because it is a little more aggressive in approach and not as reliable.

Based on some work I have been doing I believe there is space for this particular fund and because it is a little different labelling it Kraken seems appropriate.

Basic parameters:

• Fund commences 19 August 2012.  
• Investments may be made in multiples of 100BTC.
• Withdrawals may be made in multiples of 100BTC.
• Contributed capital is backed by my personal funds.
• Returns will be paid weekly (currently planning on Fridays) - no compounding or automatic reinvestment.
• Target and maximum return 2.5% per week. (for the ponzi people, that would be 361% annually, but it's only 130% because it is non compounding.)
• Minimum weekly return 0% - any losses will be funded personally.

You will need to request a unique deposit address and supply a unique return address.  I will have a sensible limit on the number of investors because I don't want to spend my whole life doing weekly payments.
Returns obtained over and above 2.5% are taken as my fee - that's how I can afford to support the minimum return and "insure" the capital.  If I have coins sitting idle, they don't lose money, but impact on the average return.

Obviously the question is "What am I doing with the coins?"  
If I was to provide a simple answer like buying 50 BFL singles and going mining, or putting 10,000 coins into XYZ asset on GLBSE then there wouldn't be much science in that and it would ruin the market that I am looking at.
Also, I do expect people to assume funds might simply be going into BS&T and accuse me of feeding an illegal activity.  Due to the vitriol that goes with that, this will not be an open thread because there will be no point debating that.

So what am I going to use funds for?  Some will be going into my "vulture" capital business interests, some into some long-term BTC investments I have held in real-life ventures (such as an equipment manufacturer), some in BTC assets, a small amount of futures trading, some into various risk/reward adjusted investments that are available in the bitcoin world.

Edit: Currently 25 registered users.  18 currently paid.
Edit 19Aug: The largest commitment made was 1000 coins, and that was before the closure of one of the largest (and smartest) BTC operations.  In fairness, I consider a 1,000 maximum per account is appropriate making the absolute maximum size of Kraken Fund 25,000.

Kraken Fund#2 wait list (several):
HonsetBob, Rolo TonyBrown Town, BinaryMage, aghori, EskimoBob, Onichan, LoweryCBS, coinft, Mousepotato, Goelmer, CecilNiosaki, bruiser, Gigavps, "pm page 122", Electricbees, Macboy80, Brunic, Coin.Karma, Litecoin, Simonk83, DeadTerra, mb300sd, ScottJ, REF, nave, Soros Shorts, ShadowAlexey, Cobra

265.8065 BTC currently held on wallet. Forfeiting the pass-through's 10% cut on interest.

See KRAKEN SPREADSHEET

Claimed holding (note it adds up to 81%):

This fund was started it appears to scam people into paying Patrick's PPT debts.
The fact he was going to invest in pirate was not known by investors and it is also supposedly guaranteed by his personal funds.
I had a few of the passthrough shares on glbse before it shut down and I feel that people were intentionally misled as they had no way of judging the risk involved with the investment.

Damn, you have really bad luck.  In the future could you post your investments so others do not have to worry about being contrarian to you?

I am not surprised by all of this.  If these people that are borrowing bitcoins are so credit worthy, why would they need to borrow bitcoins at such astronomic interest rates when interest rates are an all time low for USD.  It is not that hard to convert USD to bitcoin.

Scammer tags seem to be for those that are unpopular or do not support the governance of the forums and less about if they actually committed fraud.

It was BitcoinRS funds. I picked up a few because Kraken supposedly offered a way wo diversify outside of bitcoin inot some of Patrick's other business, whatever that may be.

The fact he spent 75% of funds on his own debt is outright fraud. http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/pdflib.nsf/LookupByFileName/Complaint_Form.pdf/$file/Complaint_Form.pdf People should fill out this form if they want the Australian authorities to investigate.

[BadBear]

So what has he done since he defaulted? From the thread, someone said he repaid 50% and has been silent since? How long ago was that?

[Namworld]

It has only been a few days. I haven't gotten a hold of him just yet, but from the last newsletter he sent:

http://www.4shared.com/zip/9Lj1yWKB/krakenreports.html

The realisation of value out of the bulk of the Kraken portfolio proceeds at
glacial pace.  That is, of course, extracting something back from the BS&T
assets.   

The most likely course of action that I have been advised of is pursuing
Trendon via the SEC.  Although providing an affidavit and details to the US
government is not my preferred choice, and there is no guarantee that it will
help, it becomes part of the process.  Additionally, I expect it to remain a
slow process largely in someone else’s hands.

Because of the slowness in extracting and returning funds, and being mindful
of several outstanding requests, I have done some work on getting additional
liquidity.  Again, this has not been particularly easy with assets locked up in
a non-functioning exchange and a variety of other places.

What I have managed to organise is an option for anyone that wishes to exit
during November at 50% of the face value of your Kraken investment.  The
alternative is to wait and see how the SEC process pans out.

He will not pay anything before he extract something out of BS&T which is not what he promised.

[bitfoo]

Might as well publish the last email that was sent to investors (Nov 8th 2012):

I was asked earlier this week if the previous offer I had made (offering to pay 50% of face value) indicated I was going to default given I had undertaken to back Kraken with my own funds.  Certainly any reasonable expectation of movement in asset values was probably going to be in the 10%-20% range, and that was manageable.  A 100% loss wasn’t in the plan, and while actual losses may not be at that level, it is not sensible to continue with the current situation.  So, given the circumstances, I reluctantly have fallen short of the promise that I had originally made, and I am sincerely sorry for that.
 
So, I have today made a set of payments to Kraken unit holders.  Over the past 10 weeks the fund has paid 5.6% and I have repaid over 4000 BTC from my own assets that I have converted into BTC.  Where practical, today’s payments have been a minimum of 100BTC and otherwise 50% of the remaining balance. (about 75%) If I do eventually recover more from the “toxic” and illiquid assets I hold, then I have the addresses for returning the balances for the ten people that I still have outstanding obligations to.

[Bitcoin Oz]

It has only been a few days. I haven't gotten a hold of him just yet, but from the last newsletter he sent:

http://www.4shared.com/zip/9Lj1yWKB/krakenreports.html

The realisation of value out of the bulk of the Kraken portfolio proceeds at
glacial pace.  That is, of course, extracting something back from the BS&T
assets.   

The most likely course of action that I have been advised of is pursuing
Trendon via the SEC.  Although providing an affidavit and details to the US
government is not my preferred choice, and there is no guarantee that it will
help, it becomes part of the process.  Additionally, I expect it to remain a
slow process largely in someone else’s hands.

Because of the slowness in extracting and returning funds, and being mindful
of several outstanding requests, I have done some work on getting additional
liquidity.  Again, this has not been particularly easy with assets locked up in
a non-functioning exchange and a variety of other places.

What I have managed to organise is an option for anyone that wishes to exit
during November at 50% of the face value of your Kraken investment.  The
alternative is to wait and see how the SEC process pans out.

He will not pay anything before he extract something out of BS&T which is not what he promised.

If people wanted to invest in  toxic pirate debt they could have done so themselves. This was a bait and switch on a massive scale.

[JoelKatz]

This was a bait and switch on a massive scale.

I agree. I can't find any mitigating factors here. There's absolutely no rational explanation for why he would borrow other people's money to buy bad Pirate debt other than to sell his own bad Pirate debt at an above-market rate. That is, I believe that he used Kraken to bail out himself, probably knowing all along he'd renege on the guarantee. The evidence strongly suggests that he put those who trusted him with their money, both through Kraken and through the earlier loans, last.

Unfortunately, the scenario that I think is most likely is this one: Patrick put his personal profits from his loan business into Pirate. When Pirate defaulted, he lost a personal fortune and was left holding a pile of bad Pirate debt. To preserve his personal funds, Patrick created Kraken to use other people's money to buy his personal bad Pirate debt at rates well above market. He had to have realized that there was a significant chance that Pirate would never pay a dime and he already knew his own portfolio was shaky. So I can't see his personal guarantee of Kraken as anything but an outright scam for him to take other people's money and make it his money by exploiting this conflict of interest.

[Bitcoin Oz]

This was a bait and switch on a massive scale.

I agree. I can't find any mitigating factors here. There's absolutely no rational explanation for why he would borrow other people's money to buy bad Pirate debt other than to sell his own bad Pirate debt at an above-market rate. That is, I believe that he used Kraken to bail out himself, probably knowing all along he'd renege on the guarantee. The evidence strongly suggests that he put those who trusted him with their money, both through Kraken and through the earlier loans, last.

Unfortunately, the scenario that I think is most likely is this one: Patrick put his personal profits from his loan business into Pirate. When Pirate defaulted, he lost a personal fortune and was left holding a pile of bad Pirate debt. To preserve his personal funds, Patrick created Kraken to use other people's money to buy his personal bad Pirate debt at rates well above market. He had to have realized that there was a significant chance that Pirate would never pay a dime and he already knew his own portfolio was shaky. So I can't see his personal guarantee of Kraken as anything but an outright scam for him to take other people's money and make it his money by exploiting this conflict of interest.

Its no different to NcKrazze or Clipse or any of the other douchebags who claimed the money wasnt invested with pirate.

[repentance]

This was a bait and switch on a massive scale.

I agree. I can't find any mitigating factors here. There's absolutely no rational explanation for why he would borrow other people's money to buy bad Pirate debt other than to sell his own bad Pirate debt at an above-market rate. That is, I believe that he used Kraken to bail out himself, probably knowing all along he'd renege on the guarantee. The evidence strongly suggests that he put those who trusted him with their money, both through Kraken and through the earlier loans, last.

Unfortunately, the scenario that I think is most likely is this one: Patrick put his personal profits from his loan business into Pirate. When Pirate defaulted, he lost a personal fortune and was left holding a pile of bad Pirate debt. To preserve his personal funds, Patrick created Kraken to use other people's money to buy his personal bad Pirate debt at rates well above market. He had to have realized that there was a significant chance that Pirate would never pay a dime and he already knew his own portfolio was shaky. So I can't see his personal guarantee of Kraken as anything but an outright scam for him to take other people's money and make it his money by exploiting this conflict of interest.

Surely that justifies a scammer tag, Joel.

[JoelKatz]

Surely that justifies a scammer tag, Joel.

I think so. In fact, I find it hard to believe that Kraken is playing out any differently than he intended it to from the beginning. I think it's quite likely that he pocketed most of the Kraken fund investments by using them to buy his own Pirate debt at rates well over market. Personally, I see exploiting this conflict of interest as not significantly different from just outright stealing the funds.

[BadBear]

This was a bait and switch on a massive scale.

I agree. I can't find any mitigating factors here. There's absolutely no rational explanation for why he would borrow other people's money to buy bad Pirate debt other than to sell his own bad Pirate debt at an above-market rate. That is, I believe that he used Kraken to bail out himself, probably knowing all along he'd renege on the guarantee. The evidence strongly suggests that he put those who trusted him with their money, both through Kraken and through the earlier loans, last.

Unfortunately, the scenario that I think is most likely is this one: Patrick put his personal profits from his loan business into Pirate. When Pirate defaulted, he lost a personal fortune and was left holding a pile of bad Pirate debt. To preserve his personal funds, Patrick created Kraken to use other people's money to buy his personal bad Pirate debt at rates well above market. He had to have realized that there was a significant chance that Pirate would never pay a dime and he already knew his own portfolio was shaky. So I can't see his personal guarantee of Kraken as anything but an outright scam for him to take other people's money and make it his money by exploiting this conflict of interest.

Surely that justifies a scammer tag, Joel.

I think so as well.

Certainly any reasonable expectation of movement in asset values was probably going to be in the 10%-20% range, and that was manageable.  A 100% loss wasn’t in the plan, and while actual losses may not be at that level, it is not sensible to continue with the current situation.

If it's only reasonable to cover 10-20% of the loss then he should have said that up front to begin with, instead of promising 100%.

[cunicula]

Definitely Scammer.

[smoothie]

LOL another one bites the dust...

We got a lot of suckers around here huh? 

[GeoRW]

Patrick was the one who bought some PPT operations on GLBSE from original PPT operators just a couple of weeks before pirate defaulted. Those PPTs were "insured", so obviously he had to get some liquidity to pay out the insured bonds. He might have been honest at first but after stepping in too much shit he's saving his own ass 

[theymos]

Scammer-tagged. He is obviously guilty of breaking his contracts here and in the MPOE-PR case, and he apparently hasn't been talking to his victims or arranging repayments. The tag can maybe be removed if he negotiates a reasonable repayment plan and makes payments for a while.

[Bitcoin Oz]

http://www.srgexpert.com/patrick.html  is this him ?

[finkleshnorts]

Assuming he was not using someone else's identity:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/capital-life/5175189/Happy-helping-the-homeless
http://www.rbzgroup.com/people/ph.html

[dust]

Assuming he was not using someone else's identity:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/capital-life/5175189/Happy-helping-the-homeless
http://www.rbzgroup.com/people/ph.html

It is almost certain he is not using someone else's identity as he used his srgexpert.com email address for correspondence.