Havelock Investments - Exchange feedback/comments

[Clobered09]

Thought I'd post this here because I think it's important for investors to know.  I'm writing an article on crypto-investing for the end of law school, and I've talked to a few people on the issuer and intermediary side to get some perspectives, including Havelock.  So far, Havelock is the only one who has tried to double down on made up bs.  Everyone else gives their first argument about legality, most probably actually believing it, then for those that are clearly mistaken, they then respond with the practicality and libertarian argument.  Nothing wrong with that, they're not being deceptive or fraudulent, anyone that wanted to press them could have found this out and made their investment decision accordingly. 

Havelock, on the other hand, not only continues to maintain their legality in the face of crushing evidence against them, they then claimed to have sent my queries off to "legal" and that their responses were a lawyer's response.  They claimed their legal department, not a layman, had studied the law and that because bitcoin wasn't legal tender, it couldn't be considered an investment.  This is a common mistake non-lawyers make, Johns and prostitutes try it all the time, to no avail, but no lawyer practicing in securities law would make that mistake.  The first three words in the definition of financial transaction in the Panamanian law decree governing securities are "incluye todo valor" meaning "includes anything of value."  (For the curious: the first 140ish pages of this are the original law decree, there have been amendments, but none affecting this analysis: http://www.asamblea.gob.pa/APPS/LEGISPAN/PDF_GACETAS/1990/1999/23837_1999.PDF). 

I think most of us agree that the laws governing investment make it hard for smaller investors to take part, and crypto-investing, whether legal or not, lets consenting adults make their own decisions about what to do with their money.  But I think we can also agree that nothing excuses fraud or deceit, and that's what Havelock seems to have offered up.  Just another piece of information for those considering leaving their money with this exchange, the free market works best when participants aren't shackled by government or ignorance. 

[DianaLime]

I have been on havelockinvestments since the launch of NEOBEE on the site, and as an investor, I am very happy with Havelock vs BTCT / BitFunder back in the days.

[hdbuck]

Havelock rulezz  

Although I would have appreciated a little bit more transparency regarding the concerns raised by Clobered09.

[Choroid Plexus]

Hmm... so MP just published an email exchange he had with some SEC toadie who came enquiring after his MPEx customer records, specifically pertaining to Satoshi Dice.

Seems to provide confirmation of what many have suspected... that US SEC is coming after bitcoin securities.

http://trilema.com/2014/interacting-with-fiat-institution-a-guide/

What's everyone's thoughts on this?

[necro_nemesis]

Keep your records. They may be looking for the three cents you made or lost some day.

[hdbuck]

Hmm... so MP just published an email exchange he had with some SEC toadie who came enquiring after his MPEx customer records, specifically pertaining to Satoshi Dice.

Seems to provide confirmation of what many have suspected... that US SEC is coming after bitcoin securities.

http://trilema.com/2014/interacting-with-fiat-institution-a-guide/

What's everyone's thoughts on this?

I luled so hard on MP's answers

[necro_nemesis]

I luled so hard on MP's answers

Polite, comprehensive and to the point.

[Choroid Plexus]

Hmm... so MP just published an email exchange he had with some SEC toadie who came enquiring after his MPEx customer records, specifically pertaining to Satoshi Dice.

Seems to provide confirmation of what many have suspected... that US SEC is coming after bitcoin securities.

http://trilema.com/2014/interacting-with-fiat-institution-a-guide/

What's everyone's thoughts on this?

I luled so hard on MP's answers

Yeah, agreed. He went toe-to-toe with this lady. Pretty hilarious exchange.

[Aahzman]

TLDR version:

SEC Drone: Hi. Gimme all your SDice records, plz.

MP: Bitch, you ain't got nothin' to back your request up. Learn to legal, noob.

SEC Drone: Pretty please? I'm totes legit! See, I haz a SEC email *and* a phone extension!

MP: Bitch, we all gots emails and extensions. Unless you spittin' somethin' real, back da fuck up.

SEC Drone: But, I sent you a letter verifying my identity and supposed authority.

MP: Pssshhhhh we done. Git ghost, girl.

[Fabrizio89]

Please adjust the network transaction fee, you can keep the fee for Havelock as it is, at least for me.

[troc]

MP's style is not to everyone's taste. However it is good to see MPEX's dealings with the SEC in the open. I doubt if Havelock Investments or The Panama Fund will be equally as forthright.

There have been a number of good points, requests and queries raised publically by others in this thread ---let alone the SEC--- which should have been dealt with by now.

Let me add to these queries and yet again in contrast to MPEX; which has described diverse and resilient contingencies for operational continuity in a number of scenarios. Havelock Investments is especially fragile and vulnerable in this area (not only talking of httpd/cloudfail). How is this going to be changed ?

[freedomno1]

Hmm... so MP just published an email exchange he had with some SEC toadie who came enquiring after his MPEx customer records, specifically pertaining to Satoshi Dice.

Seems to provide confirmation of what many have suspected... that US SEC is coming after bitcoin securities.

http://trilema.com/2014/interacting-with-fiat-institution-a-guide/

What's everyone's thoughts on this?

MP did the right thing the jurisdiction of the SEC does not directly enter into the Bitcoin sphere
Secrecy can be observed and rather than having these private conversations they should be transparent in their process
Governments thinking this right to intrusion is a default privilege of theirs and that they have by right the option to do so is not the approach they should be taking but one of cooperation in relation and pertaining to Bitcoin exchanges.
I appreciate Mirceas transparency and hope other exchanges such as havelock if ever given this type of false dilemma would be as transparent in their replies as MP was, in seeing the underlying premise and noting that their is a third option.


I'll borrow Rap News simply put no Orwellian State
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o66FUc61MvU

[investr]

Anyone from Havelock care to explain themselves in freezing the COG asset with zero warning or reason? Is this the kind of behavior I should expect in the future? Do you have a policy or guidelines on what substantiates the freezing of an asset or on preventing a user from taking actions on the securities he/she owns?

[cesmak]

Anyone from Havelock care to explain themselves in freezing the COG asset with zero warning or reason? Is this the kind of behavior I should expect in the future? Do you have a policy or guidelines on what substantiates the freezing of an asset or on preventing a user from taking actions on the securities he/she owns?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=67547.msg5898980#msg5898980

Last infos we have....

[felente]

site is incredible slow, regularly, over a month maybe, or longer.
it's almost unusable for the most time.

some thoughts? am i alone with this?

[freemarketaussie]

Hey yeah I'm having the same issue, the website is slow and doesn't seem to be working...

[necro_nemesis]

It's looks to be DOA ATT.

Question whether this may be another DDoS attack given the poor performance. Last trade I see on shares I trade was 17 local it's now showing the sever at 06 local. This thing trades every few minutes not no trades in 13hrs. Screens don't even complete.

I remarked about poor performance before and it t was deleted by an admin. I hope this time they appreciate the gravity of the situation when it's discussing an exchange and preserve these posts.

FWIW I'm seeing similar issues with sites utilizing CloudFlare. It wouldn't be a first.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101407999

[felente]

yes, i think (more and more) that this has something to do with cloudflare and ddos'es.
but it seems to be not ddos but more likely some new(?) art of it - "Distibuted Continious Interferring Of Service" (in waves), so to say and i mean it.
because sometimes, rarely, the site is really-really fast. so there should be no hardware problem and less likely - software problem... well, maybe, idk.

just one i do not understand - who needs this... aehm... questionably DCIOS? lol. no. really. gg.

[necro_nemesis]

AM had some news today and access to the exchange is the Achilles heel of doing anything about it. Not good. Not good at all.

[freedomno1]

HaveLock doesn't protect their users like they ought to.
They have to vet the stocks much better than they have.

Starting with LabCoin, SDice... they have continually pulled stocks, leaving the users with nothing but all the funds are in Havelock's hands.

Now Neo/Bee.
I am done with Havelock.

I guess you weren't around for the GLBSE (Not many Were)

But more recently the Bitfunder and BTCT days with exchange collapses and a lot of stocks being pulled.
Basic, Labcoin, Activemining, BitVPS etc among them compared to that this is pretty mild.

That said I sort of miss the days when you could vote in an asset although it did result in a few flops being voted in, that said for the most part the list of stocks havelock uses and what remains now is fairly decent valuations aside.

Of course with Cognitive and Neo recently it isn't that good of a feeling, although with Neo the trade halt wasn't on havelocks side but on neobees request, and Sdice was Everohees buyout and a pass-through of MPEX to begin with so they had no control on the exchange owners decision and the stock in that case.