Bitcoin-24.com matching engine seems broken, site down.

[obit33]

I think you are right bitbadger... why would someone leave his name and address, and even pictures of himself all over the internet if he wants to commit a scam...

I think/hope Simon is a sincere guy, but he's sitting on a huge pile of shit atm...

It would be nice though if he communicated more clearly en set an ETA for his exchange to reopen...

best regards,

[1714657133]

1714657133

[1714657133]

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[1714657133]

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[Rockefoten]

I think you are right bitbadger... why would someone leave his name and address, and even pictures of himself all over the internet if he wants to commit a scam...

I think/hope Simon is a sincere guy, but he's sitting on a huge pile of shit atm...

It would be nice though if he communicated more clearly en set an ETA for his exchange to reopen...

best regards,

Again, I'm not saying it is a scam, but him being known does not in any way exclude it being a scam. It wasn't exactly like Pirate's real identity and location was unknown, he even met with his pass through operators in Vegas, and posted a picture from the meeting! His name is well known , but he is still on the loose with no money recovered...

So no, that info does not in itself convince me that it's not a scam.

I guess we can see that the btc hasn't been moved yet (haven't checked it myself), but do we know that the fiat is still in the bank account, apart from him saying so?

I don't mean to be conspiratorial, but I don't see solid evidence that this is not a scam. Personally however I am very open to that this just is a major fuck up on his part.

[RationalSpeculator]

I don't mean to be conspiratorial, but I don't see solid evidence that this is not a scam.

You are turning the tables. Suggesting someone is scamming you need evidence first. Not the other way around. 'I can accuse or suggest he is scamming as long as my money is locked', is false and unjust to him.  

Personally however I am very open to that this just is a major fuck up on his part.

To me this looks like another major fuck up holdup by a government. Point the finger to the one locking your money. Not the one that is also a victim.

[Rockefoten]

I don't mean to be conspiratorial, but I don't see solid evidence that this is not a scam.

You are turning the tables. Suggesting someone is scamming you need evidence first. Not the other way around. 'I can accuse or suggest he is scamming as long as my money is locked', is false and unjust to him.  

Given that we don't have anything to go by other than what Simon has said, we don't have any evidence one way or the other. That means we're stuck with trust as our guideline. And the communication from Simon hasn't really increased my trust in him, simple drops here and there, and not answering relevant questions (like why he hasn't released any of the btc yet, and why there has been recent movement from the hot wallet)

[RationalSpeculator]

I don't mean to be conspiratorial, but I don't see solid evidence that this is not a scam.

You are turning the tables. Suggesting someone is scamming you need evidence first. Not the other way around. 'I can accuse or suggest he is scamming as long as my money is locked', is false and unjust to him.  

Given that we don't have anything to go by other than what Simon has said, we don't have any evidence one way or the other. That means we're stuck with trust as our guideline. And the communication from Simon hasn't really increased my trust in him, simple drops here and there, and not answering relevant questions (like why he hasn't released any of the btc yet, and why there has been recent movement from the hot wallet)

You are ignoring my argument.

It is very simple to know if it is true whether the government is holding up the money or it is Simon. Simply call the bank in question.

About releasing btc, if it is true that the trade engine went ballistic, as many have confirmed here, than he cannot release any btc before everything is reversed.

This logic is valid, even if he did not make a declaration confirming this is why he holds onto the coins, or moves coins around.


Don't get me wrong, anyone providing evidence that he is scamming I value highly. However, someone suggesting, implying or accusing him of scamming without providing evidence is acting unfair towards him I believe strongly.

[Rockefoten]

Don't get me wrong, anyone providing evidence that he is scamming I value highly. However, someone suggesting, implying or accusing him of scamming without providing evidence is acting unfair towards him I believe strongly.

I absolutely see your points. I guess our differences come down to how much we trust Simon based on his communication these last days. Anyway, hopefully we will know more in a couple of days.

[alphadude]

Point the finger to the one locking your money. Not the one that is also a victim.

It's not a governement that has locked my BTC away...
I'm not all that worried though, but some communication would be nice (well actually it feels like mandatory in a situation like this) and would hopefully calm people down a bit.

[keatonatron]

In the US we try to uphold the idea of "innocent until proven guilty". Is that the same for these forums?

(very different from "trustworthy until proven untrustworthy," though!)

[Rockefoten]

In the US we try to uphold the idea of "innocent until proven guilty". Is that the same for these forums?

(very different from "trustworthy until proven untrustworthy," though!)

I think that's beside the point. Pointing out possibility of a scam must be allowed before there is damning evidence available. Has it been proven that Pirate simply didn't lose all that money he owed?
Again, I'm not saying this is a scam, I'm saying events up until now are still very compatible with it being a scam. Some will think this is unfair to Simon, but until he starts to communicate for real or prove that some action is being taken, I reserve the right to be suspicious.

[Valerian77]

I did some transactions on btc24. This situation does not provide much trust for further business with this platform. Aside from that I was not alwas sure about the computations in btc24 - even I did never complain due to that only small values were affected.

My recommendation is to complete outstanding debits (with a lawyer if necessary) and to use different market places in future. Aside from trust worthy market MtGox a highly distributed solution is needed which can only be based on a 'everybody is a market place' paradigm. Personally I registered with localbitcoins.com, which seems to be one of the best OTC solutions by now. There is space for a new paralleled and distributed service for the near future. -- if anyone with a profound technical knowledge base is interestet in specification and setup he may contact me.

[darnth]

Just adding some information I collected in various threads and on reddit:

Bitcoin24 is pretty much dead, mainly for the second of two problems:

1) The admin/owner TAiS46 does not seem to have the necessary experience to run a big trading platform. As evident from a few slightly worrying questions he asked in coding forums the last months, bitcoin24 was a bit of a learning-by-doing thing. As we all know due to a problem of the trading engine to deal with multiple requests of the same trade (that was already discussed on a php forum two months ago) too many BTCs were credited for a number of trades (the list can be found online), but to my best knowledge we dont know whether significant BTCs were removed by users exploiting that bug.
I personally think this is the reason TAis46 took the site down and he is now supposedly working on rolling back the double/triple/quadruple orders that happened (to his expense) and fixing the trade engine. He still has 16k+ bitcoins in his cold storage (1GcWYgqbdtzZAGsX2iSVBS74cPBiQjCiRg, 1AnixjBYxpTzAmfSa8kRdBiUaSGV2e9d26) and an unknown number in user deposit addresses I guess.
Whether he will pay that out or be able to is anyones guess, also see 2).

2) There are strict regulations in place for any bank/currency exchange/... operating in europe, to hinder money laundering:
- the operator has to identify every customer, e.g. mtgox verification before entering a significant (withdraw/deposit amount) business relationship
- any transactions above 15k euro, or even below if suspicious (e.g. anonymous savings account) has to be reported to the authorities
Hence bitcoin24, from the start, violated anti-money laundry regulations, probably strongly.
From a post on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/user/TAiS46 he still seems to think thats not his responsibility, but thats wrong and naive.
He even admits having had trouble with his german account from the start, as known stolen (phishing/hacked) accounts transfered money to his account, but despite that didnt think it through but instead just used a polish account.
bitcoin24 was very convenient for legitimate users, but for the same reasons the perfect money laundering tool. Considering his success, he managed to fly under the radar for quite some time, but that wont work infinitely (hindsight ).

Its not clear that the current legal trouble is due to accusations of money laundering, but it seems very likely. Either someone in administration noticed the amount of money going through his site and reopenend investigation, or the investigation was started by following the money that disappeared from known stolen bank accounts again. The german administration requested assistance from the polish, and they were just faster in freezing the account. The german account is on very low transaction limit, not completely frozen yet, but is expected to soon be (all according to TAiS46, and I think he might actually say the truth)
Due to being in violation of regulations from the start of bitcoin24, I dont see him having any chance in the legal battle, though

(edit: problems 1 and 2 are probably not directly connected, as he changed the account for international deposits the day before the site went down, but might be both connected to the preceding price boom)

The big question is I guess now whether the administration asks him to freeze bitcoin assets also, and if not, whether he'll actually be able to/allow withdrawal of BTC. The fiat is probably tied up in the legal battle for quite some time. Fines for money laundering (even if not that intentionally) can also be rather high (its not the US where a big bank had to pay a 1.9 billion dollar fine, but still).

In any case bitcoin24 is dead, the admin in deep trouble, what he will do with the BTC is anyones guess now.

TL;DR version:
bitcoin24 ran a multi-million euro business
-without anyone having the technical competence to run such a big platform
-without any legal advice
All else follows logically from these two.


P.S.: Hindsight is of course cheap

[BitAurum]

Just adding some information I collected in various threads and on reddit:

Bitcoin24 is pretty much dead, mainly for the second of two problems:

1) The admin/owner TAiS46 does not seem to have the necessary experience to run a big trading platform. As evident from a few slightly worrying questions he asked in coding forums the last months, bitcoin24 was a bit of a learning-by-doing thing. As we all know due to a problem of the trading engine to deal with multiple requests of the same trade (that was already discussed on a php forum two months ago) too many BTCs were credited for a number of trades (the list can be found online), but to my best knowledge we dont know whether significant BTCs were removed by users exploiting that bug.
I personally think this is the reason TAis46 took the site down and he is now supposedly working on rolling back the double/triple/quadruple orders that happened (to his expense) and fixing the trade engine. He still has 16k+ bitcoins in his cold storage (1GcWYgqbdtzZAGsX2iSVBS74cPBiQjCiRg, 1AnixjBYxpTzAmfSa8kRdBiUaSGV2e9d26) and an unknown number in user deposit addresses I guess.
Whether he will pay that out or be able to is anyones guess, also see 2).

2) There are strict regulations in place for any bank/currency exchange/... operating in europe, to hinder money laundering:
- the operator has to identify every customer, e.g. mtgox verification before entering a significant (withdraw/deposit amount) business relationship
- any transactions above 15k euro, or even below if suspicious (e.g. anonymous savings account) has to be reported to the authorities
Hence bitcoin24, from the start, violated anti-money laundry regulations, probably strongly.
From a post on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/user/TAiS46 he still seems to think thats not his responsibility, but thats wrong and naive.
He even admits having had trouble with his german account from the start, as known stolen (phishing/hacked) accounts transfered money to his account, but despite that didnt think it through but instead just used a polish account.
bitcoin24 was very convenient for legitimate users, but for the same reasons the perfect money laundering tool. Considering his success, he managed to fly under the radar for quite some time, but that wont work infinitely (hindsight ).

Its not clear that the current legal trouble is due to accusations of money laundering, but it seems very likely. Either someone in administration noticed the amount of money going through his site and reopenend investigation, or the investigation was started by following the money that disappeared from known stolen bank accounts again. The german administration requested assistance from the polish, and they were just faster in freezing the account. The german account is on very low transaction limit, not completely frozen yet, but is expected to soon be (all according to TAiS46, and I think he might actually say the truth)
Due to being in violation of regulations from the start of bitcoin24, I dont see him having any chance in the legal battle, though

(edit: problems 1 and 2 are probably not directly connected, as he changed the account for international deposits the day before the site went down, but might be both connected to the preceding price boom)

The big question is I guess now whether the administration asks him to freeze bitcoin assets also, and if not, whether he'll actually be able to/allow withdrawal of BTC. The fiat is probably tied up in the legal battle for quite some time. Fines for money laundering (even if not that intentionally) can also be rather high (its not the US where a big bank had to pay a 1.9 billion dollar fine, but still).

In any case bitcoin24 is dead, the admin in deep trouble, what he will do with the BTC is anyones guess now.

TL;DR version:
bitcoin24 ran a multi-million euro business
-without anyone having the technical competence to run such a big platform
-without any legal advice
All else follows logically from these two.


P.S.: Hindsight is of course cheap

That sums it up pretty nicely. Cheers for the post.

[Valerian77]

In that case - good luck for all having some fund stuck in bitcoin-24. 

[DeathAndTaxes]

In the US we try to uphold the idea of "innocent until proven guilty". Is that the same for these forums?

(very different from "trustworthy until proven untrustworthy," though!)

Nonsense innocent until proven guilty is just a quaint phrase and has no basis in law or in public opinion.  Governments routinely seize assets, put UNCONVICTED suspects in jail pending trial, wiretap phones, conduct surveilance, etc without anyone being convicted of anything.

The burden of proof for conviction is generally high but nobody is talking about a conviction here.  The operator's actions are highly questionable certainly rising to reasonable suspicion.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_suspicion

[bitbadger]

Just adding some information I collected in various threads and on reddit:

Bitcoin24 is pretty much dead, mainly for the second of two problems:

1) The admin/owner TAiS46 does not seem to have the necessary experience to run a big trading platform.

---------
---------
2) There are strict regulations in place for any bank/currency exchange/... operating in europe, to hinder

The big question is I guess now whether the administration asks him to freeze bitcoin assets also, and if not, whether he'll actually be able to/allow withdrawal of BTC. The fiat is probably tied up in the legal battle for quite some time. Fines for money laundering (even if not that intentionally) can also be rather high (its not the US where a big bank had to pay a 1.9 billion dollar fine, but still).

Thanks for that information. That is also what Ive been increasingly assuming over the last few days.

We don't know yet though how things will develop. He can probably get the exchange back online without too much hassle assuming he has people to help.

The problem with the bank accounts could be harder to crack. No useable bank account = no operating exchange possible. 

The only other alternative: pass the monies back to the customers.

But these options will only be possible if the account isnt permanently blocked because of the lack of proper bank compliance.

As for anyone suing him, that's completely useless in this situation.

If as seems the case, bank compliance regulations havent been followed and the bank suspects money laundering, they are bound by law to block business with the company or person concerned, and what's more, to report the matter to the authorities.

Trouble is when it comes to money laundering/money for terrorism suspicions, the authorities are paranoid and the standard procedure is to freeze all funds, so the innocent suffer as well as the guilty...

I only hope the outlook in reality is better than it looks right now.

[michaelGedi]

just in case anyone is feeling shit about their situation:


I invested/speculated at $235, the night before my birthday.

I considered selling at $268 the next day, didn't... watched crash, Bitstamp went down, no sale went through until $125.

Watched it go up again to about $175.


Eventually after watching some sites and having a think, noticed coins going for $60 on Bitstamp and selling for €55 on Bitcoin-24... made purchase, transferred coins, made some money back (erm...)


The rest is history  

[Amitabh S]

just in case anyone is feeling shit about their situation:


I invested/speculated at $235, the night before my birthday.

I considered selling at $268 the next day, didn't... watched crash, Bitstamp went down, no sale went through until $125.

Watched it go up again to about $175.


Eventually after watching some sites and having a think, noticed coins going for $60 on Bitstamp and selling for €55 on Bitcoin-24... made purchase, transferred coins, made some money back (erm...)


The rest is history  

How many coins?

[darnth]

Trouble is when it comes to money laundering/money for terrorism suspicions, the authorities are paranoid and the standard procedure is to freeze all funds, so the innocent suffer as well as the guilty...

I only hope the outlook in reality is better than it looks right now.

Good point on the "money for terrorism". I personally find it ridiculous that its attached to "money laundering/ ..." in every official instance (big fish and 99.9999% are still just illegal non-terrorist business id guess), but thats the state we are at , with all the resulting paranoia.

The problem for TAiS46 is probably that if there are even a few suspicious transactions (as the example he has given, money from hacked bank accounts being wired to his account to buy BTC), the only thing he can tell authorities is that his site made it disappear anonymously (not having used verification). So its hard to convince them he actually didnt have anything to do with it, and innocent until found guilty is a bit problematic in application if he is (probably) found in violation of regulations.

And yep, BTC wise, if he manages to sort out the multi-transactions (just some time/help) he should technically be able to send at least the majority of them back.

[dscotese]

In the US we try to uphold the idea of "innocent until proven guilty". Is that the same for these forums?

(very different from "trustworthy until proven untrustworthy," though!)

Nonsense innocent until proven guilty is just a quaint phrase and has no basis in law or in public opinion.  Governments routinely seize assets, put UNCONVICTED suspects in jail pending trial, wiretap phones, conduct surveilance, etc without anyone being convicted of anything.

The burden of proof for conviction is generally high but nobody is talking about a conviction here.  The operator's actions are highly questionable certainly rising to reasonable suspicion.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reasonable_suspicion

Quaint phrase?  Have a history lesson with Lysander Spooner: An Essay on the Trial By Jury

[michaelGedi]

How many coins?

6.37 at $235... so I guess not a lot by most of your standards.

BUT relatively speaking this was a fair chunk of money for me as I'm still a student.


I only have myself to blame but I thought it might be an interesting share for those who were a bit more careful with their money and still ended up in this situation.


It's all rather ridiculous really