I'm back!

[Transisto]

Lesson for aspiring Bitcoin scammers: When caught red-handed, just make up bizarre fairytales with shakespearean characters and amazing coincidences. You'll get a free pass and will be praised by the community.

It's a scam made up (fairly successfully) by AurumXchange. Look at who has the money right now: AurumXchange has my $40K and Mt. Gox has Bitcoinica creditors' over $2 million worth of Bitcoins. (I'm not saying Mt. Gox is wrong or anything. It's merely a fact.) I have nothing (and 5000 BTC LESS in my pocket).

Thank you for your sarcasm. I believe the free pass and praise will be more valuable if you identify the real scammer correctly.

If you are the victim who is the real scammer? Your made up friend in china?

You answered your own question. If you are not believing me, there's no way I can answer your questions. Both of your posts are phrased similar to:

"Is Goat the hacker? Or is Goat too afraid to admit it?"

CJH is a real person. I shopped at his Taobao store before. He hacked Bitcoinica and admitted it and returned majority of the funds. I don't think he's living with any gains from the hack now. But he can no longer be contacted regardless.

How did your friend get your password?  Did he hack you or use vilonce? Or did you give it to him?

The password was heavily re-used. He could easy find out if he used plain text password in any of his websites.

EDIT: It seems that you have almost zero knowledge for the entire incident. I'm back in this forum to contribute, not arguing things that were already clarified long ago. If you really have that many questions to ask, please email bitcointalk@zhoutong.com. I will try my best to entertain your request. Thanks!

EDIT 2: CJH is not my friend. I don't have a friend like him. He gave me advice on anti-fraud payment systems on QQ and I paid him. He wouldn't help out of friendship.

WHAT IS THIS ? "He could easy find out if he used plain text password in any of his websites."
What website does he have ?

This was the email you were using regularly to exchange with peoples, How would some bogus "using plain text password in any of *? websites." give him access to it ?

[Pangia]

ZT, how do u feel about the funder of bitcoinica is now a funder of coinlab?

I have nothing but gratefulness for Tihan. Regardless of the result, he literally changed my life. I wouldn't ever call myself an entrepreneur without his support.

For the CoinLab thing, I really have no comment at the moment. I didn't follow this company very closely.

So, how old are you now, and how much coins do you currently hold, if it's no secret?

I'm 18 years old. I personally hold less than 100 BTC and I have given my family a 100 BTC gold-plated bar plus 28 Casascius Series I coins (so technically no longer mine).

I have sold the 1000 BTC during the recent price spike for some investment in a new company (unrelated to Bitcoin or domains). Another (minor) reason was that  I felt that Bitcoin was overpriced.

I know very little about you, but I have read all of your responses in the thread and I can say with the utmost certainty that you are NOT 18 years of age.  With that said, if you're lying about that simple fact, then I have significant doubts about everything else you're saying.

 

Lurk more. That is about the only true thing he has said.

Hi Chaang Noi (Goat) ช้างน้อย,

This person (Zhou Tong) isn't 18.  Without going into details, in my profession (for the past 20 years) I have interviewed hundreds of individuals. One of the things that we look for is a slight inconsistency in their story which we then go after it.  Sometimes the inconsistency is due to something innocent (hiding an affair, minor theft) relative to what we're looking into.  But more often than not, it's a slip-up on their part because they're trying to hide something else (what we're actually interested in).  Once we get to that "something else", then we widen the hole in their story.  Further inconsistencies are developed by them to explain away the initial lie which leads to the hole in their story becoming wider and wider, with the final outcome either being them admitting to what occurred or requesting an attorney since their back is now against the wall with a mountain of lies on top of them.

Without know this Zhow Tong personally, I would say that he/she is "back" in an effort to perpetrate some new type of fraud.  His/her intent is to size up the audience and then build confidence, hence the elaborate explanations.  He/she will ultimately gain the trust of enough people to be able to pull one more scam.

Caveat emptor

[Matthew N. Wright]

This person (Zhou Tong) isn't 18.  Without going into details, ..

..or evidence. Amirite?

[Pangia]

This person (Zhou Tong) isn't 18.  Without going into details, ..

..or evidence. Amirite?

Without going into details -- was a new sentence and referred to my profession.

In regards to his/her age actually being 18, I'm not the one that should be providing evidence, he/she (Zhou Tong) should be proving it.

Starting with proving who they are and everything else about them.  He/she obviously wants something now, otherwise they wouldn't be so bent on attempting to regain the trust of this board with their elaborate explanations.

[Matthew N. Wright]

he/she (Zhou Tong) should be proving it.

Couldn't agree more..if it had something to do with anything. What does his age have to do with anything though?

[greyhawk]

Without know this Zhow Tong personally, I would say that he/she is "back" in an effort to perpetrate some new type of fraud.  His/her intent is to size up the audience and then build confidence, hence the elaborate explanations.  He/she will ultimately gain the trust of enough people to be able to pull one more scam.

We know that. Everyone in this thread knows that. Well at least the one's talking about imaginary relic hunters.

Doesn't make him "not 18". That's about the most uninteresting part of all this. It's like trying to squeeze through a needlepin-pricky hole in his story while the rest of us are happily slaloming with a Humvee through the giant gaping maws in the story while swilling beer, singing rowdy songs and baring our asses at all the ladies.

[Pangia]

Age is a minor issue. But if it's a lie (which I believe it is), then what else is a lie? If you're going to lie about something so simple, then what about the complicated/elaborate things that you're speaking of?

[Matthew N. Wright]

Age is a minor issue. But if it's a lie (which I believe it is), then what else is a lie? If you're going to lie about something so simple, then what about the complicated/elaborate things that you're speaking of?

Welcome to bitcointalk, you'll fit right in here.

[Pangia]

Without know this Zhow Tong personally, I would say that he/she is "back" in an effort to perpetrate some new type of fraud.  His/her intent is to size up the audience and then build confidence, hence the elaborate explanations.  He/she will ultimately gain the trust of enough people to be able to pull one more scam.

We know that. Everyone in this thread knows that. Well at least the one's talking about imaginary relic hunters.

Doesn't make him "not 18". That's about the most uninteresting part of all this. It's like trying to squeeze through a needlepin-pricky hole in his story while the rest of us are happily slaloming with a Humvee through the giant gaping maws in the story while swilling beer, singing rowdy songs and baring our asses at all the ladies.

Hi Greyhawk,

Sorry, I don't know much about this person. Catching up on things now.  But that was a quick lie (age being 18) that I caught, which led me to doubt everything else he was writing about.  Now learning that this person is a complete scammer.

[kgo]

Yeah, zhoutong isn't a bad guy.  Maybe a few holes in the original code, then followed up by new ownership that were more careless and - boom - shit storm.


Still, zhoutong made a valuable contribution to the bitcoin community with good intentions.



welcome back.

Once evidence started pointing towards zhou, zhou himself said that an associate of zhou's stole the password and the bitcoins.  He provided this "friend's" name.  And claimed the friend was involved in organized crime and also a hunter of ancient antiquities and relics.  Then after outing the mysterious relic hunter, he can't or won't provide any more details about the 'real' thief's identity that would allow authorities to track him down.

I don't know about you, but I don't think it's wise to rat out a multi-millionaire organized criminal.  Such a person would be likely to do something to shut you up.  Not like bitcoiners who get scammed and complain and do nothing.

If you actually believe this ridiculous story, zhou knows the identity of the bitcoinia thief, inadvertently provided him with enough info to steal the passwords, and isn't doing anything to assist in catching the thief.

And if you don't, then zhou is like OJ Simpson, talking about the 'real' thief to deflect blame away from himself.

Either way, I wouldn't trust him.

[Pangia]

Yeah, zhoutong isn't a bad guy.  Maybe a few holes in the original code, then followed up by new ownership that were more careless and - boom - shit storm.


Still, zhoutong made a valuable contribution to the bitcoin community with good intentions.



welcome back.

Once evidence started pointing towards zhou, zhou himself said that an associate of zhou's stole the password and the bitcoins.  He provided this "friend's" name.  And claimed the friend was involved in organized crime and also a hunter of ancient antiquities and relics.  Then after outing the mysterious relic hunter, he can't or won't provide any more details about the 'real' thief's identity that would allow authorities to track him down.

I don't know about you, but I don't think it's wise to rat out a multi-millionaire organized criminal.  Such a person would be likely to do something to shut you up.  Not like bitcoiners who get scammed and complain and do nothing.

If you actually believe this ridiculous story, zhou knows the identity of the bitcoinia thief, inadvertently provided him with enough info to steal the passwords, and isn't doing anything to assist in catching the thief.

And if you don't, then zhou is like OJ Simpson, talking about the 'real' thief to deflect blame away from himself.

Either way, I wouldn't trust him.

WOW! Classic con-man.

[elux]

Nothing really has changed, except the soaring prices (it doesn't have a lot to do with me other than seeing my out-of-pocket 5,000 BTC personal compensation is valued at >$1 million at peak, that was over 80% of my entire Bitcoin savings and I didn't purchase more after the incident). Bitcoinica LP is still not liquidated with zero progress of the fund return.

And nothing of value was lost, right?  


First: Are you up for a /r/bitcoin IAMA?

Regarding Bitcoinica: What, if anything, would you have done differently?

(Refresher: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2973301)

In your opinion, what happened to Bitcoinica?

Are you a party in the civil litigation against Bitcoinica?

What is your opinion on the (recent) death of instawallet?

What is your opinion of the Bitcoin Consultancy trio?

How is your registrar business doing?

How is your sleep?

[bbit]

Welcome back! lol

[Alex Zee]

I know very little about you, but I have read all of your responses in the thread and I can say with the utmost certainty that you are NOT 18 years of age.  With that said, if you're lying about that simple fact, then I have significant doubts about everything else you're saying.

My thoughts exactly. He can't be 18, that's ridiculous. And if I remember correctly he was "18" about 1.5 years ago when I first heard about Bitcoinica, and already I had my doubts about his age. So he should update his legend and suddenly grow up to at least 19.

[Vod]

For those that don't want to read everything - here is a short summary.

Zhou Tong used to run bitcoinica.  Using inside information, he stole bitcoins at least two times from that company.

The last theft was traced directly back to him.  

With no way to defend himself, he made up a fictional character that NO PERSON ever met, or spoke to, other than Zhou Tong himself.  He blamed everything on this other person, therefore making himself look innocent.  Of course, ZERO evidence was ever presented that this person is real.

We're now told this imaginary person cannot be contacted - so Zhou hopes we will all just forget about his theft.  He still owes the community 5,000 btc.  Religious (aka gullible) people may believe his story, but the rest of us know he is a thief.

WHY NO SCAMMER TAG?   He donated a lot of money to the forum.

To read the entire story:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=95738.0

[Alex Zee]

I guess, he spent all what he scammed and now wants more

[allten]

Welcome back Zhou.

Look forward to seeing your contributions.

I will raise hell though if you are ever in a position of receiving funds.
But then again, I'm sure you know better and are or would be using another
name and invented identity to run a "bitcon" business

Good Luck! I really do hope the best for you. I'll give you a second chance on
everything except trust.

[bbit]

For those that don't want to read everything - here is a short summary.

Zhou Tong used to run bitcoinica.  Using inside information, he stole bitcoins at least two times from that company.

The last theft was traced directly back to him.  

With no way to defend himself, he made up a fictional character that NO PERSON ever met, or spoke to, other than Zhou Tong himself.  He blamed everything on this other person, therefore making himself look innocent.  Of course, ZERO evidence was ever presented that this person is real.

We're now told this imaginary person cannot be contacted - so Zhou hopes we will all just forget about his theft.  He still owes the community 5,000 btc.  Religious (aka gullible) people may believe his story, but the rest of us know he is a thief.

WHY NO SCAMMER TAG?   He donated a lot of money to the forum.

To read the entire story:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=95738.0

Good point. I wonder why no tag has been given?

[Nemesis]

Zhoutong, where is your collector friend? 

You better stay low. Your name is already tainted. We're not stupid. Good luck with the rest of your life, you need it

[acoindr]

Welcom back Zhou!

I'm an outsider that can only speculate, but my personal opinion is you are not a scammer. That's my own opinion.

I do think you should be open to another financial services platform. You're clearly good at it and I see a way it can help the community. People would be rightfully wary of any Bitcoinica 2 from you and keep only minimum balances in their accounts. That's a healthy attitude with Bitcoin, and people need to be trained that way. I've often said people should not keep more funds or coins in any online Bitcoin account than they are prepared to lose completely. If people followed that advice the impact of things like Bitcoinica and mybitcoin.com would not be so great.

Bitcoin is still small so developing healthy practices now is better in the long run.