I'm back!

[Inedible]

Somehow, I doubt that he would ever post a nice long video of him explaining everything whilst holding up his passport for all to see.

I'm pretty certain you won't get a long explanation on video - it was 12 months ago, it was complex and it would be easy to remember something incorrectly. It would also be too easy for him to make a simple mistake for everyone to hang him with.

He ought to be able to talk for a minute or two and show his passport though.

The unfortunate thing is that all this does is prove his age. As someone said, it's the least interesting thing about this case but I agree with you that if he's lying about this, it's a good reason to doubt everything else he's saying, however, you do seem to be coming from a position of "guilty".

[gollum]

Very few people have met me so far

Name one.  Just one on this forum who has any level of trust, and is known face-to-face by other users.

One.

Wondering...

Waiting patiently...

Oh zhoutong... hello?  Over here...

No one has met Satoshi face-2-face, still millions of people trust his creation.

[bitcoinminer]

Can we all braid each other's hair and eat sugary snacks while we watch together?

[BTC Books]

Very few people have met me so far

Name one.  Just one on this forum who has any level of trust, and is known face-to-face by other users.

One.

Wondering...

Waiting patiently...

Oh zhoutong... hello?  Over here...

No one has met Satoshi face-2-face, still millions of people trust his creation.

At the beginning there was no reason not to trust it.  Bitcoin was worth nothing and it didn't matter.

Now, we trust all the developers and exchange owners who are known to us - face-to-face.

That was a silly conflation, gollum.

[Inedible]

You are most welcomed to casts doubts on my hunch because I'm not here trying to sell a "new project".

In regards to impugning Zhou Tong's reputation, did I really impugn it? I think that he's done a wonderful job all on his own with that. 

What I have put forward is an ideal opportunity to shut everyone up.

Put up a long youtube video to explain everything and hold up his alleged passport to prove that it's actually his.

If you or I were in his position (attempting to establish our credibility), how difficult would that be?

It's not a hunch when you've stated you KNOW FOR A FACT that he's lying about his age, his travelling, his passport, etc. That's a claim, not a hunch.

What you then put forward is an intrusive way for someone to prove their age. It just makes me think of the times when Obama was accused of not being born in America and all he had to do was show his birth certificate. When he did that, they all claimed it was faked.

Personally, if it were me, I would Skype a reliable and established forum member (one of the moderators or the forum owner).

Honestly, you'd get a better response if you didn't come from this from a "he's guilty" angle.

[Inedible]

No one has met Satoshi face-2-face, still millions of people trust his creation.

That analogy doesn't work.

Satoshi has no credibility issue, nor does Bitcoin because it's Open Source and can be independently verified.

[Pangia]

No one has met Satoshi face-2-face, still millions of people trust his creation.

Very true! But is Satoshi alleged to have fleeced people out of thousands of Bitcoins???

[gollum]

No one has met Satoshi face-2-face, still millions of people trust his creation.

Very true! But is Satoshi alleged to have fleeced people out of thousands of Bitcoins???

No, but he got 1,5 million coins. you never know when he is going to dump them into the market.

[repentance]

I believe a credible member of Bitcointalk once vouched for his age and his word was good enough for the masses the last time this came up but I don't remember the username. Maybe someone else does?

Perhaps you're thinking of this post by Tihan.

Zhou Tong is exactly who he says he is.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=97272.msg1073435#msg1073435

Tihan met Zhou in person.  

Whether or not Zhou's lying about his age to this community and to Australian authorities is far less interesting to me than whether he's lying about things directly related to the downfall of Bitcoinica.

Telling the truth about his age doesn't prove he had no involvement in the destruction of Bitcoinica and lying about his age wouldn't prove that he had active involvement in the events which destroyed Bitcoinica.

A pretty irrefutable connection was made between the stolen Bitcoinica funds and Zhou.  The big question is whether or not you believe Zhou's explanation for that connection.  A secondary question is whether law enforcement was ever asked to investigate that connection.

[Inedible]

Very few people have met me so far

Name one.  Just one on this forum who has any level of trust, and is known face-to-face by other users.

One.

Wondering...

Waiting patiently...

Oh zhoutong... hello?  Over here...

I'm pretty sure there was someone that met him. He runs a Bitcoin business of some sort. Might be a coffee seller? I don't recall. Can anyone remember him from the previous Bitcoinica thread?

[Inedible]

I believe a credible member of Bitcointalk once vouched for his age and his word was good enough for the masses the last time this came up but I don't remember the username. Maybe someone else does?

Perhaps you're thinking of this post by Tihan.

Zhou Tong is exactly who he says he is.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=97272.msg1073435#msg1073435

Tihan met Zhou in person.  

Whether or not Zhou's lying about his age to this community and to Australian authorities is far less interesting to me than whether he's lying about things directly related to the downfall of Bitcoinica.

Telling the truth about his age doesn't prove he had no involvement in the destruction of Bitcoinica and lying about his age wouldn't prove that he had active involvement in the events which destroyed Bitcoinica.

A pretty irrefutable connection was made between the stolen Bitcoinica funds and Zhou.  The big question is whether or not you believe Zhou's explanation for that connection.  A secondary question is whether law enforcement was ever asked to investigate that connection.

An amazing find repentance!

I remember this post but I believe there was another one. The poster attended a meeting with ZT and was a respected forum member too.

Still, this is easily resolved by the video/Skype idea. As intrusive as it is, it would help ZT re-establish his credibility.

[dancingnancy]

Oh look who it is.

How is the Chinese relic hunter multi-billionaire triad boss über hacker?

Unfortunately he can't be reached any more. It's always easy to just go offline forever.

He did return majority of the funds, just not in the right combination of USD and BTC. I don't think he enjoys the incident. He is/was living in Heilongjiang Province, which is too cold for me to even travel there (I go to China only during fall or winter). I don't think the address is where he lives though.

I believe he was referring to you, could be wrong though.

Made up people often live in cold places. Just look at Santa.

Matthew the two time scammer tag troll you paid trying to make you look like the victim in all of this is not going to work out too well.

It would be best to assist in cleaning up your first mess (bitcoinica and its "hack") before you make a new project.

I'm pragmatic - I want to maximize my value for the community. Unfortunately there's really nothing much I can do to accelerate Bitcoinica's liquidation. I wasn't even a shareholder or creditor (so I can't sue them for compensation or anything).

So instead of hoping for the best with something I really don't have the capacity to do, I'm thinking of doing something that's 1) good for Bitcoin and 2) not requiring much trust.

Zhoutong,

Can you try to assist the liquidators in any way possible?  Mt. Gox is telling some B.S. about how they haven't received sufficient evidence as to who owns what accounts from the liquidators.  Not sure who is telling the truth anymore.  If you are interested in helping out I can PM you the liquidators E-Mail.  

It's been like a year and I could pay for my graduate school with the amount I have in BTC right now being held hostage.  Really still hurting from all of this.  Perhaps you can send them account information that they are lacking, which they can give to Mt. Gox to expedite this process? As of now, no one gives a shit, except for us (the creditors).

[Pangia]

I believe a credible member of Bitcointalk once vouched for his age and his word was good enough for the masses the last time this came up but I don't remember the username. Maybe someone else does?

Perhaps you're thinking of this post by Tihan.

Zhou Tong is exactly who he says he is.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=97272.msg1073435#msg1073435

Tihan met Zhou in person.  

Whether or not Zhou's lying about his age to this community and to Australian authorities is far less interesting to me than whether he's lying about things directly related to the downfall of Bitcoinica.

Telling the truth about his age doesn't prove he had no involvement in the destruction of Bitcoinica and lying about his age wouldn't prove that he had active involvement in the events which destroyed Bitcoinica.

A pretty irrefutable connection was made between the stolen Bitcoinica funds and Zhou.  The big question is whether or not you believe Zhou's explanation for that connection.  A secondary question is whether law enforcement was ever asked to investigate that connection.

Hi Repentence,

Age isn't that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, BUT it establishes credibility with everything else.  Lie about that and why should I believe you about anything else you have to tell me? Age isn't the issue, but he stated it and it is a statement that can be proven by him with evidence to back it up.  The allegations about the theft is something that is difficult to prove or disprove, but his age isn't.

Use the little lie (age) to draw him out (yes I know he's reading this).  Surprisingly he hasn't responded about posting a youtube video.

Like most cons he'll probably try to avoid any in-person contact and will most likely post a response, maybe even with a photo-shopped copy of a passport showing a d.o.b. with the passport # redacted as a way of saying he needs to hide his identity.  

Unless he posts a nice long video explaining everything and then holding up his passport to prove that what he posted is credible, he's full of it.  The defense of ----"posting a video might be a poor decision relative to a court case" is also bull.  He's posted enough excuses/explanation on the forum, how would a video be problematic.  

[Inedible]

Age isn't that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, BUT it establishes credibility with everything else.

By this reasoning, can we assume you'll accept have no credibility if he turns out to be 18?

He's posted enough excuses/explanation on the forum, how would a video be problematic.  

Skyping a moderator would probably the way to go but video evidence would satisfy 99% of people.

Explaining on a video would serve no purpose other than to re-hash what he's already written with the added penalty of any accidental mistakes made being used as 'evidence' that he's lying. If he reads a script then that's as good as what he's already posted.

The only use for an explanation on video is if someone were to ask him questions at time of recording in hope of tripping him up. Not sure why anyone would subject themselves to that liability.

[repentance]

I'm still not sure what a video would prove.  Zhou's had many months to polish his story, so I don't think that having slicker answers now than he had at the time the events happened would in any way make his story more credible.

[Transisto]

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 ?

I'm asking you again ... What is this ? ^

Also why edit this posts from yesterday ?

Quote from: bitdragon on Today at 08:13:32 AM
Quote from: Elwar on Today at 06:23:37 AM
You say that there is no place to short bitcoins but Bitfinex is up and running using your code from Bitcoinica.

Have you checked that out?


You can buy Put options through MPEX.
It's not quite the Addictive nature of margin trading ala bitcoinica but definitely has a place in a solid financial plan.
And dare I say that the security model inspires.
 


Yeah, I like MPEX's model. I think it'll inspire me a lot if I'm going to start another Bitcoin venture (IF).

Into:

Quote from: Elwar on April 23, 2013, 06:23:37 AM
You say that there is no place to short bitcoins but Bitfinex is up and running using your code from Bitcoinica.

Have you checked that out?


Yes. I'm not so sure whether the code is based on Bitcoinica. Anyway, I think there's still no trading venue that has the amount of trades that Bitcoinica had. At its peak Bitcoinica had 150000 BTC open interest. That's what I mean by "viable way of shorting".

[nrd525]

Silly drama. 

Q: Why would Zhoutong lie about being 17 when he started bitcoinica?  It isn't the kind of lie you tell that will encourage people to entrust hundreds of thousands of dollars with you. 
A: it wasn't a lie.

Pangia - registration date March 31.  Nice trolling.

Zhoutong made major mistakes - as has been true of a lot of people in bitcoin (and a lot of software developers in general - you've had software crash on you before, yes?) - and most noticeably he made his mistakes not just with software but with money.  On the other hand, there is no evidence yet that he had malicious intentions or intentionally scammed anyone and he fits the profile of a young computer programmer with lofty dreams.  He has admitted his mistakes and has made some amends.

Note: I'm still waiting for my bitcoinica liquidation money

Sidenote to Zhoutong - Bitfinex, imperfect as it may be (and one of the biggest problems being MtGox lag) currently looks like it is much more secure and developed than your site ever was and is almost equal in transaction volume.

[ninjarobot]

This Chen Jianhai story is the biggest load of poppycock I've ever heard.

All one needs to do is to read this:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=95795.msg1055627#msg1055627

And this:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=95738.msg1054890#msg1054890

Lets review the facts:

• Chen Jianhai is a multi-millionaire relic collector with a family living in the cold and remote Heilongjiang Province in China who owns an online 'Taobao' store.
• Chen Jianhai is not technical and his English is poor
• Chen Jianhai is Zhou's former business associate, but not his friend
• Chen Jianhai is likely a long-time criminal quite active in financial black markets with an active presence in stolen credit cards and possibly other hacks. (according to Zhou's observations)
  
• Chen Jianhai has a technical co-worker that is "in-to-bitcoin" and discovers that the source-code has been leaked.
• Chen Jianhai inspects the code and discovers that the MtGox API key is also the master password for Tihan's lastpass account containing the passwords to both Bitcoinica's and Christopher Heaslip's MtGox account. The lastpass account (originally set up by Zhou) was not protected by 2factor. And both MtGox accounts were also not protected with a yubikey.
• Chen Jianhai logs in to the MtGox account and withdraws the maximum number of Coins (40.000 BTC & 40.000 USD). For the USD he creates a MtGox code that he claims on Heaslip's account and uses the USD to buy more BTC.
• Chen Jianhai then withdraws all the coins to Zhou's blockchain.info account. From where he sends them to his servers in America.
• Chen Jianhai decides to frame Zhou stating "it would be impossible to discover the hacker" and "it would be much easier to deny if the suspect account is an insider because you (Zhou Tong) can always distract people from investigating"
• Chen Jianhai knows Zhou's secret sockpuppet identity (stevejobs807@gmail.com) and also his password since Zhou has used Chen's webshop once and re-used that password.
• Chen Jianhai exchanges MtGox coupons worth 40.000 USD to Liberty Reserve through the instant exchange facility at AurumXchange using Zhou's secret identity.
• Coincidentally Zhou also has an order with AurumXchange to sell Liberty Reserve to us for the amount of USD 40,000, requesting a wire to his bank account in Singapore. (for a friend)
• Chen Jianhai then feels the need to create an email account <bitcoinicasucks@hotmail.com> and email verify@bitcoinica.com with the text "THANK YOU FOR YOU SOURCE CODE. BITCONICA IS NOW OFFICALY DONE! LASTPAS PASWORD: c02e1a27-5524-449f-ba65-aff9581ddedc" Despite being able to write perfect english in the subject line, somehow in the body text his CAPS key got stuck and he lost the ability to spell.
• Chen Jianhai is confronted by Zhou who figured it all out after being accused himself only a few hours earlier.
• Chen Jianhai admits everything to Zhou
• Chen Jianhai (despite being a multi-millionaire) was only able to return 20.000 BTC and 140,000 USD  due to the cost of his laundering activities and also the significantly lower Bitcoin price when he cashed out.
• Chen Jianhai (before he was outed) discovers that Zhou is giving 5000 BTC out of his own pocket to Bitcoinica customers and decides to donate 100 BTC of the hacked funds to Zhou's community donation pool
• Chen Jianhai's identity is only known by Zhou, but unfortunately Chen Jianhai is now gone (phone: powered off, QQ: offline, email: no response) and the Alipay account got its password changed

Of course before Chen mysteriously disappeared Zhou stated that "Currently I'm very willing to co-operate with any investigation because this is the only way I can completely prove my innocence." and "I have repeatedly said that I have zero tolerance in this matter and I will report all his information, including his real bank account number and address to the police once the official investigation has started."

However when I wanted to file a police report with my local authorities and asked Zhou to provide me the address details for Chen, I received the following reply:

If you insist on filing a police report on this matter, any lack of co-operation from my side can of course be used against me in the uncertain future.

I'm not protecting his identity. I just deem it to be unnecessary at this point. He is not running away (AFAIK he doesn't even have a passport), and the fund return is pending Bitcoinica's liquidation.

I want to go back to my own business and focus on something productive. Any information I provide now will necessarily be a burden in the near future.

I strongly advise you not to involve the police before the liquidation process has any significant development. You are not obliged to report this. (But when you do, I'm obliged to provide information to either you, or the police, and obviously I would prefer the former.)

My point is, there is very little benefit to this, yet the risk and potential expense are too high. I don't want to hire a lawyer or waste my time on gathering evidence or whatever. I contributed 5,000 BTC and talked to the creditors regularly exactly because I wanted to avoid any lawsuits against me. I'm all for justice, but I have already given up on Bitcoin and justice in this matter seems worthless to me.

Considering the suspicion raised by community members, the questions from trusted business partners and threats of violence, I don't have any energy to fight back any more.   I just want the fiasco to be over. Yet people are giving me more and more troubles. It's okay if you can't feel the pain, please just try to sympathize.

I have plans to immigrate to Australia and I need an absolutely clean record. Even a criminal accusation (without conviction) is intolerable in the character check. I really deeply regret the creation of Bitcoinica. If you can forget about me, please do.

I'm returning to Melbourne on October 6, 2012. Hopefully something will happen at Bitcoinica side, and you have plenty time to re-consider your decision before then.

I agreed and waited for Zhou to return to Melbourne. However upon his return Zhou ignored all my follow up emails. I have never been able to obtains any details about Chen from Zhou nor have I been able to file an actionable report. In the mean time Bitcoinica creditors are still smack in the middle of what must be the largest clusterf*ck in bitcoin history with the MtGox account orphaned and frozen. The AurumXchange funds still missing and an ongoing lawsuit against the Bitcoin Consultancy by the largest creditors. Considering that Bitcoinica had around 1M USD in deposits when it got hacked, and conservatively estimating 50% of that to be in BTC, at current valuations we are talking in excess of 15,000,000 USD still pending liquidation. Or what is left of it.

Now, Zhou returns 1 year later, hoping the dust has settled with his "Hero member" tag still in tact. Well played sir!

I suggest that at the very least Zhou receives an "Untrustworthy" tag. Although I do realize that might be an insult to MNW whom I regard much more highly.

[repentance]

I have plans to immigrate to Australia and I need an absolutely clean record.

Bwahahaha.

Good luck with that.

[bitcoinminer]

<golf clap> for ninjarobot - well played sir.