-

[rangerbob21]

LR... Where are you?... *more crickets...*

Not to continue to belabor the point but we really should have a good, specific, communication on what is going on by now...

I guess I will check back in a month and see how things are going... 

[Lab_Rat]

Hello everyone.  I understand your frustration as I'm almost completely fed up with the speed at which my lawyer is getting this done.  I have called and emailed him every day trying to rush the situation.  He's in court today with another client so I can't expect much today, but I am hoping for a date of completion from him today.

To the comment that BarGraphics made, I have known him for quite some time and had many meetings with him in person.  He has witnessed that I'm trying to get everything done ASAP.  He has witnessed my hard work for this company.  He has even met my lawyer.....

To those of you planning legal action, please just reconsider until all information has been produced.  Legal action will help no one and get us nowhere.

[a2offrb]

@LabRat
As i see, nothing happening with LRM for 3-4 months, so beside you have "phone calls", "sending emails to lawyer", "meetings with lawyer" you have enough time to answer those, been asked thousands of times:

YOU DON'T answer any question posted here in a serious manner aside of your "change of terms".

YOU DON'T disclose what are you trying to work out that will let things come togheter and thats why we're concerned.

YOU DON'T answer how much hardware is running now, if you received any new piece, if its running, and what are you doing with the proceeds of them.

YOU DON'T answer or post even the most minimal information about dividends, not even a small and brief status every day you pay.

WE DON'T know what you have in your possession, what is coming, and where was bought, what are you doing or trying to do, what was requested to you by IRS, FinCen or whatever asked you to comply old or new rules.

If you feel like a punching bag its because you sat there and let all this small details pass you by for WEEKS and turned you into that bag, keep people informed, KEEP PEOPLE INFORMED in a timely manner, all we get its vague and really not positive things from YOU.

grnbrg its just caught between our questions/requests and your incompetence managing information details about your proyect wich WE funded, start being vocal, share information and all this punching bag feeling will fade away, how?

Sit every other day? every week with dividends information? and write some minimal update, even when you need to repeat the information:

Hashrate running: X
Received Hashrate: Y  Pending Instalation: D

Mining on "pool 1" : F
Mining on "Pool 2" : G

Dividends details

Lawyer talks and replies

Problems solved, unsolved, potential.

Inform people, INFORMATION.

Until we will get answers we asked to, i ASK to everyone was started to make any legal action to continue it.

[Bargraphics]

My understanding of the situation is that all of those questions strictly rely on the information coming back from Lab Rats Lawyer.

Once his lawyer is done and paperwork sent to Zach, every question will be answered.

Cart before the horse and all of that.



Right now it looks like his lawyer is just moving a little slower than we'd all like.

[M31]

Hello everyone.  I understand your frustration as I'm almost completely fed up with the speed at which my lawyer is getting this done.  I have called and emailed him every day trying to rush the situation.  He's in court today with another client so I can't expect much today, but I am hoping for a date of completion from him today.

To the comment that BarGraphics made, I have known him for quite some time and had many meetings with him in person.  He has witnessed that I'm trying to get everything done ASAP.  He has witnessed my hard work for this company.  He has even met my lawyer.....

To those of you planning legal action, please just reconsider until all information has been produced.  Legal action will help no one and get us nowhere.

Thanks for your hard work Zach.  I can certainly understand your frustration with the lawyer -- been there, done that.  Looking forward to a calmer, gentler mob, once the legal BS is out of the way and you can get us all up to speed.

[tempestb]

Look anyone that actually is conversing with a lawyer, which is probably nobody, is first going to send LRM a demand letter.  Between getting that ready and giving LRM enough time to respond to it before further action is done, means that by then whatever Labrat has got going on, can be produced.  We're talking a couple months from now.  The alternative would be to wait weeks longer, possibly, and not get any further info from Labrat.  And then start the long process of the demand letter.

So I would recommend continuing the legal approach.  So that if nothing develops, you're well on your way.  There is also a high degree of likely-hood what whatever Labrat's lawyer produces is not going to meet with everyone's satisfaction.  So legal options will likely have to sort it out.

[elitenoob]

Thanks for this weekly friday info that you know nothing...

[fractal02]

I found LabRat lawyer !!!



Oh man... 

[ICantThinkOfaName]

Thanks for this weekly friday info that you know nothing...

Eh.  Better than no update.

[LostDutchman]

Here's a better lawyer for you:

http://www.bettercallsaul.com/



My $.02.

[mufa23]

To those of you planning legal action, please just reconsider until all information has been produced.  Legal action will help no one and get us nowhere.

I completely agree with you. I think legal action will just screw us all over, and most of the money will end up with the lawyers.

But you've got to understand...

You've taken some BTC8,000+ (currently valued at $3.6+ Million dollars) from us, and we've heard little of these supposed legal issues you are caught up in. In fact, if memory serves me correctly, I have only seen the one photo of all the hardware you supposedly have at the data center (which consisted of one BFL 500GH/s miner, and a few other miners). On the website, I've only seen the 17.5~ TH/s that has been there for awhile. You were supposed to provide more photos via grnbrg, but I don't think they ever surfaced. Similar to your trading platform which was a high priority for you.

From my perspective, this all looks like a scam. As far as I know: you took BTC8,000+ from us, and never/hardly bought any hardware with it. You're been slowly paying us back with it, and are now running off with thousands of bitcoins and won't tell us why because of imaginary legal reasons that you coincidently can't elaborate on; and ask us to wait "Two Weeks^tm ".

I really want to believe, but it's looking more and more like countless scams we've witnessed on this forum for years. That's why legal action is looking more and more like a good idea for (us) investors.

[LostDutchman]

You guys and dolls haven't yet figured out what the "legal issues" most likely are, have you?

Check the recent IRS rulings and FIN-Cen requirements, especially those requirements concerning Money Transmitters.

My $.02.

[Frankthechicken]

@fractal02 funny pictures.  Thanks for the laugh.  I'd have to go with the first one.

@mufa23, the idea that LR is just recycling the bitcoin originally acquired through IPO into dividends seems extremely unlikely IMO.  There would have to be an accomplice selling him recently mined coins and letting him use the stats feed from CEX.io (which just jumped to near 23TH... that seems promising).  That seems like an overly complicated (and expensive) way to scam.  But I suspect you don't really think that, just making a point that pictures of the hardware are long overdue.  Which I agree.  I was really looking forward to pictures once the first batch of bitfury equipment came in.

@grnbrg *throws whiffle ball* How's that for abuse!

Having been through a few legal 'things' personally, I do know that sometimes lawyers move at excruciatingly slow speeds depending on what the situation is... especially if they need to do a bunch of research on precedents and related cases.  Lawyers do have their own reputation to look out for and don't want to slap their name on a legal document unless it is highly likely to be legal.  However, I think LR should consider shopping around for new council after this.  :-/

[Flashman]

You've taken some BTC8,000+ (currently valued at $3.6+ Million dollars)

Which could in theory* buy over a petahash in hosted mining by the gigahash contracts at the moment...


(* I only know for defninite that pbmining (see left hand link in sig) has ~180Th on hand though.)

[grnbrg]

@grnbrg *throws whiffle ball* How's that for abuse!

grnbrg.

[mufa23]

You guys and dolls haven't yet figured out what the "legal issues" most likely are, have you?

Check the recent IRS rulings and FIN-Cen requirements, especially those requirements concerning Money Transmitters.

Yeah, we've all seen and read those requirements. To the best of my knowledge, none of them should warrant labrat from keeping us out of the loop. He's implying a different issue.

@mufa23, the idea that LR is just recycling the bitcoin originally acquired through IPO into dividends seems extremely unlikely IMO.  There would have to be an accomplice selling him recently mined coins and letting him use the stats feed from CEX.io (which just jumped to near 23TH... that seems promising).  That seems like an overly complicated (and expensive) way to scam.  But I suspect you don't really think that, just making a point that pictures of the hardware are long overdue.  Which I agree.  I was really looking forward to pictures once the first batch of bitfury equipment came in.

Not all that expensive. 23 TH/s isn't that much... I am personally mining at a few Terahashes myself with about BTC10. Those Antminer S1's are worth the investment. Granted of course, they probably costed a few extra Bitcoin per unit back in December. But lets say he paid top dollar. Real wild example, so bear with me: You can reach 23 TH/s with 46 of BFL's old 500GH/s (the ones that costed a little over $20k back in the day). That's still only a small portion of the Bitcoin we've given him.

[Endlessa]

You guys and dolls haven't yet figured out what the "legal issues" most likely are, have you?

Check the recent IRS rulings and FIN-Cen requirements, especially those requirements concerning Money Transmitters.

Yeah, we've all seen and read those requirements. To the best of my knowledge, none of them should warrant labrat from keeping us out of the loop. He's implying a different issue.

@mufa23, the idea that LR is just recycling the bitcoin originally acquired through IPO into dividends seems extremely unlikely IMO.  There would have to be an accomplice selling him recently mined coins and letting him use the stats feed from CEX.io (which just jumped to near 23TH... that seems promising).  That seems like an overly complicated (and expensive) way to scam.  But I suspect you don't really think that, just making a point that pictures of the hardware are long overdue.  Which I agree.  I was really looking forward to pictures once the first batch of bitfury equipment came in.

Not all that expensive. 23 TH/s isn't that much... I am personally mining at a few Terahashes myself with about BTC10. Those Antminer S1's are worth the investment. Granted of course, they probably costed a few extra Bitcoin per unit back in December. But lets say he paid top dollar. Real wild example, so bear with me: You can reach 23 TH/s with 46 of BFL's old 500GH/s (the ones that costed a little over $20k back in the day). That's still only a small portion of the Bitcoin we've given him.

Exactly this.  There is absolutely no legal reason why we can't be made aware what the issue itself is.  There is no reason for the statements like "I'm talking to my lawyer about stuff" (not a real quote, but just the idea around it).  We don't necessarily need the solution, but the description of the problem would be nice.  It is complete bullshit, imo, that we still don't know exactly where the issue lies. Fortunately for labrat, my husband has been on vacation during this time and I've taken a breather.  That time is not infinite. With the lack of value left in the shares, there is very little to lose by asking government agencies to look into the legality/execution of this project.  I do believe we have passed the acceptable time frame for "my lawyer is sick", "my dog ate my homework", "my aunt died" and "I'm working on it". . . .and then some

[Frankthechicken]

You guys and dolls haven't yet figured out what the "legal issues" most likely are, have you?

Check the recent IRS rulings and FIN-Cen requirements, especially those requirements concerning Money Transmitters.

Yeah, we've all seen and read those requirements. To the best of my knowledge, none of them should warrant labrat from keeping us out of the loop. He's implying a different issue.

@mufa23, the idea that LR is just recycling the bitcoin originally acquired through IPO into dividends seems extremely unlikely IMO.  There would have to be an accomplice selling him recently mined coins and letting him use the stats feed from CEX.io (which just jumped to near 23TH... that seems promising).  That seems like an overly complicated (and expensive) way to scam.  But I suspect you don't really think that, just making a point that pictures of the hardware are long overdue.  Which I agree.  I was really looking forward to pictures once the first batch of bitfury equipment came in.

Not all that expensive. 23 TH/s isn't that much... I am personally mining at a few Terahashes myself with about BTC10. Those Antminer S1's are worth the investment. Granted of course, they probably costed a few extra Bitcoin per unit back in December. But lets say he paid top dollar. Real wild example, so bear with me: You can reach 23 TH/s with 46 of BFL's old 500GH/s (the ones that costed a little over $20k back in the day). That's still only a small portion of the Bitcoin we've given him.

Exactly this.  There is absolutely no legal reason why we can't be made aware what the issue itself is.  There is no reason for the statements like "I'm talking to my lawyer about stuff" (not a real quote, but just the idea around it).  We don't necessarily need the solution, but the description of the problem would be nice.  It is complete bullshit, imo, that we still don't know exactly where the issue lies. Fortunately for labrat, my husband has been on vacation during this time and I've taken a breather.  That time is not infinite. With the lack of value left in the shares, there is very little to lose by asking government agencies to look into the legality/execution of this project.  I do believe we have passed the acceptable time frame for "my lawyer is sick", "my dog ate my homework", "my aunt died" and "I'm working on it". . . .and then some

Regarding the bolded part, I guess my perspective is opposite yours.  I see it as there is a lot to lose. The entire upside potential, since we have NO idea what is going on and what the proposed solution will look like, it seems hasty to assume that the near zero value we have at the moment will be a persistent thing.  Right now the potential downside is losing the final few pennies per 'contract' but the upside potential I think is pretty significant.

Best case scenario I think is all the new hardware has been hashing for a month and after restructuring we get back dividends and things move on as originally intended and share value returns to what it was prior to "the announcement".  Or even better, we get some form of exchange and the 'contract' price goes up.  Assuming trust is repaired, transparency improves etc etc. 

I am patiently waiting(for now) because there will be plenty of time (years) to pursue lawsuits and criminal charges if things do not shake out favorably for 'contract' holders.  Any sort of lawsuit would likely take a long time to resolve, at the very least a year or more, by which time all of the assets owned by LRM that could be liquidated would be almost worthless and worse yet, any damages wouldn't be recovered in terms of BTC but in terms of USD you paid for the 'contracts' when you first acquired them at the exchange rate AT THE TIME you acquired them and possibly just the USD value at the time of the IPO.  Courts may even look at the USD value of the BTC received weekly per 'bond' and determine that all USD value of payments received exceed the original cost of the 'bond' so there are no damages to claim.  Bitcoin is in new uncharted waters so it seems pretty hard to predict how any sort of legal action would be resolved.  I see a lot more downside risk to legal action than upside potential.

Has anyone ever bought shares in a company with lawn furniture or hammers?  Since the IRS has advised bitcoin is to be treated as property, courts may compare it more to lawn furniture than to dollars or gold / silver.

I'll probably start to run out of patience though around mid to late May.  That would be a full 6 months since this issue came up on the radar judging by the 'for 2 to 3 months' comment.  A description of the issue at hand would be really nice.  I am hoping the issue is 'we want to avoid a need to collect personal information and issue 1099's' or even 'we want to avoid having to register as a MSB'.  Those seem like the most likely legal issues to me.  And I am pretty sure there would be legal means around both of them.  I really would like to know more about what is going on.

[Endlessa]

Regarding the bolded part, I guess my perspective is opposite yours.  I see it as there is a lot to lose. The entire upside potential, since we have NO idea what is going on and what the proposed solution will look like, it seems hasty to assume that the near zero value we have at the moment will be a persistent thing.  Right now the potential downside is losing the final few pennies per 'contract' but the upside potential I think is pretty significant.

Best case scenario I think is all the new hardware has been hashing for a month and after restructuring we get back dividends and things move on as originally intended and share value returns to what it was prior to "the announcement".  Or even better, we get some form of exchange and the 'contract' price goes up.  Assuming trust is repaired, transparency improves etc etc. 

I am patiently waiting(for now) because there will be plenty of time (years) to pursue lawsuits and criminal charges if things do not shake out favorably for 'contract' holders.  Any sort of lawsuit would likely take a long time to resolve, at the very least a year or more, by which time all of the assets owned by LRM that could be liquidated would be almost worthless and worse yet, any damages wouldn't be recovered in terms of BTC but in terms of USD you paid for the 'contracts' when you first acquired them at the exchange rate AT THE TIME you acquired them and possibly just the USD value at the time of the IPO.  Courts may even look at the USD value of the BTC received weekly per 'bond' and determine that all USD value of payments received exceed the original cost of the 'bond' so there are no damages to claim.  Bitcoin is in new uncharted waters so it seems pretty hard to predict how any sort of legal action would be resolved.  I see a lot more downside risk to legal action than upside potential.

Has anyone ever bought shares in a company with lawn furniture or hammers?  Since the IRS has advised bitcoin is to be treated as property, courts may compare it more to lawn furniture than to dollars or gold / silver.

I'll probably start to run out of patience though around mid to late May.  That would be a full 6 months since this issue came up on the radar judging by the 'for 2 to 3 months' comment.  A description of the issue at hand would be really nice.  I am hoping the issue is 'we want to avoid a need to collect personal information and issue 1099's' or even 'we want to avoid having to register as a MSB'.  Those seem like the most likely legal issues to me.  And I am pretty sure there would be legal means around both of them.  I really would like to know more about what is going on.

I agree, if I was only considering time to getting a solution.  The lack of information about the problem and promised results from some "lawyer" that never manifests, makes my timeline much shorter.  I don't care about the damages or returns if it comes to that, whatever happens at that point is what it is.  It's more about consequences of bad business.

[||bit]

You guys and dolls haven't yet figured out what the "legal issues" most likely are, have you?

Check the recent IRS rulings and FIN-Cen requirements, especially those requirements concerning Money Transmitters.

My $.02.

My understanding is that LRM isn't a money transmitter. He isn't taking fiat or exchanging it. And according to one of the last fincen papers I read, that you may be referencing, LRM falls moreso into the category of doing a service regarding investors. That's different than being a money transmitter.

Regarding the IRS. I think the main point from that is that bitcoin is considered property - not a currency.

Anyone, correct me if I'm wrong on these points. But if you do, please cite why and sources if possible.