[BitFunder] Moving Forward/Resolution Process

[fuckukyo]

I'm afraid that Jon's disappeared to avoid jail time, it's just a matter of time before we find out he's using weexchange's money for his own purpose through those addresses. (He disappeared exactly when we started to investigate those addresses connections.)

And we should do something, civilised or nasty thing I don't care. I'm willing to pay 30% of what I have lost if I can get my money back.

[1713495210]

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[kano]

I admire your optimism.  But how long you going to wait? What if continues to say nothing for another month? It's already been 2. What about another year? Are you okay with that? Because Ukyo has shown 0 progress on this matter. He seems to spend more time on the forums here defending himself than anytime resolving the issue. Why? Because there isn't anything to resolve, he stole the coins, is the most likely answer.

To be fair mate, I didn't say I was optimistic. I can only say that to my knowledge he didn't steal the coins and that he is (or was last we spoke) working on ways to repay us.

The 'only' explanation is not that he stole the coins though. There are a number of other explanations which lead to the coins being unavailable. This has gone on a long time though and I do wish the truth would come out.

Sigh - you are missing the relevant points in all this.
If ASIC (or whichever Govt organisation) has the coins and did some magical gag order on him then he may have grounds to not reveal that to us - however it's probably easy to call ASIC and ask them about that also.

If anything else has happened to them, then he has lied about them.
No, a company cannot request another company hide what happened to missing funds. Simply can't happen. It's illegal.

There are not many other explanations, and none of them seem to not include lying.

If he lost them by screwing up bitcoind then he is still legally liable for them all.
More so since it is impossible to prove he doesn't have access to them any more.
We would have to simply believe him - and since he has already lied about it, only a fool would believe him.
But again, it doesn't matter, he still is required to return the thousands of bitcoins.

If instead he lost them by using the coins, then that is jail time as well as being required to return them.
(and again he's also lied about not revealing what happened)

If he lost them by giving someone else access to them, then again he still is legally liable for them all.
There would probably be also the possibility of charges due to negligence.
(and again we'd have to assume he no longer has access to them, but that cannot be proven)

I'm running out of ideas that don't fall under those ...

[CumpsD]

Pretty simply, if I had 200+ BTC stuck there, I would get a lawyer, but for the ~1 BTC I got there, it's not worth it

So I am surprised all the big creditors are still waiting here, fingers crossed and praying?

[jackmaninov]

I'm running out of ideas that don't fall under those ...

Maybe we need to be more creative in our thinking. What if the cold-storage wallet used a 2-of-3 signature transaction between Ukyo, someone that is off the grid and someone that has recently died or become unavailable? Or retrieving some signatures require some contractual requirement that cannot be disclosed? Or maybe even a block-height timeout in the transaction (not sure why he couldn't tell us this though... "you can all have your coins at block height 300000").

After reading today's reddit post about protesting at MtGox (as foolish as that might have been), I realized that the need for secrecy around cold-storage wallets may have caused some entities to enter into non-disclosable contracts with counterparties, key escrow agents, etc. Security through obscurity sort of stuff. 

[kano]

I'm running out of ideas that don't fall under those ...

Maybe we need to be more creative in our thinking. What if the cold-storage wallet used a 2-of-3 signature transaction between Ukyo, someone that is off the grid and someone that has recently died or become unavailable? Or retrieving some signatures require some contractual requirement that cannot be disclosed? Or maybe even a block-height timeout in the transaction (not sure why he couldn't tell us this though... "you can all have your coins at block height 300000").

After reading today's reddit post about protesting at MtGox (as foolish as that might have been), I realized that the need for secrecy around cold-storage wallets may have caused some entities to enter into non-disclosable contracts with counterparties, key escrow agents, etc. Security through obscurity sort of stuff.  

Nope.
It's all about the laws of having a "Trust" with other peoples money.
The examples you gave don't matter.
If he has entered into an agreement with a 3rd party that isn't legal for him to do so, the agreement is null and void.
"Sorry I can't give them back to you yet" isn't a legal option.

As for MtGox - heh well - yeah that was quite a stir.
(and it's bullshit - it's been happening for 2 months)
They still have 1925 transactions pending and the rest forced back into the people's accounts for the weekend
(most likely MtGox see the opportunity of more transaction fees from that ...)

[SebastianJu]

In case only some have found this. klabaki made some investigation about the weexchange deposit addresses that were collected till now. Its from https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=437154

1P7tdTzWhpYoV87L4v4gZwhd6mAnT7fiD4

Thanks. That was my entry point.

Technologies like CoinJoin aren't yet implemented in standard Bitcoin clients.
Therefore, one can safely assume that all transactions signed by WeExchange's addresses are signed exclusively by WeExchange's addresses.

Given this assumption, one can get a list of most of WeExchange's addresses and transactions from only one single address.
The list isn't complete though, because transactions also have a change address which belongs to the sending wallet. The WeExchange wallet places this change address at an unusual output index, so I didn't include it in the list to avoid fan-out into other wallets.

Using the above quoted address as entry point, one will get these addresses:

http://pastebin.com/LZJPeiRM

...and these transactions:

http://pastebin.com/As66ecst
http://pastebin.com/XgsTaiaL

Now, let's sum up the total amount on all of these addresses over time:

http://postimg.org/image/wvq6x2rsl/

...zooming into early October 2013:

http://postimg.org/image/n693ky4m5/

Firstly, I was surprised seeing the first transactions as early as October 2011 - I didn't know that WeExchange existed at that time.
Secondly, I expected the biggest drop to be in mid-November 2013. However, it was early October 2013.

I filtered the list of transactions to find the big one from 3rd of October:

8a77d88fcc9ef418ec97cb2c332efd1378f21aa90188d3000a8c2e4e89f467cb

...it looks like this address received more than one big withdrawal from WeExchange:

19ENdxtYNwdsFbaEF2web7FywgQHdsNCGt

Other addresses receiving big withdrawals from WeExchange include:

115KrBsBGXvW3saUtmY6seXpXysvgd44BS
1D8zFb9jJvmdxwNmuS1TBGh1sfcqUMyRzf

That's all that I could find out for now. Further investigation would concentrate on who owns these addresses, and where did the coins go next...

Donations for my efforts go to 1PaEvsKNTDxhz4kg8rL1samkbgF65P9NMF. Thanks!

[ffssixtynine]

Sigh - you are missing the relevant points in all this.
If ASIC (or whichever Govt organisation) has the coins and did some magical gag order on him then he may have grounds to not reveal that to us - however it's probably easy to call ASIC and ask them about that also.

If anything else has happened to them, then he has lied about them

There are not many other explanations, and none of them seem to not include lying.

Granted he hasn't said in public what the deal is, but he hasn't lied to my knowledge. There were two issues. One was bitcoind. The other was something else that made the coins unavailable.

All the facts that I have, which I asked to be verified by a third party, tally 100% with everything Ukyo has said. I have not seen anything he has said in public which shows a lie, only a lack of information leading people to make a number of understandable assumptions.

I do not want to absolve Ukyo of blame, let's be clear about that. This issue has cost me a fortune in related decisions (well over 130 BTC lost elsewhere as a result of this 75 BTC issue effectively) so I am incredibly pissed off. I am certainly not the only one. The only way I realised I could sleep at night was to take a deep breath and see it as a risk I knowingly took.

As for the address searches. I, and I believe some others, did this back in November. The more info the better of course, but that isn't a reason for Ukyo to disappear on anyone. There are far bigger creditors than me who know the score here and they would not sit around if Ukyo was acting up, or if he does so in the future.

None of which means we'll see our money. In the mean time, I am going to wait it out.

[kano]

Sigh - you are missing the relevant points in all this.
If ASIC (or whichever Govt organisation) has the coins and did some magical gag order on him then he may have grounds to not reveal that to us - however it's probably easy to call ASIC and ask them about that also.

If anything else has happened to them, then he has lied about them

There are not many other explanations, and none of them seem to not include lying.

Granted he hasn't said in public what the deal is, but he hasn't lied to my knowledge.
...

Either he's under a gag order by the Govt that he has broken (by telling you), or the crap about a legal reason for not telling us is a lie.
There's no legal reason for not letting us know where our BTC is.

Posts like this are simply either trying to avoid jail time or simply lies his lawyers have told him to say:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=348468.msg4294996#msg4294996

Then of course there was this one - which is indeed a lie.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=348468.msg4277042#msg4277042
Oddly enough, losing people's trust money is ... unlawful. It's called negligence.
More so there is no way to prove it is lost.
"Sorry I never kept a copy of the private keys" doesn't work.
"Sorry I don't have a copy of the private keys the BTC disappeared to" doesn't work either.
"Sorry I accidentally sent them to an address I don't have the key for" only works with an address that is clearly invalid - but is still negligence.
"Sorry, through my negligence, someone else stole all the BTC" doesn't work either - also since it's pretty hard to prove someone actually stole BTC without having a person who actually received it - it's simple to send BTC somewhere that happens to be your own (hidden) private key.

[fuckukyo]

What do we do now? He seems disappeared.

[g83]

What do we do now? He seems disappeared.

[ffssixtynine]

Kano,

Can you point out the lie in those posts? Not saying there isn't one, I just didn't see it. Reading on my phone so...

Basically he is saying the money isn't available and won't be available whatever happens from a legal point of view. This is the reason why some large creditors, some of whom are owed a great deal more than I and who do know what's happened (if you had 100s or 1000s of btc stuck you'd not sit back either), have not forced bankruptcy. It would mean the end of their chance of getting funds back. This should be very telling. Ukyo has not been forced into bankruptcy by these guys because it wouldn't help. Similarly, they are content with whatever evidence ukyo has provided that he didn't walk off with the funds in some form. I can only trust in that (I do not wear a tinfoil hat but I did at least meet Danny in person to discuss it).

Danny made a very pertinent comment in a post some time ago. Danny, like I, cannot say anything for legal reasons. I honestly don't know if ukyo can or not at the mo, but Danny did say that of certain information was public then it could damage the very thing trying to be achieved. At the time I could see why. At this point I'm unsure, but I'm two months out of date so I simply can't know.

Losing people's bitcoin is not unlawful by the way. Negligence is complicated legally and highly dependent upon the situation. It's also irrelevant. If weexchange lost coins due to negligence, so what? They are still lost, the company still has no assets, ukyo is unlikely to be found personally liable unless he stole them in some form. I'm angry with ukyo for the situation but that doesn't make him personally or criminally liable.

It's difficult for me to post here because I'm as angry as anyone yet I come across as defending ukyo. Ukyo knows I consider him to blame for this though he also knows I only care about recovering our money and I accepted the past as undoable. I want him to post what happened and what he is doing but it's not my call as I don't want anything which damages the chances of a positive result.

There is nothing else I can say until I speak to him, which I haven't for ages.

[fuckukyo]

We probably need to find him first don't you think?

The only thing means the end of our chance of getting funds back is he's gone, which he's probably already or planed to.

[kano]

Kano,

Can you point out the lie in those posts? Not saying there isn't one, I just didn't see it. Reading on my phone so...

Basically he is saying the money isn't available and won't be available whatever happens from a legal point of view. This is the reason why some large creditors, some of whom are owed a great deal more than I and who do know what's happened (if you had 100s or 1000s of btc stuck you'd not sit back either), have not forced bankruptcy. It would mean the end of their chance of getting funds back. This should be very telling. Ukyo has not been forced into bankruptcy by these guys because it wouldn't help. Similarly, they are content with whatever evidence ukyo has provided that he didn't walk off with the funds in some form. I can only trust in that (I do not wear a tinfoil hat but I did at least meet Danny in person to discuss it).

Danny made a very pertinent comment in a post some time ago. Danny, like I, cannot say anything for legal reasons. I honestly don't know if ukyo can or not at the mo, but Danny did say that of certain information was public then it could damage the very thing trying to be achieved. At the time I could see why. At this point I'm unsure, but I'm two months out of date so I simply can't know.

Losing people's bitcoin is not unlawful by the way. Negligence is complicated legally and highly dependent upon the situation. It's also irrelevant. If weexchange lost coins due to negligence, so what? They are still lost, the company still has no assets, ukyo is unlikely to be found personally liable unless he stole them in some form. I'm angry with ukyo for the situation but that doesn't make him personally or criminally liable.

It's difficult for me to post here because I'm as angry as anyone yet I come across as defending ukyo. Ukyo knows I consider him to blame for this though he also knows I only care about recovering our money and I accepted the past as undoable. I want him to post what happened and what he is doing but it's not my call as I don't want anything which damages the chances of a positive result.

There is nothing else I can say until I speak to him, which I haven't for ages.

No, the posts are lies - saying that if weex has "no money" means we'd get nothing back.
The law does not turn a blind eye to a director and owner of a company that 'misplaces' their funds held in trust.
If that was the case, then any company out there could simply spend all the money they have and then declare Bankruptcy.
Although I do think the law is stupid (even though there are half a dozen lawyers in my direct family) they are not stupid enough to let people easily get away with losing/hiding funds held in trust.

[DobZombie]

Kano,

Danny made a very pertinent comment in a post some time ago. Danny, like I, cannot say anything for legal reasons.

What have you got to do with it that you can't say anything for legal reasons?

Why?

Who's legal reasons?

What legal reasons?

You're defending an 'example' of Uyko losing the funds. Sounds like you know whats going on, and that Uyko actually did lose the funds.

You're talking about it like you're involved.  What the shit is going on here?

I'm not cracking a narnie here ffssixtynine, but I am demanding an explanation.

[SebastianJu]

Basically he is saying the money isn't available and won't be available whatever happens from a legal point of view. This is the reason why some large creditors, some of whom are owed a great deal more than I and who do know what's happened (if you had 100s or 1000s of btc stuck you'd not sit back either), have not forced bankruptcy. It would mean the end of their chance of getting funds back. This should be very telling. Ukyo has not been forced into bankruptcy by these guys because it wouldn't help. Similarly, they are content with whatever evidence ukyo has provided that he didn't walk off with the funds in some form. I can only trust in that (I do not wear a tinfoil hat but I did at least meet Danny in person to discuss it).

Where are these big creditors except neobee? And why should all be lost when weexchange goes bankrupt? It cant be something legal that happened. So the company going bankrupt wont stop anything because persons made the problems. And those peoples can be hunted and sued. Weexchange is only a notice on the side for this.

Danny made a very pertinent comment in a post some time ago. Danny, like I, cannot say anything for legal reasons. I honestly don't know if ukyo can or not at the mo, but Danny did say that of certain information was public then it could damage the very thing trying to be achieved. At the time I could see why. At this point I'm unsure, but I'm two months out of date so I simply can't know.

Ukyo claimed that the thing might not be solved in 2 months from now. You really await this whole thing will live on such a long time without infos?
If ukyo really is involved in some gag order and the funds were seized like some think then it would be illegal because these funds dont belong to weexchange. They belong to the users and weexchange hold it in escrow.
Seized coins and stolen coins or mis-sent coins are things that either are illegal or it would be way better when more people hunt behind. Ukyo trying alone would lower chances.

Losing people's bitcoin is not unlawful by the way. Negligence is complicated legally and highly dependent upon the situation. It's also irrelevant. If weexchange lost coins due to negligence, so what? They are still lost, the company still has no assets, ukyo is unlikely to be found personally liable unless he stole them in some form. I'm angry with ukyo for the situation but that doesn't make him personally or criminally liable.

*lol* That would be fun if true. Collect money, make an "error" and lose it and then say "so what?". Its not my fault. Comeon. You dont really believe thats how things work. Errors are done by persons and money hold back that doesnt belong to you are done by other persons illegally too. A company isnt protecting against this. Man... what a world would this be if that would work normally.

[btct22]

Rehashed from an earlier post:

Assume for a moment that Ken from ActM and Ukyo from Bitfunder and Weex are in it together, WEEX was the trap and ActM a lure:

1. Put together a good story for ActM mining asset - the next ASICMiner. This get lots of people sign up and buy in on Bitfunder.
2. Keep that going for a while then close the BF/Weex exchanges (with a similar non reason like BTCT.CO) and stop everyone trading the shares.
3. Ukyo/Weex comes up with a lame story about "the coins are gone" and takes all the remaining deposits minus 6%.
4. Ken dumps another round of shares onto CT ("Ukyo's shares") and take as many coins as possible. Nice cover for Ukyo as then we can blame Ken/ActM for a loss of some BF/Ukyo/Weex money.
5. The people involved go live on a nice island with thousands of easy to smuggle bitcoins leaving behind a couple of battered forum accounts and an empty ActM workshop.

If this carries on much longer, and Ken doesn't release the remaining ActM shares on CT as he's repeatedly promised then this scenario might not be so far fetched?  What do you guys reckon?




 

[kano]

Nice cover for Ukyo as then we can blame Ken/ActM for a loss of some BF/Ukyo/Weex money.

Ukyo is indeed trying to go with that story, hoping idiots will forget he should always have had enough coins to cover what were deposits.

That's the point I keep saying that some seem to completely misunderstand.
He didn't receive Weex funds from us ($ or BTC) to do anything but:
1) keep them in trust
2) transfer them to a 3rd party if we chose to exchange them (and he take a predefined fee) and thus we would now have funds supplied by the 3rd party of the exchange and they would have our funds ... as per the exchange agreement we chose.
Obviously, the funds can't 'run out'
They can only be lost due to negligence, due to fraud or due to Govt action.
Either of the first 2 add up to the same result - he will be required to repay them.
The different result with the first 2 will be that fraud will most like lead to jail time, whereas negligence would depend on him being able to prove how stupid he was.
Of course the 'Govt' action is easy enough to disprove (or prove)
In all these cases he also will have blockchain info that he can provide but that is also being hidden.
When people hide the truth for month about millions of dollars ... ... ...

[klabaki]

You might be interested in my latest posting:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=437154.msg5033659#msg5033659

[ffssixtynine]

No, the posts are lies - saying that if weex has "no money" means we'd get nothing back.
The law does not turn a blind eye to a director and owner of a company that 'misplaces' their funds held in trust.
If that was the case, then any company out there could simply spend all the money they have and then declare Bankruptcy.
Although I do think the law is stupid (even though there are half a dozen lawyers in my direct family) they are not stupid enough to let people easily get away with losing/hiding funds held in trust.

A very good friend of mine works in precisely this area of law, all be it in the UK. I have spoken to them about how it would work here.

I have said it many times now but let me repeat. If Ukyo did not steal the funds and they are not available for some other reason, then it's going to be down to the precise details and a judgement. Moreover, it then comes down to what personal assets are available, and they are going to be nowhere near what is missing. A tiny percentage. And then you need to allow for all the fees involved, and that's if Ukyo were found to be personally liable due to some form of negligence.

[ffssixtynine]

What have you got to do with it that you can't say anything for legal reasons?

Why?

Who's legal reasons?

What legal reasons?

You're defending an 'example' of Uyko losing the funds. Sounds like you know whats going on, and that Uyko actually did lose the funds.

You're talking about it like you're involved.  What the shit is going on here?

I'm not cracking a narnie here ffssixtynine, but I am demanding an explanation.

That's ok, you should check my post history in this thread for my story though. It's all there.

I have not said anywhere that Ukyo has or hasn't lost the funds, but -he- has said they are not available and that weexchange has no assets. That means weexchange does not have the funds at this point in time, for whatever reason.

I agreed to put my own neck on the line by posting in public for one reason only - to have an independent party provide a viewpoint from a position of knowledge of what was happening at the time. Since I raised the alarm in the first place, I hoped that people would see my as unconnected. It has certainly not been a fun experience thanks to certain individuals who specialise in abuse, but it was my decision, not anyone else's.

So, to be absolutely clear. I am nothing to do with weexchange. I was the first person to properly raise the alarm (reddit, irc). I am working only on information told to me by Ukyo and/or Danny. I am aware of what happened in November but nothing since then. I am one of the mid sized creditors and am aware of people owed much larger sums.

To the best of my knowledge, the only way any of us will see any more money is if Ukyo succeeds in what he was trying to do at that time.

To the best of my knowledge, Ukyo did not steal or use the funds.

To the best of my knowledge, certain factors make it impossible for Ukyo to know how long it will take to finish what he is doing due to other factors.

To the best of my knowledge, at the time it was problematic for the full truth to be revealed without potentially damaging what the remedy was. I do not know if this is still the case and I would like the details to come out. However, even when they do, it's not going to stop any number of conspiracy theories, the only thing that can be done is for us to be repaid.

Oh, also neo didn't have any money in there, Danny did.

Until I can speak with someone to find out the current situ, there is nothing else I can say.