[ActiveMining] Official Shareholder Discussion Thread [Moderated]

[Flashman]

Hello Ken,

I pre-ordered a Fast-Hash-One Silver 64 GH/s PCI-E Module (Order Reference AGWQBVSDM) -- placed on 2013-12-03, my status on the VMC website is still showing "Awaiting bank wire payment" and i have absolutely no answers to my messages from the customer support. What is going on ? I would like a refund now..

Thanks

Still no answer from the customer support at this day..

I am sorry to hear that, I would recommend that you double check with your bank end to check the payment did not get hung up in limbo somewhere. After all it's the "reliability" of the banking system that got most of us interested in bitcoin.

[toastee]

if cc is kosher as far as sec goes then I have no problem.
i can sign from the address you should have from bf
oi vey!

The CC project looks dead to me from their forum post:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=106373.440

I want my shares trading as much as the next guy, but a lot of you do not understand the legal ramifications of this shit. If the MSD is still actively investigating ActiveMining, Ken is protecting himself, the company, and us from a lot of trouble by leaving it as-is and letting the lawyers figure it out. This is a brand new industry in a legal gray area, you can't treat it like a blue chip investment, and that's precisely the argument his lawyers are likely making right now.

You all need to wake up to reality and be patient. It's very clearly not a scam. Inconvenient and beyond schedule to the point of almost incompetence, sure, but just chill the fuck out. It will happen when it happens.

If that's the case then keen shouldn't tell us that he would get the shares up last week.

And it wouldn't make much sense to have some shares trading if he wasn't sure if he is legally allowed to.

At the very least he should let us verify or shares so he can be ready to pay dividends and make sure it's all in order.

I agree, but I'm sure there are circumstances that he can't really post in a public forum which the MSD, etc are undoubtedly watching. I agree that trading should be shut down on the other sites, I don't understand why it's running there. If we had a private forum just for confirmed shareholders as opposed to bitcointalk I think we we would see a little bit more information.

Ken is trying to do too many things at once, and we want things done quickly. Those are conflicting interests. If things are going to get done quicker he needs to hire people, and hiring people comes out of our dividends. Less dividends = unhappy shareholders and longer before he's actually making any money himself. He likely believes it is in the best interest of the company that he personally does as much as humanly possible, but he's only one man.

This is not to say that our supposedly existing personnel couldn't be put to better use, but for better or worse Ken is doing 1000 things right now and we need to understand that.

[finlof]

i'm pretty sure the SEC isnt going to like any option other than trading on a US regulated stock exchange.

[toastee]

i'm pretty sure the SEC isnt going to like any option other than trading on a US regulated stock exchange.

Well they can suck a fat one because it's not an American company.

[damiano]

i'm pretty sure the SEC isnt going to like any option other than trading on a US regulated stock exchange.

Well they can suck a fat one because it's not an American company.

Doesn't work like that.  SEC is a powerful entity....

[Flashman]

I want my shares trading as much as the next guy, but a lot of you do not understand the legal ramifications of this shit. If the MSD is still actively investigating ActiveMining, Ken is protecting himself, the company, and us from a lot of trouble by leaving it as-is and letting the lawyers figure it out. This is a brand new industry in a legal gray area, you can't treat it like a blue chip investment, and that's precisely the argument his lawyers are likely making right now.

You all need to wake up to reality and be patient. It's very clearly not a scam. Inconvenient and beyond schedule to the point of almost incompetence, sure, but just chill the fuck out. It will happen when it happens.

This argument would have more weight if shares weren't already trading right now. The problem is that some shareholders can trade while others are prevented.

Good point i didn't think about before. If its legally risky to trade shares then ken would have to stop trading shares completely. It wouldn't make a difference at all if he allows all shares to trade now. In this light it looks like he wants to save work or something.

The "leaving it as it is" part is significant... otherwise if under current or threat of investigation it looks like you've got something to hide when you start shuffling shit around.  So it could be "hands off" mode until there's a resolution.


It's similar to the situation where it's perfectly legal to move your cellphone from your right pants pocket to your left pants pocket, but if you do it while a cop is approaching you with a gun it's fucking stupid.

[toastee]

I want my shares trading as much as the next guy, but a lot of you do not understand the legal ramifications of this shit. If the MSD is still actively investigating ActiveMining, Ken is protecting himself, the company, and us from a lot of trouble by leaving it as-is and letting the lawyers figure it out. This is a brand new industry in a legal gray area, you can't treat it like a blue chip investment, and that's precisely the argument his lawyers are likely making right now.

You all need to wake up to reality and be patient. It's very clearly not a scam. Inconvenient and beyond schedule to the point of almost incompetence, sure, but just chill the fuck out. It will happen when it happens.

This argument would have more weight if shares weren't already trading right now. The problem is that some shareholders can trade while others are prevented.

Good point i didn't think about before. If its legally risky to trade shares then ken would have to stop trading shares completely. It wouldn't make a difference at all if he allows all shares to trade now. In this light it looks like he wants to save work or something.

The "leaving it as it is" part is significant... otherwise if under current or threat of investigation it looks like you've got something to hide when you start shuffling shit around.  So it could be "hands off" mode until there's a resolution.


It's similar to the situation where it's perfectly legal to move your cellphone from your right pants pocket to your left pants pocket, but if you do it while a cop is approaching you with a gun it's fucking stupid.

Good analogy - I agree this is likely what we're seeing here.

[minerpart]

The "leaving it as it is" part is significant... otherwise if under current or threat of investigation it looks like you've got something to hide when you start shuffling shit around.  So it could be "hands off" mode until there's a resolution.

100% agree. Look, Ken has given us too many promises over the shares but at the end of the day I think he just doesn't want ANOTHER melt down on the forum from highly strung Drama Queens. If that's the case then yes he should be more open with us but you can't blame him - look what people are writing on here today!

The SEC can shut companies down - that is a fact. We cannot mess about with these shares just to keep the 10-20 vocal shareholders on here happy when it could lead to the CEO getting into serious shit. It is not worth it. We need to be 100% safe and then go a further 50% of the way to do what the SEC/MSD or our lawyer is/are suggesting we do.

If we have to wait 1 year for these shares it will be worth it if Ken keeps doing what he is doing. We will soon have 100TH/s and that is 8 BTC a DAY. If we are at 1k again soon and Ken can hold out 8BTC a day we will be pulling in 3Million USD a year just from this run of 5000 boards and chips. If BTC goes to 3k in the next year that's closer to 9Million dollars. That will be a huge profit for the company on the cost of these boards.

If it wasn't for the SEC and Bitfunder and BTC-TC we would be trading our shares - so Ken is getting too much blame for this. And again it is not worth risking this entire company just to make a few dozen impatient shareholders happy today so that they can sell up and leave the rest of us in the shit with the SEC.

I'm happy to wait. BTC is either going up or will be dead in 6months. The longer you wait this out the more the upside. Come back in 6months is my advice.

[sparky999]

Legally speaking what if any is the difference between trading on a centralised exchange and a de-centralised exchange? If one is illegal then so is the other one. Just because a de-centralised exchange can't be shut down by the SEC/FEDs doesn't make it any more legal from what I can tell.

Thoughts?

[minerpart]

Dude what about dividends, I want Ken to pay dividends even if shares are restricted. He knows my address and my amount.

I have things I want to invest in with those dividends (ethereum, JustDice, etc...)

Huge quotes not needed DTS.

As we talked about a few days ago, I think Ken needs all the divs to reinvest and/or pay the refunds. We do not have an unlimited pot of money - no company does.

We could make 3-9Million Dollars in 2014 depending on where BTC goes. So long-term we are fine/very healthy but I think possibly over the next couple of months the Divs need to go back into the business. That's just my opinion I have no other info on it but to me that sounds reasonable for a company that is only just starting to trade after the investor startup capital has been invested into equipment.

In everyday realworld startups you might not get a div for the first year or even more so it would be perfectly normal for us to put mining profits back into the business for the next few months.

However I do agree that we should have our shares VERIFIED. I can't see why any issues should arise with that.

[bitlind]

I have been a shareholder since the "second IPO" at .0025, I consider myself a small shareholder at just under 5 figures, and Actm is less than 10% of my investments.  I almost never post in any forum on the net but I had to register and post after this latest update just because it was so comical.  Some words come to mind with this latest update, such as 'what a joke.'

If you take a step back from all of this and analyze the updates at their entirety, you see a pattern of deception.  With out going into the absolutely bold face lies from the past, looking at the most recent examples: "you have an accountant" when shareholders were calling for an audit, and also stated that at "the end of the month" detailed reports would be released.  Now, it is Ken saying he is "getting an accountant" to work on the books.  On April 2nd you stated that "I will be working with our CPA next week to get our books in order and pay any taxes that are due."  This infers you have had one for some time, never mind the fact you have said prior to this date that you did/do/had/looking/found one.  So which is it, you have one or you don't?  Digging through this mound of crap, one can determine you are full of it and most likely do not have any CPA representation.  If you did, those questions on financials would have been answered long ago.  Actm is in a niche market, there isn't 1000s of different products being pushed out the door, it is not in several different market spaces where different tax laws and accounting procedures need to be introduced.  Actm is in one space, bitcoin, mining and selling.  If a CPA were truly working on "the books" for this long, at the very least a summary report and profit forecast model would have been created.  

The lawyer mirage.  Ken has said time and time again that his attorney is working with the MSD regarding the legality of shares and your shareholders.  Ken has always portrayed this as a slippery slope, which I would agree it is very much so.  However, during Kens excuses for why long term shareholders cannot get trading, day traders and even Ken himself have traded shares on Crypto Trade (Ukyo shares).  If the MSD investigation is such a sensitive element to the game right now, I can almost guarantee that Kens "attorney" would have suggested all trading be halted, if there was to be any suggestion around share trading, not some of the shares trading across exchanges, but all trading ceasing IF it was an issue.  Considering that this is an unlicensed security on the current unlicensed exchanges, and the vagueness of US law, it is clearly a grey area, so one would assume if the advice was given to not allow us our shares, all trading would be stopped.  However, this is not the case, and even the "CEO" traded shares of his security, belonging to another investor (Ukyo), to recoup losses on this shareholders exchange by placing a legal "lien" on his shares.  Is there any proof of this lien?  nope.  Isn't that considered unethical, to trade as we are now?  Some can, most cannot?  Never mind the fact that I could never see an attorney advising you; "No Ken, do not allow the majority of your shareholders who were from the defunct exchanges of bitfunder and btct to access their shares because of the MSD investigation.  However, go ahead and issue/release/confiscate shares from a shareholder who you say owes you coin (Ukyo) and place them on another unlicensed exchange, sell them to the masses, and allow these shares to be day traded.  No, it won't cause an issue in the eyes of the MSD, SEC, or FinCEN, only the past shares will."  

If Ken had an attorney, the advice would not have lead to him allowing some shares to trade, while at the same time allowing him to trade his own shares (Ukyo lien).  He/she would have advised him to cease all trading or to continue trading, not this one foot in one foot out scenario we find ourselves in now. I am not claiming this to be 100% the case, but can we not agree it seems odd that the attorney would deem this ok in its current form?  Common sense eventually has to take a precedence over blind faith.

The trading promises.  Over the last 5 pages of Kens latest posts, he has lead us to believe no less than 5 different times that he would be getting the shares up and trading for us either soon or next week.  This is just the last 5 pages going back to March 28th.  If we go back even further, we have heard him say at least 8 times that he was getting the verification site/process uploaded/finished/available over the last two and a half months, and countless references that trading will start soon.  The man cannot even verify that we own the shares, or chooses not to.  On March 30th Ken had the gall to say he has always been honest with his shareholders, even though we can all go through his post history and dig up countless lies or deception.  Ken, do you really feel it is honesty to withhold information, lead us astray and make false promises?  It is still untruthful even if you steer the truth into a lie later, or omit to telling the truth in the first place.  This is what he has done with our shares, and has continued to drag out this process for some reason other than the MSD issue.  I am starting to think he doesn't have the asset list, it was asked for a while back, he said he had it, but didn't produce it.  I want to state explicitly I am not at all wanting my shares just to trade, I actually do not want them on Havelock or CT, I would much prefer Counter Party or something of the like.  All I really need is to be able to verify they are my shares!  That is it, no trading, just verify.  Is the MSD stating I cannot do this?  No they are not.  So let us verify please sir.  Though, considering we do not have a verification site, and we keep getting the run around on empty promises, all we can assume is that the deception at play here means he cannot verify the shares, lost the list, and we are only able to verify by screenshots.  Hope you all took those!

The positives.  Praise and criticism surely come hand in hand with any success or failure.  Ken has done a significant 180 in his bid to create a competitive mining farm.  I never felt this was a scam and still do not see it as such.  There have been some large hurdles to overcome in the process over this last year, and Ken has been able to accomplish some of his goals in this instance, to that we give him kudos.  The road map is still long and there are still many things for him to complete.  The positives, however, are far outweighed by the negatives that are self created, namely with the shareholders and investors in his ambition.  These negatives are not hidden or swept under the rug by the positives achieved in his endeavor.

I am not foolish to think that Ken will actually read this post and take it to heart.  He will not change his tune by my voice or yours, and this post is subject to deletion because it has negative overtones, whether they be real or not.  In the end, TLDR; the blundering incompetence and down right misinformation being spread by this CEO is astounding.  It's actually an amazement to me that Ken has been able to accomplish anything with how far in over his head he truly is from a PR standpoint as well as an investor confidence stance.  To continue this charade of blatant misinformation regarding the shares, the MSD, the legal council, the CPA and financials and the current trading situation is not only reckless it is insulting.

I find it also some what amusing that the usual confidence building, Ken can do no wrong, suspects, are silent on this latest update.  Normally the process is for Vince, Zum, Bara and the like to follow Kens usual update with lines support.  I will admit I do love the confidence these guys have, and I have followed in step with them for some time.  I commend them on their hard work and faith, and I am not joking or being facetious.  But, even they cannot distract nor find a positive light shining in this filthy update just released by Ken, so they remain quiet, and I understand why.  Even they consider this to be a daunting update, as do the rest of us.  It is right there in black and white, and it cannot be denied.  The misinformation, failed promises, and outright lies are like a slap in the face to them as well.  We are all in this boat together, albeit sinking from a shareholders perspective.  The only person profiting from this is Ken, while the rest of his shareholders stir up emotion on this forum, bikker and go toe to toe.  For Ken that is a welcome distraction away from the limelight shining upon his ineptitude, while he can continue doing what he does.

As I see it, right now if we stay within the cage Ken has said we must be in, the least that can be done is verify our shares.  This will help a lot of us in terms of confidence, because right now I do not own my shares, AMC-TENDER does, and I have no legal right to them.  If we verify, I am sure a lot of us can look past these indiscretions for what they are and move on.  After restoring confidence with share validation, the next equally important, if not more, is to verify your financials.  We have a right to see where our money has gone, been lost, spent and stored.  In doing so, these two steps would create bullish sentiment amongst all of us.  I don't know who has Kens ear, but someone needs to spit in it and get the ball rolling on these two very important details.

If Ken continues this volley of feces week in and week out, eventually something is going to break, and we do not want that, we will all suffer.  I am surprised some of you haven't snapped already and taken matters into your own hands considering some of the ugly posts I have seen from Actm shareholders.  People get worked up over money and wealth, it will only be a matter of time with a world full of crazy investors and wealthy hungry individuals.

[sparky999]

What is most amazing is that Ken doesn't even bother checking his previous posts to ascertain what lie he has already told and build on that lie in a believable way, he just contradicts himself in such a blindingly obvious way time and time again it's like it isn't even the same person posting each time.

[ActM Thread]

The quoting of Trolls directly or indirectly is not allowed. Please re-post without reference to known ACTM Trolls.

[bitlind]

I wanted to quote you, but do not want to be censored...

Although I appreciate the sentiment, I cannot be on a team with you.  I have seen first hand here at bitcointalk how some people conduct themselves, self character assassination is not something I am in the business of doing, which is also why I do not post here.  I have my own attorney, and when the time comes where the matters need to be pursued legally, we have all of the information we need to take that step.  I don't think it is time for anyone that is a shareholder to take legal action against Ken or Actm, we are not there yet, but we are almost there. 

Ken really buried himself on this last update, we saw the deception prior to today, we were not blind as shareholders, we just gave him the benefit of the doubt.  Actm really had a chance in this week to put the proverbial 'distrust in the pipe and smoke it' for all the naysayers regarding shares and his year end financial report.  That chance actually still remains if Ken acknowledges to himself in the mirror that he has no grounds for his assumptions, he has no attorney or CPA, and he should just do what is right, we all trade or no one trades.  Ken knows he has not been advised to allow some holders to trade but not all, and he has not been working on "the books."  There may be someone on his team with an understanding of QuickBooks or Peachtree, but he certainly does not have a CPA.

It is past time for Ken to do what is right not just legally but morally.  Either get us trading, stop all trading, and/or verify shares.  The last in that list he can do without legal repercussions.  Ken can get us trading without any added backlash from the SEC or FinCEN, simply because if there were to be any lashing, he would get it over having trading allowed for some but not others. 

Good luck Ken, you are going to severely need it if you continue down this path.

[Ozymandias2]

This is a fascinating real-life example of the prisoners' dilemma! Shareholders are the metaphorical prisoners and they can choose to either cooperate with each other, let ActM do its thing (hopefully successfully) and share the potential profits or defect, screw all the other shareholders, and attempt to recoup one's own losses.

As we know, cooperation leads to the highest group payoff while defection (specifically the first defectors) will lead to a decent payout for oneself at the expense of the group.

If I was a sociologist I would be creaming myself.

[kleeck]

I wanted to quote you, but do not want to be censored...

Although I appreciate the sentiment, I cannot be on a team with you.  I have seen first hand here at bitcointalk how some people conduct themselves, self character assassination is not something I am in the business of doing, which is also why I do not post here.  I have my own attorney, and when the time comes where the matters need to be pursued legally, we have all of the information we need to take that step.  I don't think it is time for anyone that is a shareholder to take legal action against Ken or Actm, we are not there yet, but we are almost there.  

Ken really buried himself on this last update, we saw the deception prior to today, we were not blind as shareholders, we just gave him the benefit of the doubt.  Actm really had a chance in this week to put the proverbial 'distrust in the pipe and smoke it' for all the naysayers regarding shares and his year end financial report.  That chance actually still remains if Ken acknowledges to himself in the mirror that he has no grounds for his assumptions, he has no attorney or CPA, and he should just do what is right, we all trade or no one trades.  Ken knows he has not been advised to allow some holders to trade but not all, and he has not been working on "the books."  There may be someone on his team with an understanding of QuickBooks or Peachtree, but he certainly does not have a CPA.

It is past time for Ken to do what is right not just legally but morally.  Either get us trading, stop all trading, and/or verify shares.  The last in that list he can do without legal repercussions.  Ken can get us trading without any added backlash from the SEC or FinCEN, simply because if there were to be any lashing, he would get it over having trading allowed for some but not others.  

Good luck Ken, you are going to severely need it if you continue down this path.

I'd like to point out that your claims regarding Ken's financial and legal professional are weak and would've been better left out entirely.

That said, your point regarding at least getting share verification setup is spot on. This should not be dismissed, even by The Faithful. If we aren't trading then the questions raised by bitlind and many before him need to be answered and we need to be given a reason regarding why we can't even verify our share ownership. This has gone on for far too long, Ken. We want answers and proof of ownership at the very least.

[minerpart]

Weekly Update 4/16/2014

Datacenter is up to ~42 TH/s and we have added a 150 Kva transformer for more power.  We have ordered more equipment and racks and our next expansion will be 5 more racks at ~12.5 TH/s each bringing our total to ~100 TH/s.

VMC:  We now have in stock our Gold Rush mining card which is a ~750 GH/s card, these will be available on our website soon.

MSD Investigation:  I will be talking with our legal council as to what action I can take with the shares in the next few weeks.  I know everyone is ready to start trading; however, I am in a difficult position at the moment.  I am working on solutions to this problem.  Long term for shareholders, I think CC is the answer.

  

Quoted to put this into some sort of perspective.

I think many of you are mistaking Ken's somewhat unique ability to mis-communicate clearly in forum posts with lies and subterfuge.

When we were weeks away from opening a 100TH/s datacentre did Ken come on and say 'We are about to open a 100TH/s datacentre'. No. He hardly mentioned anything except to say 'great things are happening soon'. Does that mean he lied to us about the datacentre? Or does he just play with cards close to his chest?

There is a shit-load of stuff he could tell us about the SEC and the share issue nodoubt. He won't though, just as he never bragged or even let on about the datacentre. I'm not saying the lack of clarity is excusable or the repeated failed predictions about getting shares up is very professional -  I'm just saying IT DOES NOT MEAN KEN IS LIEING OR TRYING TO SCAM US OF DIVS. He is either mis-communicating, not allowing for time to do what he promises, having issues outwith his control. But that does not mean he is trying to scam us.

You all invested in this CEO so deal with it in a grown up manner. A blind man could see Ken is not trying to scam anyone. He is releasing more details of new miners, the datacentre hash is open for our inspection, we can see EXACTLY what he has done with our money so far. We can see to the satoshi how much is in the 'Dividend wallet'. Why would a scamer be so open?

Before anymore of you come out with 'great posts' that basically accuse Ken of setting us all up have a think about the BIG picture. Unregistered Exchanges, offshore companies, unregistered securities, digital currency, Attourney Generals Office complaints, MSD investigations, SEC inquiries.

THINK FFS. What is it about 'I am in a difficult position at the moment' that you do NOT understand???

[knybe]

I'd like to point out that your claims regarding Ken's financial and legal professional are weak and would've been better left out entirely.

That said, your point regarding at least getting share verification setup is spot on. This should not be dismissed, even by The Faithful. If we aren't trading then the questions raised by bitlind and many before him need to be answered and we need to be given a reason regarding why we can't even verify our share ownership. This has gone on for far too long, Ken. We want answers and proof of ownership at the very least.

There really seems to be nothing we can do and any claim we have to shares, or whatever, in this company are null and void until and unless Ken comes clean and provides us with someway to establish claim of OUR SHARES.

This has been going on since early October, we've all bitched and bitched and bitched about "our shares" and Ken has continuously rebuffed and ignored us to the point of arrogance.

My personal feeling is that this is a wash; we'll never realize ownership of our shares based on how this "wonderful world of bitcoin" seems to work… all I see is another scheme, similar to Wall Street, of draining a large amount of people's funds into one place thereby concentrating wealth to a 1% few assholes who seem to be able to live with the unscrupulousness of such practices...

Oh sure, KEN'S FARM is hashing but I cannot see any way whatsoever that any of us can prove that we "own shares" in said farm/business. When someone evades a continuous question in the bitcoin world it usually leads to one thing… All I have seen since I got interested in bitcoin in 2011, is one failure/scam/loss after another and they just keep getting worse and worse. It would not surprise me in the least if it happened with ACTM.

What is our actual recourse at this point? Nothing.

[bitlind]

I wanted to quote you, but do not want to be censored...

I'd like to point out that your claims regarding Ken's financial and legal professional are weak and would've been better left out entirely.

That said, your point regarding at least getting share verification setup is spot on. This should not be dismissed, even by The Faithful. If we aren't trading then the questions raised by bitlind and many before him need to be answered and we need to be given a reason regarding why we can't even verify our share ownership. This has gone on for far too long, Ken. We want answers and proof of ownership at the very least.

From your point of view, unsubstantiated probably would have been the better adjective to use.  Which I can attest, they are unsubstantiated, but they certainly are not weak.  Of course I do not know if it is true or not if he has these individuals on his staff, wouldn't it surely seem he does not or has not taken on such council?  The claim is strengthened by the fact that he allows trading for a small minority, but the majority are devoid of shares, during an investigation he cites as the reason for holding back our shares, yet the small minority continues to trade, including the CEO.  Are you stating that my claims are weak because the attorney actually may have insisted he leave things as is, allow trading across two exchanges, but block the majority of shareholders?  Do you think an attorney has actually advised him in this manner? What makes my claims weak?  Just curious is all, I am not upset by your counter argument, I just don't see your detail backing up why you think my claim is weak.

[minerpart]

Ken really buried himself on this last update,

I think that is complete speculation/fantasy. There is nothing in the update that you can say is a lie and nothing that would be unexpected considering the MSD, SEC and AG Office are involved in some way with this company. Are you in the real world that i inhabit?