Lauda, MinerJones, Blazed | Missing escrow funds

[Quickseller]

I still don't understand why you changed your escrow rules about forks after taking these funds, and then claim your escrow thread and escrow services aren't related. 

You keep repeating this after Lauda had already stated numerous times that the rule change did not apply retroactively to the NVO escrow. Stop being an asshole just for the sake of being an asshole.

I think you forgot to reference where lauda posted where he disclosed this to ICO investors prior to them sending money to the project.

Further this term has no equity for the investors and as such is unenforceable in court.

All of this ignores the fact that it is very unlikely this would be a negotiated term at the time the ANN thread was created.

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[OgNasty]

I still don't understand why you changed your escrow rules about forks after taking these funds, and then claim your escrow thread and escrow services aren't related. 

You keep repeating this after Lauda had already stated numerous times that the rule change did not apply retroactively to the NVO escrow. Stop being an asshole just for the sake of being an asshole.

I think you forgot to reference where lauda posted where he disclosed this to ICO investors prior to them sending money to the project.

Further this term has no equity for the investors and as such is unenforceable in court.

All of this ignores the fact that it is very unlikely this would be a negotiated term at the time the ANN thread was created.

I like to ask Lauda questions to try and get the real story from the horse's mouth.  I would have loved to have asked my questions in PM, but I've been blocked.  When Lauda doesn't answer my questions and replies with insults, I can only go by the information he has provided that I come across, which is very little and extremely scattered.  The CET page was one central resource where there was info about his escrow services, so people go there to get info on his escrow rules.  Seems reasonable right?  Then when people ask questions about the inconsistencies they're insulted and left negative trust instead of Lauda simply answering the questions.  I'm merely here asking questions for the several members who have been PMing me begging me to look into this as they are fearful of receiving negative default trust and being insulted if they ask the questions, like what just happened to rmcdermott927.  I've already marked Lauda a scammer a long time ago. There's no agenda here from me except to find out exactly what happened.  If Lauda can prove that he acted in the best interests of the escrow fund depositors and didn't take additional funds he was not entitled to, I would be happy to remove my most recent trust rating. 

What you need to understand is that I don't care about Lauda.  I don't believe he does any legitimate business for me to effect anyway, so attacking him to tarnish his reputation further is not something I care about wasting time on.  I do care about the newbies who take a first step into Bitcoin only to be scammed and get turned off to crypto.  It is not fair that Lauda walks away with a payday, and they take a haircut on their investment.  When he says things like multisig addresses can't be signed, I immediately know that is a deflection and he can sign his address used for his part of the multisig.  Maybe other people don't know that and need someone to explain these points since they clearly can't trust their escrow agent to not hide behind semantics to dodge their requests.  My hope is that Lauda hasn't stolen any funds, can prove this publicly, and investors get the maximum amount of funds possible returned to them, while those responsible for this scam are held responsible.

[Lauda]

What you need to understand is that I don't care about Lauda.  

This is why you frequently mention me in private channels, because you just don't care. Evidence of such:


Nobody actively involved in forum disputes would be naive enough to fall for this nonsense. rmcdermott927's vendetta and bias against me is well known since 2017, which is why he proceeded to make these slanderous statements while he had the chance.

Quicksy's puppets stand out by being tenaciously focused on a set of talking points while never disagreeing with each other. I have not seen anything of the sort outside of Quicksy's favorite topics: Lauda is bad, account sales are good, DT is corrupt (except Og and Tomato), merit means groupthink (except when handed out by Quicksy et al), etc, so it's quite safe to treat accounts that wake up at irregular intervals to push the same ideas and don't otherwise contribute to the forum in any meaningful way as Quicksy's alts.

The clique behavior is notable; half-active accounts that appear at irregular intervals and try to jump me. Goalposts are being moved already, which was expected.

[OgNasty]

What you need to understand is that I don't care about Lauda.  

This is why you frequently mention me in private channels, because you just don't care. Evidence of such:

I was clearly responding to a question to summarize what happened...  Believe me, there's nothing I'd like more than to never have to interact with or mention you again.  Stop being tied to ICO scams so I can stop having to while maintaining my conscience.

Looking forward to you signing addresses mapped to those multisigs.

[Lauda]

Stop being tied to ICO scams so I can stop having to while maintaining my conscience.

NVO is not a scam. You seem to fail to understand the difference between a scam and a bad investment (scam: Centra; bad investment: NVO, MobileGO, etc.).

Looking forward to you signing addresses tied to those multisigs.

It was already clearly stated that this will not happen. You have not read the thread, again (which is the n-th time that I'm notifying you about your failure to do so).

[OgNasty]

Looking forward to you signing addresses tied to those multisigs.

It was already clearly stated that this will not happen. You have not read the thread, again (which is the n-th time that I'm notifying you about your failure to do so).

Yes, I saw a screenshot where you said you would never allow an audit as well as a statement where you were open to it.  Apparently some things can change when people want to know what happened to their money.  I thought we were working towards resolving the issue, but apparently I am just wasting my time.

[Lauda]

Yes, I saw a screenshot where you said you would never allow an audit as well as a statement where you were open to it.  

I wouldn't allow individuals such Quicksy and yourself any possibility of an audit, while there are individuals to which I'd be open to share the necessary information with. Thus, both statements are correct.

I thought we were working towards resolving the issue, but apparently I am just wasting my time.

There is no issue where the word 'we' is applicable. The NVO situation is being resolved: the vote is process which will (based on current results) be followed by the refund. You are actually actively slowing me down with the ridiculous out-of-context claims and allegations that I have to respond to.
The last valid post that I responded to was the large one by suchmoon (which took ~20 minutes - post editing time included).

[pugman]

Has anybody offered to do an audit? I would recommend ibminer, he's known to be an unbiased judge of circumstances.

From what I can tell, based on what I have read :

The NVO escrow terms and CET terms are different. So the BCH/other forks scam doesn't really apply here.

Yanni and Nemgun are telling different stories.

You can't really sign messages of a multi-sig, even if you can, it may compromise the all 3 seeds along with the money it.

Blazed, minerjones and Coinpayments haven't replied here, so Lauda is taking a lot of blame and accusations/allegations. 

The 1000 btc isn't really missing, its that, the alts were converted into BTC at a specific rate(?) I am confused on this one, Lauda, you said, this was the exchange rate, and how did they suddenly reduce? I am sorry, this thread is a mess, has more of irrelevant info than the relevant and useful one, cite a link, if you have replied to this before. Were the alts exchanged recently?

So the funds are in multi-sig at the moment and not in an exchange, right?

Anything else am I missing?

[suchmoon]

I still don't understand why you changed your escrow rules about forks after taking these funds, and then claim your escrow thread and escrow services aren't related. 

You keep repeating this after Lauda had already stated numerous times that the rule change did not apply retroactively to the NVO escrow. Stop being an asshole just for the sake of being an asshole.

I think you forgot to reference where lauda posted where he disclosed this to ICO investors prior to them sending money to the project.

Further this term has no equity for the investors and as such is unenforceable in court.

All of this ignores the fact that it is very unlikely this would be a negotiated term at the time the ANN thread was created.

What are you on about with this pseudo-legalese bullshit? BCH did not exist at the time of the ICO. When the BCH fork happened it triggered a decision and it seems that a reasonable one was made, i.e. to redeem the fork and add it to the escrowed funds.

[Lauda]

Blazed, minerjones and Coinpayments haven't replied here, so Lauda is taking a lot of blame and accusations/allegations.  

I highly doubt that Coinpayments will respond here given how high profile ICOs are escrowed (and by this I mean ones which raised a lot more money and used publicly known individuals or services for escrow).[2]

The 1000 btc isn't really missing, its that, the alts were converted into BTC at a specific rate(?) I am confused on this one, Lauda, you said, this was the exchange rate

That was the exchange rate @end of ICO to establish a base rate for determining the amount of tokens that you're supposed to get. There were a lot of issues[1] due to investors' lack of due dilligence, so the conversion rate which was going to be used for distribution was fixed at that point.

and how did they suddenly reduce?

The individual was trying to elaborate how the 3k BTC rumor was nonsense, and that based on current conversation rates the whole allegation was dead in the water (even though his math is off).

I am sorry, this thread is a mess, has more of irrelevant info than the relevant and useful one, cite a link, if you have replied to this before.

Not really; NVO was never actively using Bitcointalk as its platform. If you want to know things and ask questions, then you really need to join the TG channel.

Were the alts exchanged recently?

Some were liquidated before; the remaining ones are being liquidated now (e.g. MAID BTC equivalent arrived today).

So the funds are in multi-sig at the moment and not in an exchange, right?

Correct.

Anything else am I missing?

Nothing much, just a lot of smoke to make my life and the whole refunding process unnecessarily more difficult than it needs to be.
[1] Which happens when you ignore "Do not invest from an exchange" times several hundred examples.
[2] Oddly enough, the individual with the sole access to the least amount of coin at any given time and most activity during ICO & this dispute is being blamed the most.

[suchmoon]

Anything else am I missing?

~60% of the funds have been disbursed to the team according to milestones and the remaining ~40% (probably more due to forks) are likely to be refunded pending a vote, which is in progress: https://nvo.party/

Some folks here seem to use a definition of a scam as "anything less than 100%" but the initial 30% distribution was set in stone basically (end if ICO / start of development) and the other 30% seems to be quite straightforward too (availability of beta wallet software IIRC) so there isn't much room for a scam unless the escrow actually runs at takes some or all of the 40% with them.

[Lauda]

Anything else am I missing?

~60% of the funds have been disbursed to the team according to milestones and the remaining ~40% (probably more due to forks) are likely to be refunded pending a vote, which is in progress: https://nvo.party/

Actually this is not the case. Up to 60% of the total is (well, was) the amount that the team was allowed to withdraw according to the milestones, but it was never fully taken. Based on my math, if you include forks in the calculations there is about 50% extra left than the minimum defined by the milestones (thus, not 40% left but ~60%).
Bonus 1: I rejected nemgun's request for ~500 BTC in June which was reduced severely and ended with the release of 170 BTC (3 separate transactions) thus saving the investors even more money (even though at that time I didn't even remotely imagine something like this happening in 2 months).
Bonus 2: The CEO is likely going to airdrop his own token to all NVST holders, rebrand the wallet and continue off with his own project.
All things considered, the situation (minus the absurd allegations that were made against pretty much everyone, both the team and escrows) isn't as disastrous as it could be especially when you consider things like this:

https://medium.com/@samadsajanlal/the-gamecredits-mobilego-gnation-situation-as-observed-by-a-3rd-party-e3345b0d4a50.

I don't see these same people screaming 'scam' there, even though the situation is very similar (minus the escrow and plus the more money being raised & washed down the drain part).

so there isn't much room for a scam unless the escrow actually runs at takes some or all of the 40% with them.

I've spent countless hours writing in TG, IRC and here about this, hours that were required elsewhere. Rationally speaking, if this was the plan then there would be already be no signs of anybody as soon as the dispute arose (which was over 20 days ago). Manual refund of the top holders will start ASAP post-vote (regardless of the time required to figure out the quickest way to create 1-to-5xxx (split based on TX size limits) transactions).

[pugman]

^ So if the vote results in a refund, you'll provide the forks back. Also, if I am getting this right, the investors might get more , because the exchange rates of converting were screwed up earlier, so the additonal forks would only benefit the investors. The investors would get ~60% of what they had invested(instead of 40%), plus an airdrop of his(by the new CEO) token to the NVST holders for his project.

I am starting to wonder how quickly people jump to illogical conclusions here and why,never mind scratch that, I know why.  

It wasn't that hard to get proper answers, was it? 

[suchmoon]

It wasn't that hard to get proper answers, was it? 

Says someone who jumped in on page 6 

But yeah considering that a one-post newbie started the thread and vanished without following up with proof, this is starting to look like a nothingburger.

[OgNasty]

I am starting to wonder how quickly people jump to illogical conclusions here and why,never mind scratch that, I know why.  

It wasn't that hard to get proper answers, was it? 

Nice that you got some answers.  I saw a publicly stated escrow address that was empty.  Users complaining to me of a scam.  Lauda refusing to say where the funds were, refusing to give exchange rate data, refusing to let someone audit the situation, and ignoring questions.  I still don't understand why a simple timeline of events can't be provided.  You would think it would be fun to provide all this data.

I believe it is safe to say the escrow was at the very least mishandled and funds should have never moved from the escrow address (I still have no idea why they did or where they went.  I read to an exchange managed by a single person?) without a transparent transfer to another address and updated signatures.  The blockchain was created exactly so situations like this don't happen.  It is disappointing to see this level of transparency.

[pugman]

Says someone who jumped in on page 6  

You gotta do what you gotta do.  

But yeah considering that a one-post newbie started the thread and vanished without following up with proof, this is starting to look like a nothingburger.

Honestly speaking, the way things were said and the claims and allegations OP had bought in, and with those links and what not, made it seem really bad, and when the amount was that big, it seemed too sketchy, thankfully, the real truth was out, before things got worse, and this accusation will just remain at that, and nothing beyond that.

Edit:

Nice that you got some answers.  I saw a publicly stated escrow address that was empty.  Users complaining to me of a scam.  Lauda refusing to say where the funds were, refusing to give exchange rate data, refusing to let someone audit the situation, and ignoring questions.  I still don't understand why a simple timeline of events can't be provided.  You would think it would be fun to provide all this data.

The funds were moved from that address to another address, which is also one of the multi-sig address, it wasn't disclosed but is definitely viewable on blockchain. This is the address: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/36Uh2ine6UzWGPTDYdENqS6pj6Rzx4Q67R

The timeline is pretty simple:

-> NVO escrow terms were agreed before the BCH existed, and were different than the original CET terms.
-> The ICO raised around 3000 BTC, the alts weren't converted immediately. Some were, some still are/were recently converted.
-> There were issues while converting, due to investors lack of due diligence(quoting Lauda's exact words).
-> Fast forward to June(?), some shit happened(didn't read or get enough or any info on that) and it resulted in a vote, whether or not the investors should be refunded or not.
-> Vote is still going on, and if it results in a refund, they will be taken care of by Lauda and team.

I believe it is safe to say the escrow was at the very least mishandled and funds should have never moved from the escrow address (I still have no idea why they did or where they went.  I read to an exchange managed by a single person?) without a transparent transfer to another address and updated signatures.  The blockchain was created exactly so situations like this don't happen.  It is disappointing to see this level of transparency.

From what I can tell, only the alts were moved to an exchange, and most of the bitcoin stayed there only. Some bitcoins were sent to bittrex, and I don't know what happened to that. There's still more than 1000 btc in the escrow address ,plus forks.

[Quickseller]

I still don't understand why you changed your escrow rules about forks after taking these funds, and then claim your escrow thread and escrow services aren't related. 

You keep repeating this after Lauda had already stated numerous times that the rule change did not apply retroactively to the NVO escrow. Stop being an asshole just for the sake of being an asshole.

I think you forgot to reference where lauda posted where he disclosed this to ICO investors prior to them sending money to the project.

Further this term has no equity for the investors and as such is unenforceable in court.

All of this ignores the fact that it is very unlikely this would be a negotiated term at the time the ANN thread was created.

What are you on about with this pseudo-legalese bullshit? BCH did not exist at the time of the ICO. When the BCH fork happened it triggered a decision and it seems that a reasonable one was made, i.e. to redeem the fork and add it to the escrowed funds.

~1497 BCH was moved on Aug 7 around 3AM GMT, and around 94 BTC was sent back to an alleged escrow address around 7:45 PM that evening. The low price during that timeframe was 0.07 BTC, and the high was 0.1149 BTC, meaning that BCH was worth between 104.79 and 172 BTC, depending on what it was sold for. This means there is at least 10 BTC unaccounted for, likely substantially higher.

Further, I do not see any account for the bitcoin gold funds, nor bitcoin diamond.

Lauda's statement implies he does not intend on returning the money from the BCH fork, along with his CET "policy".

The lack of transparency of course does not do lauda any favors in terms of making it appear he is doing everything honestly, and "by the book".

[Quickseller]

Has anybody offered to do an audit?

Presumably, signed messages, txid's and addresses can be provided so anyone can look at the information themselves...

[pugman]

Has anybody offered to do an audit?

Presumably, signed messages, txid's and addresses can be provided so anyone can look at the information themselves...

Signed messages can't be provided : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1576803.0

And txid's and addresses are already public. I haven't gotten too deep in it to check between the exact amounts, as I don't have the exchange rates, and the necessary data. I think this info should be private than public, unless there's more to this accusation, which is highly unlikely.

Actually this is not the case. Up to 60% of the total is (well, was) the amount that the team was allowed to withdraw according to the milestones, but it was never fully taken. Based on my math, if you include forks in the calculations there is about 50% extra left than the minimum defined by the milestones (thus, not 40% left but ~60%).

Since you said, forked coins were sent to nemgun , how does the total end up to 60%?

[OgNasty]

The funds were moved from that address to another address, which is also one of the multi-sig address, it wasn't disclosed but is definitely viewable on blockchain. This is the address: https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/36Uh2ine6UzWGPTDYdENqS6pj6Rzx4Q67R

The timeline is pretty simple:

-> NVO escrow terms were agreed before the BCH existed, and were different than the original CET terms.
-> The ICO raised around 3000 BTC, the alts weren't converted immediately. Some were, some still are/were recently converted.
-> There were issues while converting, due to investors lack of due diligence(quoting Lauda's exact words).
-> Fast forward to June(?), some shit happened(didn't read or get enough or any info on that) and it resulted in a vote, whether or not the investors should be refunded or not.
-> Vote is still going on, and if it results in a refund, they will be taken care of by Lauda and team.

From what I can tell, only the alts were moved to an exchange, and most of the bitcoin stayed there only. Some bitcoins were sent to bittrex, and I don't know what happened to that. There's still more than 1000 btc in the escrow address ,plus forks.

~1497 BCH was moved on Aug 7 around 3AM GMT, and around 94 BTC was sent back to an alleged escrow address around 7:45 PM that evening. The low price during that timeframe was 0.07 BTC, and the high was 0.1149 BTC, meaning that BCH was worth between 104.79 and 172 BTC, depending on what it was sold for. This means there is at least 10 BTC unaccounted for, likely substantially higher.

Further, I do not see any account for the bitcoin gold funds, nor bitcoin diamond.

Lauda's statement implies he does not intend on returning the money from the BCH fork, along with his CET "policy".

The lack of transparency of course does not do lauda any favors in terms of making it appear he is doing everything honestly, and "by the book".

How did >3,094 BTC turn into 1169 BTC?  Where did the 10-78 missing BTC from the BCH sale go?  Is there something quoted above that is not true?