Balthazar's trust

[Veleor]

I wish to know the opinion of the community, do you agree that user Balthazar justly has a negative trust, which was issued by DT member Cryptodevil in March 2017?

A DT member Cryptodevil believes that Balthazar deserves a negative tag because Balthazar was linked to the BTC-e exchange.

Balthazar himself has admitted that he was a chat moderator and technical consultant in the BTC-e, but denies that he organized this exchange.

<...> I'm definitely neither owner nor founder of this project. I was a moderator and consultant who helped with dealing some technical issues (ddos/bruteforce attacks) and that's all. <...>

Balthazar is a veteran of Bitcointalk. In 2012 he had participated in the moderators elections in Russian section. Balthazar also helps against spammers and bounty cheaters on the forum. I asked Balthazar to join the discussion but he refused.

Nonetheless, let me quote from RBC magazine from December 13, 2017:

Translation into English by Crimerussia:

During the investigation, users found that Svetleishiy and Buyanov could be connected to the exchange, they were looking for Alexey, who hid under support. But 31-year-old software engineer Alexey Demidov, who is known in the community by the name balthazar, got a lot to bear. His mining pool in 2011 was the official partner of BTC-e, and he himself served as a moderator in the chat room of the exchange (Wayback Machine and chat archive data).

However, BTC-e is not his brainchild, Demidov only cooperated with the site, the 'veteran' assured RBC, communicating with both balthazar and support. Demidov himself said that he appealed to the police in the autumn with a demand to open a criminal case under the Article Libel against those who call him the owner of BTC-e on the forums: after receiving a refusal, he complained to the Prosecutor's Office, which, he said, found signs of a crime. Now Demidov works for Russian Mining Coin Internet Ombudsman Dmitry Marinichev: in the autumn the company said that it raised $43.2 million for ICO.

Balthazar's comments from 2015 indirectly confirm he was a consultant and didn't hold a managerial position in BTC-e, also the work at BTC-e apparently wasn't his main employment.

<...> I have many examples of how good reporter became an absolutely authoritarian moderator and committed multiple abuses of power. Last one was becool at the btc-e.com and that was my fault. I've checked a lot of his reports and recommended him as moderator... I'll never do such mistake again. I regretted it many times and supported the cancellation of his appointment a bit later.

Balthazar has banned more more than a few times from the BTC-E chat, but you said you didn't want the position anyway, so a semi vouch is there if you want it.

Yep, I'm a mod at btc-e since 2012.

It's unfortunately but I can't guarantee that I'll have enough time for full moderation because I'm already moderator of three resources. <...>

Is there at least one hard proof or official statement, that Balthazar held a senior position in BTC-e? If there is no such evidence, then do you believe it is right that average employee like chat moderator and consultant should be tagged if company management have used illegal schemes?

At first I didn't want to open this topic without Balthazar, but then I changed my mind, because I think that a negative trust must be supported by hard facts and shouldn't be controversial, otherwise it will cause discredit to the whole DT system.

Edit: typo

[Blacknavy]

Balthazar seems to be quite an important person for the Russian section and It doesn't make sense that blame Balthazar because of BTC-e.

[madnessteat]

In my opinion, if Balthazar had been involved in the theft of btc-e users' money, he would not have stayed on the forum.
Instead of concrete facts proving his involvement in the theft of only words.

Is it possible to accuse a person of fraud if the accusation is based only on guesswork? I don't think so.

Balthazar does not only share useful information about the Bitcoin network, which is not widely available, but also helps to fight scammers on the forum.

I believe that he received a negative feedback undeservedly.

[nutildah]

Since its not certain that cryptodevil will respond to this thread, I recommend linking this thread in the one referenced by cryptodevil in his trust rating for Balthazar:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1822217

It sounds like the OP of that thread indeed got their BTC back, so I would appeal to cryptodevil by mentioning that fact there, as well as that Balthazar has been nothing but a positive for the community since then. Perhaps enough time has passed where cryptodevil will change his mind on the issue.

[KTChampions]

It seems strange to me that a person who has never had claims from law enforcement agencies is accused of fraud.
As for his benefit for the forum, it is undeniable; I can’t add anything (compared to him, I’m Brand new here).

[suchmoon]

I wish to know the opinion of the community, do you agree that user Balthazar justly has a negative trust, which was issued by DT member Cryptodevil in March 2017?

A DT member Cryptodevil believes that Balthazar deserves a negative tag because Balthazar was linked to the BTC-e exchange.

Have you contacted cryptodevil directly before starting this thread? If you did what was his response?

[eddie13]

We went through something similar over user Horus_Cryptsy but he wasn't as much of a forum veteran and doesn't seem to have stuck around..

At one time there was strong reservations about Horus on this forum re Cryptsy, but the general consensus is that he's been given a second chance to prove himself in this space, including from myself. Rest assured that he was a bad guy, I would be sticking it up his ass big time upon reading your initial post, bud.

Hope that helps.

Here is his account on this forum: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=357655

Tell him Bruno sent you and link to this post.

Bruno

I think that statement basically sums it up and I am generally in agreement with it..

So yeah..
When exchanges go down, often likely innocent employees get caught in the crossfire..
Those close with Cryptopia seem to have gotten through it ok as well..

iirc I had an account on BTC-e back in the day and checked it out real good but I don't think I ever sent any coin there because I was too sketched out or they didn't have anything I wanted..

Negative trust for Balthazar at the time of the BTC-e happening may have been well warranted but if the case is that he has been found innocent after all is said and done I don't see why he wouldn't deserve a second chance as well..

Then again, maybe cryptodevil has his reasons I don't know of..  

[Balthazar]

he wouldn't deserve a second chance as well..

I don't need any kind of second chances from those who're making judgements based on some reddit post or another bullshit. They simply don't deserve a privilege of giving second chances to anyone. That is why I ~ him and some of his supporters, in the first place. Other consequence is that I consider this topic pointless and therefore requesting mods to close it.

[suchmoon]

he wouldn't deserve a second chance as well..

I don't need any second chances from those who're making judgements based on some reddit post or other bullshit. They simply don't deserve a privelege of giving second chances to anyone. That is why I ~ him and some of his supporters, in the first place.

Awesome, problem appears to be solved then. Lock the thread. There is no need for another drama for nothing.

[Veleor]

Have you contacted cryptodevil directly before starting this thread? If you did what was his response?

I've contacted Cryptodevil about Balthazar. After a little conversation, I said that it would be better to bring our talk to a public discussion and Cryptodevil advised me to create a new topic in Reputation.

Awesome, problem appears to be solved then. Lock the thread. There is no need for another drama for nothing.

The topic will not be closed until I see that the issue was fully discussed by forum members. This question concerns not only Balthazar, but the entire DT system.

[LoyceV]

I don't need any kind of second chances

You may deserve it, regardless of needing it. Someone is sticking up for you, I consider that a good thing in a community

[suchmoon]

The topic will not be closed until I see that the issue was fully discussed by forum members. This question concerns not only Balthazar, but the entire DT system.

Ok, as you wish although it seems pointless seeing that Balthazar isn't interested in it. As far as I can see cryptodevil's feedback is factual, expect maybe for the "creator" part but even that is qualified with "possibly" (not even "likely" or "probably"). He's already got counter-ratings too so what other outcome are you expecting?

[Veleor]

<...> He's already got counter-ratings too so what other outcome are you expecting?

I want that this issue will be fully debated and as many users as possible would express their views about Balthazar's negative trust, it is deserved or not.
It's likely that Cryptodevil will take into consideration opinions of other forum members.

[TECSHARE]

While BTC-e was obviously a shady organization, it was also an integral crypto institution for many years and was in fact the backbone of this community for some time. They may have been up to some illegal shit, but the one thing that they always made clear was they would never rob their user base, and they took full responsibility for any major hacks and thefts that occurred, reimbursing the userbase. This was unheard of for the time it operated, and still to some extent very rare even today. Even when the government seized all their assets they did their best to make the user base whole.

You don't have to endorse their illegal activities to have respect for how they operated their exchange in respect to the end user. Still to this day I haven't found an exchange I would trust more than BTC-e. I think this organization was unfairly demonized. Balthazar certainly doesn't deserve to be punished for serving in a moderator, customer service, and support role for this organization. I highly doubt he had any special knowledge of the inner operations of the exchange and he doesn't deserve to be pinned with that responsibility. Cryptodevil has long been overzealous with his negative ratings and he has been on my exclusion list for some time.

[johhnyUA]

It's obvious that Balthazar don't deserve such trust. For four main reasons:

1. It's very strange to tag person for some shady reddit post.

2. There any proof that Balthazar was "creator" of BTC-E. Even if he worked on BTC E for some time, this doesn't mean that anyone can tag him for BTC-E case. Employees not responsible for actions of their chief (in most cases)

3. BTC-E repaid for all it's users with 50 % of coins and another part in wex tokens (as i remember). So there is not any @loss@ to be tagged for

And the most interesting part:

4. In most investigations Balthazar is linked to be a co-worker of Alex "LZ" Saver and LZ is called one of BTC E creators too. Sooooo..... Why our friend with cool sheriff's badge, don't tag LZ too? It's fun fact, that unlike to Balthazar, Alex LZ really dissapear from forum.

It's looks like a little (just a bit) hypocrize .

[cryptodevil]

I'm always willing to review historic trust ratings, albeit in this instance I would clarify that I did not accuse Balthazar of fraud, I asserted that his connection to BTC-e rendered him untrustworthy in my opinion. Frankly, given the points I raised in dm with Veleor, even if I were to revisit this rating as it stands I would likely only modify the BTC-e relationship text to that below as well as raising the issue of the sketchy nature of Balthazar's Novacoin launch and listing on BTC-e:

...However, BTC-e is not his creation, Demidov only collaborated with the platform...

The problem I have with this statement is that there is no evidence to support the claim that Balthazar did not help to create the exchange and every reason to believe that he was, indeed, technically involved with it from its inception in 2011:

His mining pool in 2011 was an official partner of BTC-e, and he served as a moderator in the exchange chat

Nobody becomes an 'official partner' to a Russian exchange in a casual way, he would have had to have been very much connected to its founders and its founding for them to not only assert his mining pool as a business partner, along with his acting as a moderator within the chatbox, but to also have agreed to list his Novacoin on the exchange shortly after he released it, a coin which was found to have been heavily insta-mined (actually the initial charge was a pre-mine but Balthazar eventually admitted that it was an insta-mine:

These coins were mined between 9 February, 1:00 am (client release) and 10 February, ~15:00 pm (official release of NVC/BTC trading pair at the BTC-e exchange).

Let's not forget, it was an insta-mine conducted with the full knowledge and timing of the fact this brand-new coin was to be listed almost immediately on BTC-e, an exchange which repeatedly refused to list other coins:

Shortly after the launch of Novacoin it opened up for trading on the popular trading platform BTC-e. Many claimed that BTC-e or users on BTC-e were keeping the price artificially high as it was quickly trading at an exchange rate greater than any other alternate crypto-currency. What’s more is that BTC-e had rejected requests to trade other alternate coins which had a longer history and presumably a stronger user base.

Back in 2012, he participated in the election of moderators.

Be honest, that doesn't stand for anything in terms of supporting your claim towards his innocence.

Therefore, I believe that the charge of fraud against him should have irrefutable proof

Well my trust rating doesn't actually charge him with fraud, it merely asserts that his connection to the exchange leads me to conclude that he is not trustworthy:

This user is the representative for and possibly the creator of the cryptocurrency exchange BTC-E.com

He certainly was a representative of BTC-e, by way of his deep involvement with it as I have explained and I have used the word 'possibly' to caution that he may have also been involved in its creation, be that by way of his self-professed position as technical 'consultant' or otherwise.

Frankly, while there could be an argument to be made against the trust rating I gave him, it would only be that I'd probably re-word it to focus solely on the facts related to his known involvement with BTC-e and the shady launch of his own cryptocurrency, which would still leave me of the opinion that he is not trustworthy.

Unless you have evidence to the contrary I would struggle to justify removing a negative rating entirely.

[KOPHEP]

Cryptodevil, please, at least replace your feedback for Balthazar to neutral

Balthazar is a very good man, we are all trusted him. Please be merciful

[Veleor]

<...> I would clarify that I did not accuse Balthazar of fraud, I asserted that his connection to BTC-e rendered him untrustworthy in my opinion. <...>

Your feedback is too subjective, because with the definition of "untrustworthy" a DT member is able to link any user which he disliked, if desired.
I'm sure many people on the forum don't want to argue with the DT members because of such situations.

Read what a negative feedback should be given for:

Negative - You think that trading with this person is high-risk.

If a person worked as a chat moderator and consultant at the BTC-e exchange, and there is no proof that he was in leadership positions there, then how does this relate to the high trading risks?
When you think that a user is not trustworthy, but you don't have solid facts, then there is an option for this (~).

[Balthazar]

I would clarify that I did not accuse Balthazar of fraud

Don't pretend that I'm a fool. Yes, you did it repeatedly, even here in this thread. These aren't plain words since I've consulted with my lawyer, Edward Donovan from Donovan & Associates. And he assured me that your actions have signs of defamation, which is illegal in the United States. These carefully added "likely" and "possibly" words aren't turning your accusations into opinion. Yes, this may be difficult to prove in the court, but don't pretend that it's a worthy excuse for such activity.

Let's not forget, it was an insta-mine conducted with the full knowledge and timing of the fact this brand-new coin was to be listed almost immediately on BTC-e

Achievement unlocked. It looks like Comrade Winston decided to borrow a typical argument from his predecessors. Unsurprising and quite expected move because every troll in russian locale already knows how to write Novacoin Tales. Yep, the point is that they were trolls, not DT members.

and its founding for them to not only assert his mining pool as a business partner, along with his acting as a moderator within the chatbox

Do you really consider a link exchange and moderation as kind of business partnership with a shady background? Are you sure that it's not a trolling? Let me to ensure once again, are you talking this rubbish seriously?

but to also have agreed to list his Novacoin on the exchange shortly after he released it

Another of my well-known atrocities is that I authorized Donald Trump to start his presidential campaign.

Nobody becomes an 'official partner' to a Russian exchange in a casual way, he would have had to have been very much connected to its founders

Of course. I became a member of their secret order after killing the virgin in the front of other respected comrades. After that we had a nice conversation about Flat Earth before few russian prostitutes peed on me. We're russians and that's how we're doing our shady business.

These coins were mined between 9 February, 1:00 am (client release) and 10 February, ~15:00 pm (official release of NVC/BTC trading pair at the BTC-e exchange).

These are my words and that's truth. But there are another pieces of history you're missing deliberately.

1. Instamine is not a crime in any way, it's just a technical issue unless it's hidden. Especially if it was destroyed.

2. Client was published in chat a day before BTC-e decided to list it and made announce. That is a solid fact and it would be sillish to deny it. There were number of people who have seen it and that was written in the chat logs. You can't simply say that they didn't exist, since it would be like pretending that Comrade Withers never existed. Network hashrate reached few gh/s in a matter of hours and that should be self-explanatory to any sane individual.

an exchange which repeatedly refused to list other coins

It seems that Comrade Winston is somewhat offended due to buying some overpriced altcoin and being unable to sell it. Let me guess, it was LTC, right?
If I made a right guess then he should get back to his work in the Ministry of Truth and dedicate some time to invent yet another story about Comrade Ogilvy.

The problem I have with this statement is that there is no evidence to support the claim that Balthazar did not help to create the exchange

Like I have said two years before, the problem I have with this statement is that there is no evidence to support the claim that cryptodevil did not rape children.
That would be the same "higly-likely" story which is full of "would be"'s.  Presumption of innocence or factual evidence? No, never heard of.   #cryptodevil #metoo.

and every reason to believe that he was

Except that I'm unanonymous person which is still not in jail. Every of your words clashes with that simple truth. It's a kind of "ridiculous!" spell from Harry Potter universe, which results with turning you from cryptodevil into cryptoclown. Are you claiming to be smarter than american and russian authorities? Well, then that would be a nice example of Dunning-Kruger effect in action.

Maybe you will tell me, why should I spend any more time on you? I'm asking seriously because I see that 2 years term was not enogh for you to evolve and come up with mature arguments. I give you one more chance to prove that you're a useful person which is able to participate in real conversation. C'mon, give me something to excuse that waste of time.

[Balthazar]

If a person worked as a chat moderator and consultant at the BTC-e exchange

"Worked" is a too strong word. BTC-e was widely known for its usage of public resource as the donation. From the administration point of view, moderators and consultants were ordinary members just like others. The only difference is that they were able to communicate with admin in jabber, delete chat messages and ban users. Nobody got any kind of reward for that, as far I know. Any respected user could become moderator and there were 30-50 of such people in both russian and english chats. That was going this way until their policy has changed in some moment prior to 2017. All volunteered moderators and consultants were disbanded and replaced with employees then.

These are notable facts known for everybody who wants to find them. Of course, some people like to practice doublethink and pretend that volunteer moderators were employees, but it's their own psychological issue.