My Cold Keys Just Got Swiped! All Cold Kuntz!!

[JayJuanGee]

Going slightly offtopic with this: Yogg was able to take multiple loans from different users unbeknownst to each other.
If everyone, as already told by LoyceV, had left a track here in lending section posting just for reference and, even better, leaving a neutral trust until loan was repaid that would have allowed to raise a big red flag on Yogg.

This is an issue in a lot of areas when attempting to scrutinize the transparency of debt - and even has been coming up a lot lately regarding exchange transparency in regards to their showing proof of reserves.. It also is a pretty BIG issue when trying to get to the bottom of monetary issues, such as monetary supply because even if superficially we might speculate that ONLY banks can issue debt (or new money), the fact of the matter boils down to anyone has the ability to issue debt (or new money)**, so how do you get them to feel some kind of obligation to publicly announce it in order that everyone stays honest.. it's almost like a prisoner's dilemma kind of a situation in which there may be a lot of times incentives to keep matters private, even if there likely are advantages to disclose for the benefit of the whole community (or all parties potentially affected).

Accordingly, many times, there are disincentives for the information to go public or to fully disclose a variety of debt relationships - even moreso when someone has transitioned into a scammer (whether that person was a scammer in the beginning or just later realized that they were going to become a scammer).

** I like to use the example of sharing some kind of a cost, and let's say that 4 of us went out for food, drinks or on a trip to Disneyland.  If we agree to split the costs evenly and the total cost are $1.2k, then each person should owe $300.  However, if one person picks up the tab for all four, and everyone agrees that the three beneficiaries owe $300 plus 10% interest upon the one year anniversary date, then each of the three debtor persons owe $330, so at least the $900 is new money created.. and arguably the interest is new money created too. and if they get paid back after a year they will come from existing money - unless more can be created from somewhere else... from productive assets or perhaps out of thin air in the case of some government behaviors/powers.

I guess my main point is just regarding the difficulties in trying to disclose the existence of debt, and the fact that even if many of the parties of the system recognize advantages to disclose, but there are also going to be incentives of various parties NOT to disclose everything and to make it appear as if they are disclosing... and so difficult to incentivize full disclosures, even if there are set-ups - including shaming and trust that will train everyone in the practice of:

" 'good citizens' of this community disclose their debts/liabilities"  


right?  right?  right?

when i read here now for a few days, from how many users (including me) yogg has borrowed high amounts and has not paid until today, then this develops with me even more anger, because i have worked together with this person and we wanted to achieve something together.
the fact that some history cards from the past have not been funded by yogg speaks only for his failure and that the whole thing has been developing negatively for a long time.
i am totally pissed at him and don't want to have anything more to do with this person.
the only thing i still want from him is that he calls me personally and apologizes for all this shit.

It is possible if the police get involved and he is found and prosecuted (probably a settlement agreement) would involve various forms of restitution.. It does seem like a long shot or even a snowball's chance in hell, but I would not completely rule out such an outcome - but also I would not plan my life in accordance with it happen, since the most likely outcome is that he is going to continue to slither in a variety of ways.. but then maybe at some point he gets caught for even more crimes and missteps than we know about at this time (which surely he is showing himself to be a person with a criminal and scamming mindset), and the whole package of crimes ends up allowing for a settlement that involves restitution (and a lessening of punishment based on that), then in those kinds of circumstances, these kinds of facts and even attempts at figuring out damages may well need to be revisited.. even years down the road.. even though many of us likely prefer to see justice play out.. and to play out quickly.. but at the same time, we also can understand and appreciate that there tend to be a lot of injustices in the world, even if they are carried out by a pretty small minority, they end up causing a lot of damages on overwhelming majority of people who are not like that (i.e. intentionally deceive and steal from others. or set up circumstances in which they are going to be able to do such a thing down the road "if needed").

[edited out]

It's nice to see Heroes and Legends who are not active in our community show their support, even if they don't understand our passion for collecting or the risk that we can expose ourselves to.

There is not a separate community of "collectors," even though I agree with your point about level of involvement in any activity is surely going to provide more credible knowledge and information rather than those (of us) who might be just propounding theories.. but at the same time, any of forum member could consider or not to get more involved in "physical" or even "intangible" collectibles based on what they learn from participating in a forum thread like this... even though yeah, I understand a certain level of frustration that comes when it seems that someone might be seeming to theorize about something in which they appear to have little or no actual facts and/or personal experiences on the topic.

[1714650786]

1714650786

[1714650786]

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[Timelord2067]

The $90 interest is "new" money whereas the $900 is the principal and always existed.

[AlcoHoDL]

I've been following the ColdKey/yogg developments with interest since cygan posted an invitation to WO members to buy WOhat-decorated ColdKeys.

First off, I'm deeply sorry for all those affected by the scammer and lost BTC, loans, premiums and the value of their ColdKeys as collectibles. I'm not a collector myself, have never owned any such cards, and have never even heard of yogg or any of the forum members in the collectibles space.

After reading the conversation between yogg and owlcatz, I must say that this man should not receive ANY sympathy whatsoever from you guys. NONE! I saw a man who did not display any genuine regret/remorse about what he did, never offered to return (even part of) the stolen funds to their rightful owners, didn't even dare to make a post here in the forum explaining what happened, and threw cynical responses to owlcatz, such as "make me" and "write to my attorney". Based on the evidence presented here in this and other threads, yogg continued swiping cards even after his conversation with owlcatz where he stated that all remaining cards were safe. This makes him a liar and a thief.

Sadly, this project has failed due to the actions of a weak man who sold his name and reputation for $50k. Cruel as it may sound, I don't think such a fraudster, liar and thief deserves any sympathy whatsoever. Let his suffering be his punishment for what he did to all of you and to the Bitcoin community.

The way I see it:

- ALL ColdKey cards should be considered as compromised and should be peeled/swiped.

- I would not put my hopes up for legal action, but those with the energy to pursue it could give it a try.

- I believe that collectibles like ColdKey, which rely on trusting a human being (the creator) to discard the keys after creating the items, go fundamentally against the Bitcoin ethos and principles. Bitcoin was created to address exactly these problems, and it has succeeded -- this is what makes Bitcoin what it is. Collectible items that rely on trusting an individual for the security of funds, essentially and in principle negate this all-important property of Bitcoin. "Don't trust, verify." becomes "Trust and hope not to get scammed." I'm not sure if I would consider such a collectible item to be a true representation of Bitcoin and what it stands for.

Big kudos to cygan for promising to compensate ColdKey holders, and delivering on that promise. He got dragged into this mess and is doing his best to rectify the situation.

As a final thought, I would suggest the creation of collectibles in which the artwork itself would be the valuable part, and there would NOT be any private keys inserted in them by the creator. The artist could include a region on/inside the piece, where the final owner can place his/her own private key that only he/she knows. There could even be a mechanism for this, but it must be shipped blank and be reconfigurable by the final owner. Something like a collectible version of Cryptosteel. In my view, this type of collectible would stay true to the ethos and principles of Bitcoin while being fully secure against scams like yogg's.

[Timelord2o67]

Well spoken @alcohodl. I'm out of merits myself, but hope that others will merit your post.

I've advocated for 2FA logins for the forum (along with mandatory password resets after three months and auto logout after one week)

I've also advocated from time to time that certain sections such as the lending section should also have KYC along with a requirement for lenders to place neutral trust feedback on a borrowers trust feedback page to alert other lenders that the borrower has outstanding obligations.

As this thread is demonstrating some lenders and borrowers aren't posting TX details which gives the illusion of transactions having occurred, but it could also be that a scammer building false trust.

From now on, greater care (and scrutiny ) should be taken for vanity wallets being used with third party cold key storage, especially when prefunded.

[JayJuanGee]

The $90 interest is "new" money whereas the $900 is the principal and always existed.

We can agree to disagree. ... and we seem to be deviating from the point that I was attempting to make with my example in the first place - which was largely, I was trying to outline a scenario in which it can be quite difficult to monitor and/or to receive discloser from parties who are engaging in relationships that create debt obligations amongst themselves, so we can agree to disagree regarding the extent to which new money had already existed (which seems to be your position because there is merely a ledger with an asset and a liability that are created so they balance each other out) or if such arrangement privately created or increased the money supply to the extent that their might not be anything backing up the loans beyond the good will and credibility of the ones who received the loans adding up to $900.

For ease of reference, here's the portion of my earlier post that you were talking about:

** I like to use the example of sharing some kind of a cost, and let's say that 4 of us went out for food, drinks or on a trip to Disneyland.  If we agree to split the costs evenly and the total cost are $1.2k, then each person should owe $300.  However, if one person picks up the tab for all four, and everyone agrees that the three beneficiaries owe $300 plus 10% interest upon the one year anniversary date, then each of the three debtor persons owe $330, so at least the $900 is new money created.. and arguably the interest is new money created too. and if they get paid back after a year they will come from existing money - unless more can be created from somewhere else... from productive assets or perhaps out of thin air in the case of some government behaviors/powers.

I hate to go on and on about this, yet from my understanding the $900 is new money that has been created for a year.  And the duration of the creation of new money will exist for a year so long as that $900 gets paid at the end of the year as agreed.  But if it does not get paid back, then what?  It's a whole on the ledger, and the people who received the loan may still have spent the equivalent amount of money or maybe they never had the money to pay the $900 back in the first place... so maybe they should not have received a free meal and Disney trip that was paid by one of the attendees.  Maybe in some sense, Yogg is like the one not paying for the meal and disney trip that he received?  It is probably NOT the best analogy.. but still Yogg still did end up receiving value in a variety of ways that was not his and breached agreements that involved his not retaining and then subsequently spending private keys.

My understanding $90 interest is an amount to service the fact that within our current system there is considered to be a time value in money but perhaps also to potentially cover default risk of providing the $900 loan for a year, and the fact that we have a whole system in which we might not be certain how much the money (principle) loses value over a year, it could be that the 10% ($90) merely covers the loss of purchasing power of the $900 over that year, if there had been circumstances in which the value of the money had depreciated 10% for the year (perhaps inflation for that year in which food and tickets to Disney went up 10% or some kind of equivalent way of measuring the purchasing power (or loss of purchasing power) of the $900 after the year).

[Little Mouse]

- ALL ColdKey cards should be considered as compromised and should be peeled/swiped.

Some said they have never been funded ever.

- I would not put my hopes up for legal action, but those with the energy to pursue it could give it a try.

- I believe that collectibles like ColdKey, which rely on trusting a human being (the creator) to discard the keys after creating the items, go fundamentally against the Bitcoin ethos and principles.
>>>>>
As a final thought, I would suggest the creation of collectibles in which the artwork itself would be the valuable part, and there would NOT be any private keys inserted in them by the creator.

I'm not an active guy on collectible section though I used to check most of the auctions. To be honest with you, I never liked this idea of trusting someone who can be in control of private key. This doesn't make any sense.

[owlcatz]

First off, let me be clear... ALL the funds he stole were gambled away and LOST to https://hitbtc.com/cbc-to-btc

I know this for a fact from a different source - Mitchell proved it as well.

Don't ask how I know this now since he's blocked my number etc etc, but he has a serious gambling addiction he has been hiding from everyone, and now understands he needs serious help.

He is also extremely worried about the legal repurcussions, as he should be...

Anyhow, never been scammed so hard from someone I thought was a really good trustworthy friend. But I'm not dwelling on it. Sometimes good things arise from bad as well..

In the end, it was a (probably almost lethal) combo of drugs and alcohol, and anti-depressants (That nobody should be doing drugs on) that fucked him . I'm fairly sure he did not keep keys to history sets, because he told me he was weak and had to destroy them.  Anyhow, that said, he did have a 1000+ Euro special film shredder to shred the film rolls from the machinery. This thing was not cheap, and it was FULL of chopped up/shredded coldkey film (The private keys are on the cards, not the hologram etc). ... That said, why the fuck would anybody do that unless they were actually serious about the destruction of the keys - He was also very careful with the air-gapped PC as far as I know, but again, who the hell knows, this is so weird/crazy

ALSO - He went through a deep depression and loss of money on BSC network by a copy paste error last winter (end of 2021) where he lost about 35k.

So.. That said, I think he probably WOULD have swept all the cards at that point - He was in a very deep depression about the first failures of coldkey after the history series ended as a Buyer-funded edition.

Lastly, no sympathy here either, but he is alive and living in a deep mental hole from having committed "career-suicide".

He will never be back here to scam anyone again, that I am sure of as well. He's done here, and says he will lock out his account soon if not already.

He's like a lost little boy. Always crying on the phone about it etc. Pretty sure he regrets it all now, but gambling and drugs do stupid things to stupid smart people.

He was a bit shy of being genius on his IQ, but it came at the cost of not being able to do a lot of things you or I would consider normal, like dealing with people for example.

Spectrum-issues, drugs, and gambling... All bad...

Sorry. Thanks.

Some said they have never been funded ever.

This was incompetence, or failure by the buyer to check/ask for the cards to be funded. The process had been changing over time, so it was a bit strange to get them, then trigger the funding with a code on the website... 🤷‍♂️

And... Since nobody asked, ... he probably just said fuck it, I'm not gonna fund them I really don't know. I always hounded him about funding them as soon as I received them, and they were always funded properly afaik.  

What a shitshow...  

[Edits]

Wow, what a popcorn grabber.

To YOGG if youre reading this:

Firstly, you are a cunt. Stealing money from your most ardent early customers is a dog move but I think you know that.

Secondly, its not the end of the world and you can fix it. Return the swiped BTC back to customers, you would have the deets from purchase orders.
PLEASE Do not feel like its all over and there is no way forward, there most definitely is.

Thirdly, Stop gambling, its a mugs game.

My Copper Set has not been swept...yet.

[BitcoinGirl.Club]

Firstly, you are a cunt. Stealing money from your most ardent early customers is a dog move but I think you know that.

TMAN could give better invitation.

What a shitshow...  

We learn from cradle to the grave. Every day is a new day. Good thing is, for some it was costing only 0.00625 BTC. Not an expensive mistake individually.

[YodasRedRocket]

Firstly, you are a cunt. Stealing money from your most ardent early customers is a dog move but I think you know that.

TMAN could give better invitation.

What a shitshow...  

We learn from cradle to the grave. Every day is a new day. Good thing is, for some it was costing only 0.00625 BTC. Not an expensive mistake individually.

A Halving Set consisted of 2 cards of .00625 ea. = .0125 total.  Premium Paid in my case was .04723 additional.  Some members had multiple cards swiped & most chose to peel their additional cards because trust was lost & for some people was multi-thousands of dollars loss.  Not a good thing at all & it was expensive.  The mistake was Yogg's.  

[bullrun2024bro]

Both addresses that were swept to (`3BBNmksdPw63ghuNEeFsfPkwXaiqYJH9e7` and `3BZDT1rhf7vnabzASuiLzDBBbgDfHivdRd`) are now confirmed HitBTC addresses, as both were transferred to the HitBTC cold wallet. Looks like Yogg is going to cash it out/has actually sold it.

I've messaged their legal team, which probably won't help, but it should at least get his account shutdown. Feel free to contact them as well. The more the better IMO.

Good job mate!  

I also sent an email to their legal team and linked this thread and added some information. Hopefully it helps and they will lock up his account before he is able to withdraw the money (if there is anything left - and not gambled away already).

[OgNasty]

Both addresses that were swept to (`3BBNmksdPw63ghuNEeFsfPkwXaiqYJH9e7` and `3BZDT1rhf7vnabzASuiLzDBBbgDfHivdRd`) are now confirmed HitBTC addresses, as both were transferred to the HitBTC cold wallet. Looks like Yogg is going to cash it out/has actually sold it.


I've messaged their legal team, which probably won't help, but it should at least get his account shutdown. Feel free to contact them as well. The more the better IMO.

Well, there goes the narrative that he was a degenerate gambler.  He's just a plain old run of the mill scammer that made a bunch of fake friends to rugpull them with his collectible.  Otherwise, he would at least contribute whatever is left to his "friends" aka victims. 

I would find it troublesome if HitBTC was willing to act upon random emails, but maybe in this case there is enough evidence for them to do something.  Likely not, but I applaud your efforts for trying and would encourage others to do the same.  Providing pics and as much information as you can will likely help make it seem more real for them also.

Nice investigative work.  I hope some of the stolen funds are able to be recovered.  It would be a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. 

[Hispo]

-snip-

-snip-

That is something I don't understand either.
Since people here are saying this is a gambling problem, I would have expected those addresses to belong to a casino and not an exchange. There is no reason a gambler would need to transfer to a exchange if they can do it directly to the gambling place.

The only possibility I have got in mind is that he personally owned money to someone irl as a result of his gambling sessions and decided to cash out that BTC, people are also talking about drugs (not sure if they mean actual illegal stuff or only antidepressants), it would make sense he needed the cash to pay his dealer.

This situation is just unreal.

[AlcoHoDL]

Thanks to Timelord2o67, owlcatz and everyone for their replies to my post and for trying to make sense of it all.

I understand some here sympathize with yogg, even considering offering a helping hand. We are humans and this is a human reaction. I personally wouldn't offer any help whatsoever to this person, but, IMHO, any help offered should be strictly NON-monetary.

Hope this mess gets sorted out to a degree, although I very much doubt card holders can be made whole, considering the loans, premiums, and that the stolen funds have probably already been gambled away...

What a shitshow indeed!  

[Hueristic]

Both addresses that were swept to (`3BBNmksdPw63ghuNEeFsfPkwXaiqYJH9e7` and `3BZDT1rhf7vnabzASuiLzDBBbgDfHivdRd`) are now confirmed HitBTC addresses, as both were transferred to the HitBTC cold wallet. Looks like Yogg is going to cash it out/has actually sold it.


I've messaged their legal team, which probably won't help, but it should at least get his account shutdown. Feel free to contact them as well. The more the better IMO.

Well, there goes the narrative that he was a degenerate gambler.  He's just a plain old run of the mill scammer that made a bunch of fake friends to rugpull them with his collectible.  Otherwise, he would at least contribute whatever is left to his "friends" aka victims. 

I would find it troublesome if HitBTC was willing to act upon random emails, but maybe in this case there is enough evidence for them to do something.  Likely not, but I applaud your efforts for trying and would encourage others to do the same.  Providing pics and as much information as you can will likely help make it seem more real for them also.

Nice investigative work.  I hope some of the stolen funds are able to be recovered.  It would be a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. 

HitBtc is run bye the Bytecoin scammers so don't expect anything from them.

[Kryptowerk]

Both addresses that were swept to (`3BBNmksdPw63ghuNEeFsfPkwXaiqYJH9e7` and `3BZDT1rhf7vnabzASuiLzDBBbgDfHivdRd`) are now confirmed HitBTC addresses, as both were transferred to the HitBTC cold wallet. Looks like Yogg is going to cash it out/has actually sold it.


I've messaged their legal team, which probably won't help, but it should at least get his account shutdown. Feel free to contact them as well. The more the better IMO.

Well, there goes the narrative that he was a degenerate gambler.  He's just a plain old run of the mill scammer that made a bunch of fake friends to rugpull them with his collectible.  Otherwise, he would at least contribute whatever is left to his "friends" aka victims.  

I would find it troublesome if HitBTC was willing to act upon random emails, but maybe in this case there is enough evidence for them to do something.  Likely not, but I applaud your efforts for trying and would encourage others to do the same.  Providing pics and as much information as you can will likely help make it seem more real for them also.

Nice investigative work.  I hope some of the stolen funds are able to be recovered.  It would be a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.  

HitBtc is run bye the Bytecoin scammers so don't expect anything from them.

I heard a handful of *very* bad stories from people in crypto space that I trust regarding Hit-BTC. Beware!

Quick info:  I updated and moved my scam-summary: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3315347.msg61612749#msg61612749
I'll try to update / edit as good as possible when new / more things come to light. Despite that will probably try to be a littles less involved in the topic for now - it was kinda soul-draining over the last few days. (and I wasn't even close to Yogg and didn't own too many ck cards).

[Abiky]

I bought a cold key Silver Halving Set #30 recently on a MJ forum auction.

Both were swiped 12 hours ago!  I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t have a bitcoin tracker app.

They’re safely in my glass case with intact holo… everyone check your cold keys!!

Hopefully someone can explain how this happened!!

bc1qhalvedzzp22yy7wkmynlt4r97fwvscmk9jggl4

bc1qhalvedqtevcnx6yszyp6rfdkpxzf3p9jrtw830

This was .0125 funding + premium & one of my favorite items!

Edit: What alerted me to the rug pull was a wallet tracker I’ve been using for IPhone…

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bitcoin-address-tracker/id1465853490

And a friend recommended this app for android…

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.samourai.sentinel

I've just read this, and I'd have to say I'm quite shocked about it. Never thought someone as trusted as yogg would pull off a scheme like this. My ColdKey card set ("BitBills 10th Anniversary) was never swiped because I left it unfunded, but I can feel the pain of other buyers having lost their hard-earned Bitcoin. It's frustrating. This is just like getting ripped off an exchange when it decides to run away with your money (or it collapses like FTX did).

I seriously doubt anyone would trust physical coin makers after these unfortunate series of events. I'm talking about makers who create private keys themselves. They would need to "stick" with DiY or multisig to keep their business. May this be a lesson to newcomers into crypto who deposited BTC in a collectible whose private keys they don't control. I think this will mark the year where people will rely on self-custody of their coins. That said, I hope we heal and come back stronger than before. A big thank you to some community members who've decided to help with the cause (cygan, smoothie).

[MoparMiningLLC]

And yet people are buying still - mrcrypthodl just released new coin amd they are selling well even at 10x spot price plus load

[tread93]

Could you imagine if like Yogg was on his deathbed or something and needed an operation to pay for it all and the only way to save his own life was to steal all this money from everyone and to never look back? Idk, I know he had health issues. The only thing I can think is that nobody could be this heartless to everyone if they didn't desperately need it. If they didn't and they just stole then they're just an asshole but part of me thinks that there is so much more to this story. I just wish Yogg has the balls the send the last message. Whether it be that he screwed everyone or was desperate I just wish we knew. The truth remains to be seen.

[mortare]

Could you imagine if like Yogg was on his deathbed or something and needed an operation to pay for it all and the only way to save his own life was to steal all this money from everyone and to never look back? Idk, I know he had health issues. The only thing I can think is that nobody could be this heartless to everyone if they didn't desperately need it. If they didn't and they just stole then they're just an asshole but part of me thinks that there is so much more to this story. I just wish Yogg has the balls the send the last message. Whether it be that he screwed everyone or was desperate I just wish we knew. The truth remains to be seen.

Hey kept the private keys while he should have destroyed them, end of story!