[ANN] Whirlwind.money | ⚡No Fee⚡ | Ultimate Privacy | Anonymity Mining 12% APR🔥

[NotATether]

If his contact is not the same person as "main people", it wouldn't make sense for "something" to have happened to all of them at the same time.

Maybe he had all the SSH keys and passwords on him and when he (allegedly) was formally indicted for running tornado cash (??) then everything started to fall apart from that point.

Of course, I do not know whether the whirlwind guy was also the tornado cash guy, but it can't be ruled out yet.

[JollyGood]

That would then raise the question (and conspiracy theories) about what happened to the owner/operator of Whirlwind if he was that upright.

I'm curious if Hhampuz tried emailing his contact again:

I got an email back from whirlwind just now and it was as I suspected - something happened.

Basically, main people lost access due to travels while people still with access didn't have the right credentials to solve basic issues that caused withdraws to get stuck on the back-end. I've been assured that nothing has been lost and that all will be taken care of tomorrow meaning all currently pending withdraws will be processed and things return back to normal. It was an unfortunate situation is all!

I've asked my contact at whirlwind to reply in this thread whenever they can with further details, so from now until then/tomorrow night there is no need to panic even if I wouldn't recommend you to deposit until the backlog is cleared. Campaign participants will also be paid out as per usual tomorrow, regardless of if you've removed your signature or not.

If his contact is not the same person as "main people", it wouldn't make sense for "something" to have happened to all of them at the same time.

I suppose Hhampuz would be the only person to answer the question. Maybe he will post the answer. The problem we face is we just do not know what the facts behind the case are.

Maybe he had all the SSH keys and passwords on him and when he (allegedly) was formally indicted for running tornado cash (??) then everything started to fall apart from that point.

Of course, I do not know whether the whirlwind guy was also the tornado cash guy, but it can't be ruled out yet.

The similarities between the Tornado Cash and Whirlwind websites was shown in an image some pages back therefore the connection cannot be ruled out but there is no evidence to connect them either. This is all very baffling.

[examplens]

Now it is definitive, both whirlwind.money domains, clearnet site and TOR are offline. If nothing else, at least there will be no new victims.
Given that the domain was registered until February 25, 2024, everything indicates that the hosting has not been renewed. It was as if the owners suddenly disappeared.

[hugeblack]

It was as if the owners suddenly disappeared.

Using a domain or forum to confirm this information will not give accurate results. The multi-signature address^[1] is the most important. There is still 13.15851571 BTC$353,780 in that address.

There are several deposits, the last of which is on September 30, 2023 about 9 transactions.


[1] https://mempool.space/address/bc1qf8h5k6sash8007vpesymxkw2xsg5d0r3j4l5vmcrwpz2pqu66fjstzgd3r

[hosseinimr93]

There were several transactions that took place on 08/09/2023, and then several transactions, so I do not think that they suddenly disappeared.

They didn't process any withdrawal after August 9. All transactions made after August 9 are incoming transactions.

Some people made deposit and the deposited funds were moved from users deposit addresses to Whirlwind multi-signature address. Most probably, all those transactions were made automatically.

There are several deposits, the last of which is on September 30, 2023, and they number about 9 transactions.

Those transactions were probably made earlier and got confirmed on September 29 and 30.

[JollyGood]

Though it may remain unanswered, the question arises as to why the 13 BTC is untouched for this length of time. If this was an all-out exit scam things would have been far more obvious but they have not moved any funds. If I had to choose between exit scam or them being unable to access their server, I would come to the conclusion they no longer are able to access their server.

What happened to them going silent is very strange.

Using a domain or forum to confirm this information will not give accurate results. The multi-signature address^[1] is the most important. There is still 13.15851571 BTC$353,780 in that address.

There are several deposits, the last of which is on September 30, 2023 about 9 transactions.


[1] https://mempool.space/address/bc1qf8h5k6sash8007vpesymxkw2xsg5d0r3j4l5vmcrwpz2pqu66fjstzgd3r

[Bitcoin_Arena]

Though it may remain unanswered, the question arises as to why the 13 BTC is untouched for this length of time. If this was an all-out exit scam things would have been far more obvious but they have not moved any funds. If I had to choose between exit scam or them being unable to access their server, I would come to the conclusion they no longer are able to access their server.

Perhaps they are in no rush to spend the Bitcoins, as they have more Bitcoins stacked somewhere? They would most likely get back to spending it once the dust has settled down.
I have seen that kind of behavior before, with scammers and hackers. They are definitely aware that the address is being closely watched.

[LoyceV]

Though it may remain unanswered, the question arises as to why the 13 BTC is untouched for this length of time. If this was an all-out exit scam things would have been far more obvious but they have not moved any funds. If I had to choose between exit scam or them being unable to access their server, I would come to the conclusion they no longer are able to access their server.

Perhaps they are in no rush to spend the Bitcoins, as they have more Bitcoins stacked somewhere? They would most likely get back to spending it once the dust has settled down.
I have seen that kind of behavior before, with scammers and hackers. They are definitely aware that the address is being closely watched.

I don't think so. They're running a mixer, they'll be very capable of hiding their trails. If they intended to pull an exit scam, they'd be very capable of doing so, and they'd make sure the servers stay online.

It was as if the owners suddenly disappeared.

Yep. Something must have happened.
@Hhampuz: can you answer this question?

I'm curious if Hhampuz tried emailing his contact again:

I got an email back from whirlwind just now and it was as I suspected - something happened.

Basically, main people lost access due to travels while people still with access didn't have the right credentials to solve basic issues that caused withdraws to get stuck on the back-end. I've been assured that nothing has been lost and that all will be taken care of tomorrow meaning all currently pending withdraws will be processed and things return back to normal. It was an unfortunate situation is all!

I've asked my contact at whirlwind to reply in this thread whenever they can with further details, so from now until then/tomorrow night there is no need to panic even if I wouldn't recommend you to deposit until the backlog is cleared. Campaign participants will also be paid out as per usual tomorrow, regardless of if you've removed your signature or not.

If his contact is not the same person as "main people", it wouldn't make sense for "something" to have happened to all of them at the same time.

The message to Hhampuz is the only thing that makes me think there could be more to it than "something happened to them".

My guess: they abandoned the project due to the lack of users, but kept it open for deposits. It's an exit scam by the book.

I stand corrected.

[Hhampuz]

This was the email I received after the initial MIA:

Code:

Hi Hhampuz,

I've been traveling during the past week and I didn't have access to any device to solve WW issues or support inquiries and no one else form the team has the credentials, sorry about that. First of all I want to reassure you that no one will lose a single satoshi because of Whirlwind and anyone still having funds on it will get them back, you have my word on that. Tomorrow everything will be taken care of, just so you know the DAI are still in escrow with minerjones.

Furthermore since you already paused the campaign I wanted to discuss a separate matter with you first before making it public on the forum and would like to get your input, maybe another opinion would be helpful in this case.

As you know we've worked a lot on the current product and we are in the process of making some updates. To date sadly we basically had no results and we believe this is mostly because we didn't choose to target the "usual" audiences for this type of platform, and since we are not planning to do that in the future it's become very hard to still believe in the chances of this getting off the ground. At the same time with our technical skills we could build pretty much anything, so we're not sure if it makes much sense to continue on this venture.

In case we do decide to shut down we will keep the platform up for a while and give everyone time to withdraw as long as they still have their private keys, so no worries about that.

What's your opinion on the above and what do you think the communities opinion would be regarding if we should continue or not?

Available to discuss here by mail until tomorrow so waiting for your response if you're online.

Regards

This was my reply to them:

Code:

Heyo, and thank you for the reply!

No worries at all, I figured it was something like this (some others started talking about exit scam but it didn't make much sense to me).

I hear you on the dilemma. I also respect the integrity move of not pursuing bad actors for easy money. And you are likely correct in assuming that if it has not taken off yet it might just be too early for such a product (the blind bearer certificates) - which I think will be very much in play further down the line. If it were me I'd probably pull the plug now, save down what can be saved of the system that is obviously working as intended, and perhaps work on it and finetune it as time goes without going all in on it.

If you bring this up on bitcointalk you will likely hear a mixed bag of opinions, most that want to be in the campaign or currently are will likely try and sway you into continuing as that would secure their "bag" by wearing the Signature while others, from competitive services, may discredit your efforts by saying it is not needed. Then you'll also always have the enthusiasts who generally like the product but for whatever reason are yet to try it out or use it regularly, unfortunate as it may be.

So my honest opinion, shut it down, even if just for some time while you try your hand at something else. You guys working on this are obviously good at what you do as I've seen this being built, expanded and fine-tuned over the last few months and I'm incredibly impressed by it all. Even though it may suck after so much effort, and money, has been put into it it might be just in time. 

Again I appreciate this email, I'll let everyone know in the thread as well that you're alive and well and things will be taken care of in the coming days and then a broader discussion or announcement can be made regarding the future. I can pay everyone for the campaign tomorrow and then just put it on hold indefinitely even if a final decision is yet to be made - let's just stay in touch.

Whenever you have time to pop in on bitcointalk a lot of users would appreciate that too. 

After that I received this last email from them:

Code:

If all we wanted to 'exit scam' we could've done it for magnitues of times more than the current state with way less effort. In fact if you count the minerjones escrow I am not even sure there is any 'damage' because truth is there are just not many deposits happening.

If the bitcoin protocol supported some extra OPcodes we could've made Whirlwind decentralized from the beginning and that would've been way easier for everyone, but sadly it doesn't so here we are trying to do this in a centralized manner and it's pretty clear that it's hard to make it work. The only possible 2 ways to do it currently are 1: create a federation (basically x trusted parties) to co-sign, but this is definitely not realistic
2. create a separate blockchain and a coin for it and run the validation that way. this is certainly possible and it's the best way but I'm not sure how keen bitcoiners would be to participate in this because they would probably see it as any other shitcoin

Also another fact is that no matter how much we believe in the fact that we are not doing anything illegal by providing this service, we live in a crazy world and under some circumstances there is always the risk that this can go very badly. Very small, sure, but it's still there and will always be if we grow decently large.

Also I'm not sure I understood correctly, you're saying to pull the plug on the campaign and keep the service running, or close it down altogether?

I will go on bitcointalk as soon as I get to my destination.

[LoyceV]

This was the email I received after the initial MIA

Thanks.

WWM has a good point here:

Code:

If all we wanted to 'exit scam' we could've done it for magnitues of times more than the current state with way less effort.

I have indeed seen much larger scams with much less effort.

So far, I haven't seen anyone who lost money over this, although it's likely some of the deposits were made by people who didn't know about the escrowed funds.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Something must have happened since then. They would have reached the forum as soon as they reached their destination. If this email conversation happened in August, then probably something bad must have happened to them.

[examplens]

Something must have happened since then. They would have reached the forum as soon as they reached their destination. If this email conversation happened in August, then probably something bad must have happened to them.

Or they just had enough time to think about whether it is worth continuing with this business. Anyway, it was decided to give up. At least that's how this correspondence that Hhampuz published seems to me.
If there really was a team (more than two people) behind everything, it was to be expected that at least one of them would announce that they were going out of business. If the forum is not considered a mandatory channel of communication, a banner on the website would be suitable.

[BlackHatCoiner]

If the forum is not considered a mandatory channel of communication, a banner on the website would be suitable.

That's why I think something bad must have happened. It would be trivial, accurate and subtle to let us know.

[FatFork]

I'm still not sure what to make of this. It seems like they wanted to hit the brakes and revamp the whole thing due to a lack of interest from the community. But then, why did they keep the site running even though withdrawals weren't working?

Since it seems like it was a one-person operation, it's still possible that something happened after this exchange with Hhampuz. He mentioned that he had been traveling a lot and hadn't reached his 'destination' yet.

[Synchronice]

It was as if the owners suddenly disappeared.

Using a domain or forum to confirm this information will not give accurate results. The multi-signature address^[1] is the most important. There is still 13.15851571 BTC$353,780 in that address.

There are several deposits, the last of which is on September 30, 2023 about 9 transactions.


[1] https://mempool.space/address/bc1qf8h5k6sash8007vpesymxkw2xsg5d0r3j4l5vmcrwpz2pqu66fjstzgd3r

Maybe they know that there is a halving next summer and they probably believe that bitcoin's price will increase after halving, so, they prefer to HODL? I am just joking but since they have access on that wallet, why should they be in a hurry to transfer coins? Price is not at its highest, also, if they transfer coins right now, they will attract a lot of unwanted attention but if they let it die and transfer coins year(s) later, it won't become a hot topic but if they do it today, it will become.

@Hhampuz
So, as he says, even such a massive signature campaign with top users didn't bring them customers? If that is true, then how do other mixers like Sinbad, YoMix, Mixtum and Coinomize are able to pay thousands of dollars weekly for months and months? Can you confirm that sig campaign didn't work for them? I wonder, how do you track results.
Btw there are other companies like BestChange, crypto.games, Roobet, Rollbit, Freebitco and others that run signature campaign for years and still continue to keep it active.

Something must have happened since then. They would have reached the forum as soon as they reached their destination. If this email conversation happened in August, then probably something bad must have happened to them.

I had to travel and there was no one with authority to do things, doesn't really make sense. Also, when you run such a business, you have to be sure that either things run very smoothly or you have a trusted person who will take care of things instead of you or you don't travel and stay where you are!

I believe it was a scam exit. When someone wants to shut down service, they put a warning on their website and whirlwind hasn't done that.

[Hhampuz]

@Synchronice,

Other mixers may be very willing to work with "bad money" and not think twice or have connection to states like NK (even if unconfirmed). So that's why and how they succeed. Judging by the number of refunds we issued with the help of minerjones it was basically only the signature participants who had funds on whirlwind.

Casinos are easier, they just need to be seen and players will eventually come. I'm not even sure that the pool of users on bitcointalk who are in need of or actively use mixers is particularly high.

[Orpichukwu]

I'm not even sure that the pool of users on bitcointalk who are in need of or actively use mixers is particularly high.

I was also wondering the same thing, which I believe many projects are aware of, and they are still getting their audience from the forum or aside from the forum in one way or another.

I believe there are people who visit this forum just to get information; they might not have a real account in here or actively participate in discussion, but deep down they still come in here to get information that will be helpful to them, and I believe most of these mixers users got their link from here.

[cryptosize]

12% APR felt like a huge red flag from the get-go.

Told ya...

[Hhampuz]

12% APR felt like a huge red flag from the get-go.

Told ya...

Did you post from the wrong account? You've made no mention in your post history about this.. Or is this another one of those "Hey guys you know way back when I knew something was up and how it would all turn out but I just kept my mouth shut because.. yeah you know."

These hindsight harolds are so incredibly tiresome.

[cryptosize]

12% APR felt like a huge red flag from the get-go.

Told ya...

Did you post from the wrong account? You've made no mention in your post history about this.. Or is this another one of those "Hey guys you know way back when I knew something was up and how it would all turn out but I just kept my mouth shut because.. yeah you know."

These hindsight harolds are so incredibly tiresome.

No need to get offended, unless we have talked before.

Someone had told me via PM that 12% sounds enticing and I told him it sounds too good to be true and be cautious (not your keys, not your coins). Do you want to see the PM to be convinced?

Bitcoin doesn't have a central bank to promise guaranteed returns (like FED does with 5% bonds). So whenever someone promises you high yield returns with BTC, you have to wonder if you're the yield.